So I must confess something here: I've had my suspicions on who penned the tie-in to the hit series LOST for quite a while now. It began when I got a tip as to who was agenting the project and decided to follow my usual rule on identifying pseudonymous authors: always start with the agent's client list. A quick search on Publishers Marketplace pinpointed the likely suspects down to a grand total of one, and another search through Amazon.com confirmed - at least for me - the possibility that crime writer and most recently, non-fiction author Laurence Shames had likely written this book (inquiries to the agents in question, the Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency, were unanswered at that time.)

What did it specifically was comparing the writeups for Shames' most recently published novel under his own name (2000's THE NAKED DETECTIVE) and for BAD TWIN. The former book features a PI named Peter Amsterdam. BAD TWIN' protagonist? Paul Artisan. Sure, the location was changed from Key West (closer to Shames' original crime writing stomping grounds and his current home) to New York, but Amsterdam had moved to Key West "as a tax dodge" while Artisan's PI work was described as usually being "of the boring malpractice and fraud variety." A rough comparison of the text, while not exactly confirmatory, pretty much cemented the deal - but not enough to go ahead and write the story at the time.

But now, Variety has, and Steven Zeitchik confirms what I suspected: Shames is the guy, and things were rather complicated on the tie-in front. For one thing, Insiders say writers on LOST were asked to provide a list of elements that Shames could incorporate into the novel. But the author had his own vision and wound up including only a few of the elements. Also frustrating was the use of copyrighted material, which the show had to shy away from because of clearance issues.

What Zeitchik glosses over is what impact Shames' outing could have. Likely none, but considering the book did reasonably well, hitting the low end of the NYT bestseller list, it might prompt interested folk to seek out Shames' work. It might also prompt some people to wonder if BAD TWIN started life as the second in the Pete Amsterdam series - one that got cancelled after that lone book...