Robert Mrazek talks about 'The Harvard Murders,' becoming a publisher, more

Robert J. Mrazek is a master at reinventing himself. He was a Suffolk County legislator in the late 1970s, represented New York's 3rd Congressional District on Long Island for 10 years, and since retiring from politics in 1993 has written both nonfiction books and novels. Now Mrazek can add publisher to his résumé.

In February, he launched Compass Rose Publishing, a company he founded along with Steve Israel, the longtime congressman who now owns Theodore's Books in Oyster Bay, and former American Booksellers Association CEO Oren Teicher. Serving as a hybrid publisher, the mission of Compass Rose is to partner with independent bookstores to acquire, publish and market books.

The plan is to release one book a month, starting with Mrazek's 1930s-set novel, "The Harvard Murders," which came out in February and features a pre-White House John F. Kennedy. This month's release, Jason C. Anthony's "The Roast Penguin Chronicles," looks at expeditions to Antarctica from a cook's point of view.

Mrazek recently chatted by Zoom from his home in Maine about his new business venture, "The Harvard Murders" and more.

How did the idea for Compass Rose come about?

I was always an indie bookstore person. When I would travel, a bookstore would be a place I would enjoy going to. I was talking to Steve Israel one day and it was in relation to Theodore’s Books. I said, "Steve, how many customers do you have on your email list?" He said, "I don’t know, about 5,000." That's when the lightbulb went off in my head. And I said, "Why couldn’t there be a collective economic muscle, if you will, by combining the customer bases of the bookstores." He then introduced me to Oren Teicher. and he liked the idea, and that’s how we began to develop it together. A model of publishing that would be in full support of the indie bookstores. Oren came up with a number of different approaches to have a set of two-way communication. We have a bookstore advisory board with 13 bookstore owners on it from all over the country. ... We recruited 253 bookstores to join us in a partnership.

Your book, "The Harvard Murders," is the first release from Compass Rose. How was that decision made?

I sat down with our editorial team and I said which book of these first four that we were looking to publish would have the broadest appeal within the target audience of these bookstores. And we agreed — and I didn’t push it — that a historical thriller with JFK as a principal character had the potential to appeal to readers of historical fiction and thrillers.

How did the story evolve?

The first time I ran for Congress in 1982, it was against an incumbent Republican and I was not expected to do well. I needed to raise money because I wasn’t getting any from Washington. A man was recommended to me who had just retired. He was the principal fundraiser for the United Negro College Fund and his name was Jim Rousmaniere. He lived right next to Sagamore Hill. ... I went to see him, and he was charismatic, a great athlete at Harvard, and amazingly to me, he agreed to become my finance chair. ... I learned he had been JFK’s roommate in his sophomore year. During COVID, I was getting rid of stuff, and I found this batch of letters from Jim and it reminded me of the stories that he told. He was close to Jack. And I thought what if I put them together in a murder mystery. And it just came together.

How long did it take to write?

First I had to get the permission of the Rousmaniere family. Jim had seven sons and one daughter. ... They loved the idea. However, his son Joe, who grew up on the North Shore and went to school with [journalist and author] Evan Thomas, said, "I want to ask Evan about this. I trust his judgment." And he spoke to Evan Thomas and Evan said he thought it was a brilliant idea. I probably finished it in a little less than a year.

How long do you expect before Compass Rose can turn a profit?

If we can average sales of 4,000 copies per month, we will turn a profit at the end of 2025. There are no guarantees. We’ve learned that they’re not called independent bookstores for nothing. They’re independent minded, there are myriad personalities with all of their own preferences and quirks. Our hope was that they would promote each book to their customers.

And I'm sure there will be online sales as well?

Ingram [Content Group] is our distributor and printer. They’re the biggest in the country. We said to them early on that we’d like this to only go to the independent bookstores. We asked can you only ship to the customers we are going to be working with? And they said, no, we have an all or nothing policy. You don’t have to focus on it, but if Amazon asks for books, they’re going to get books. Our model doesn’t call for boycotting Amazon; we’re focused on the independent bookstores.