FINLAY MACDONALD STEPS DOWN AS BOOKS EDITOR AT SUNDAY STAR TIMES

When I was a away a week or so back I missed the foillowing e-mail message from Finlay Macdonald:

Dear reviewer,
My apologies for this mass email, hope you'll forgive me. And even if you can't, it's too late.
I'm leaving this job, effective pretty much immediately. Not to spend more time with my family, although that may be one consequence, but because other work demands I make a choice. Yes, "mad person quits job in recession" is a headline I've toyed with ... I'll keep the column, in case you were wondering.

Mark Broatch is taking over the books pages. He's assistant editor here already, and a semi-regular contributor to the books pages himself, so you should be in good hands. I've given him a list of your names and strengths/preferences.

Let me thank every one of you for the great reviews and easy working relationship over the past three years (!). The pages made the finals of the Montana Awards each of the two years we've been entered and that's largely due to the quality of the contributions.

Oh, and my editorial genius of course ..., but let me also express my gratitude for your perseverance and patience. It's been a pleasure. Mostly.
I wish you all the best.
Adios!
FM

To which The Bookman responds:

Thank you Finlay and I must say I am not at all surprised. It is beyond me how you ever found time to attend to the SST book reviews along with all your other commitments in and around books as well as writing columns, appearing in television prgrammes etc.

I enjoyed working with you and appreciated the steady flow of crime fiction for review. All best scribe and I hope our paths will continue to cross from time to time. And I also hope that you do get more time to spend with the family. Yakki da.

Oh, and welcome to Mark Broatch.