The Incredible Case of Pegasus Books, Scarlet, and the Disapparing Male Authors

In January, Pegasus Books announced that it had paired with Otto Penzler (founder of The Mysterious Press) to launch a new suspense imprint, Scarlet, that specialized in “psychological suspense aimed at female readers.” There was a market for it, added Pegasus publisher Claiborne Hancock: “Psychological suspense that features complex women is one of the most dynamic categories in popular fiction right now, so the time is right for an imprint dedicated to this genre.”

To be fair, at no point did the label announce it would sign women authors to write books about complex women characters. However, one would assume that editors looking for books about complex women characters would inevitably query, select, and publish women authors.

Then things got weird.

It all started with some vague rumblings on what we’ll call Mystery Writer Twitter. Unlike Film Twitter, or Marvel Twitter, or Kardashian Twitter, Mystery Writer Twitter is not a fevered mass of millions; indeed, it’s mostly a bunch of hermits who spend all day trying to think up ingenious ways to kill people in print. These hermits, in turn, spend most of their Twitter time hermetically sealed into a couple of ongoing conversations about the best James M. Cain novel or whether “Drive” actually, in fact, sucks…