As long as we're on the subject of stories that Stephen King likes, let's pause to consider the effect of last week's endorsement of Meg Gardiner in his Entertainment Weekly column. After reading an edition of Gardiner's first thriller, China Lake, supplied by his British publisher, King was "convinced I had found the next suspense superstar"...and amazed to discover that she didn't have an American publisher for any of her five novels. So he told his readers to order the British editions online. "If you can reach Amazon," he advised, "you can get your very own Meg Gardiner novel and see for yourself." But that wasn't the only vendor to whom readers turned, and soon China Lake was the #1 title at AbeBooks.

"The attention's very welcome, because it means all my books are selling," Gardiner said when I shot her an email. "To watch the entire list hit Amazon Canada's crime bestseller list was amazing... Hopefully, I'll find a way to repay Stephen King for such generous support." But what I really wanted to know was whether or not the surge had finally brought American publishers flocking? "Yes, and fingers crossed," she quipped, "because my husband wants to quit his job to be my boy toy. And he's high maintenance." (Over at Publishers Lunch, Michael Cader gets word from Gardiner's agent that ten publishers are duking it out.)