"I'm delighted to see people with all ten fingers here," half-joked author Jake Adelstein, whose book, just out from Pantheon, had lured non-violent publishing folk to the cozy bookstore.
And when is it OK for would-be film journalists to publish violent revenge fantasies?
Based on violent crime data published by the FBI's 2013 Uniform Crime Report, these are America's most dangerous cities.
Three years ago, there was an attempt to prosecute a civil servant under the Obscene Publications Act for publishing a violent sexual fantasy online about Girls Aloud.
But sunk as I was into the writing process of my next book, I was only vaguely aware of the violent tremors rocking the publishing world.
My first witness for the prosecution is The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar, published last year and out in paperback now.
"The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught," a violent 1774 engraving first published in London Magazine after the Boston Tea Party, portrays a native woman, stripped to the waist, being pinned to the ground by wigged Britons.
But breaking new ground again, KCNA state news agency published a violent and personal attack on Mr Chang, accusing him of forming factions against the state and of abuse of power, drug-taking and womanising.
A Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) report published earlier this year estimated that 85% of protective orders are entered against men.
Kenya's Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission set up in 2008 after the violent elections has still not published its findings.
In the F.B.I. report, published on May 30, violent crime was said to have increased by 0.1percentt in 2000 compared with 1999.
