I received the Spring-Summer 2008 catalog from Harcourt today, incidentally enough whose sale to Houghton was just approved by the Justice Department. As I’m flipping through, I notice a two page spread for a book called The Calling by Inger Wolfe. It’s a mystery featuring a female detective close to retirement trying to solve a gruesome series of murders. This is a sample:

There were thirteen crime-scene pictures. Dead faces set in grimaces and shouts. Faces howling, whistling, moaning, crying, hissing. Hazel pinned them to the wall and stood back. It was a silent opera of ghosts.

What’s fascinating is the author’s bio. Inger Wolfe is the pseudonym for a prominent North American literary novelist. Who could it be? Is this some sort of Benjamin Black/John Banville split personality thing? Or just hype?