Hmmmm ... The Mysterious Affair Of The Turned-Down Turndown, You Say?

We're blaming John 'Sweary Mary' Connolly (right) - according to Books Reading Ideas, the Ritz Carlton chain had the bright idea of offering a paperback of short stories, Turndown Tales, as part of its 'turndown' service, with Connolly, Jodie Picoult and Susan Isaacs among the contributors.

"Then came the problem," says the New York Times: "the book’s contents turned out to be a tad rougher than, say, the Gideon Bible, and at the last minute, the Ritz started getting cold feet. 'They submitted the manuscript and we rejected it,' said Julia Gajcak, vice president for marketing and communications of Ritz-Carlton. 'There were some language issues, and there was some racy content.' By racy content they meant bad parenting, deaths of family members and swearing, which were a bit too abundant for the hotel's taste."

The collection, suitably purged of 'racy' material, will be available in Ritz Carlton rooms this summer. We'd love to include John Connolly's f#%king racy response to the censorship, but unfortunately this is a family blog ...