While the rest of the book world wonders when the Federal Trade Commission is going to step in to stop the insane book-price war going on between Walmart.com, Target.com and Amazon.com — which has obviously gotten to a point of anticompetitve illegality that’s hurting the consumer and several indutries at once — another major American retailer, and one of the most historic of them all, has joined the massacre.

Sears Holdings — which operates both Sears and Kmart – “is becoming the latest retailer to throw itself in the heated price war,” reports an Associated Press wire story. “But the merchant’s promotion has a twist.” The company isn’t discounting its books as drastically as the others (Sears sells Dean Koontz’s Breathless for $17.98, for example). Instead, it will give customers who buy one of the $9/$8.99/$8.98 bestsellers from Sears, Walmart, or Amazon an online credit equal to the purchase. That credit can then be used toward a purchase of $45 or more at Sears.com.

In other words, if you buy one $9 bestseller at Amazon, you won’t be able to turn it into a credit that will get you another single bestseller at Sears.com … unless they up the price of their books to $45.