‘The Year We Disappeared’ to Appear on National TV

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By Judith Rosen -- Publishers Weekly, 2/12/2009

In their young adult memoir, The Year We Disappeared (Bloomsbury, Aug. 2008), Cylin Busby and her father, John Busby, describe in alternating chapters the chain of events that occurred 30 years ago when John, then a police officer in Falmouth, Mass., was shot in the face, and he and his family were forced into hiding. Since its publication in August, the book has revived interest in the case, for which no arrests were ever made, and has gone back to press for a total of 30,000 copies in print.

This Saturday, February 14, at 10 p.m., CBS News’s 48 Hours will air its own investigation of the case. Much of the footage comes from last August, when father and daughter re-visited Cape Cod for the first time since the shooting. Look for scenes from their signing at Eight Cousins, where The Year We Disappeared went on to become a 2008 bestseller.

To take advantage of the renewed excitement about the Busbys, Bloomsbury recently released a book trailer, which is posted on YouTube. Between the middle of January and the airing of 48 Hours, publicity director Deb Shapiro anticipates thatmore than 2,000 online bookstores and other consumer book-related Web sites, as well as 11,000 public library system sites, will host the trailer.