Year: 2024

If you’ve read the blog for very long, watched The Poisoned Pen’s interviews on YouTube or Facebook, or went to the bookstore, you know Patrick Millikin. Patrick just did a podcast, an episode of “Watch with Jen”, and talked about one of his favorite noir novels, Nightmare Alley, as well as the two films made from it. Here’s the link so you can listen.

Watch With Jen – S5: E12 – NIGHTMARE ALLEY with Patrick Millikin | Patreon

https://www.patreon.com/posts/105577230?utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_source=android.

As a Phoenix-based cinephile & bibliophile, it was a joy & honor to bring on another local film & literature lover in the form of my brilliant friend Patrick Millikin of Scottsdale’s world-famous Poisoned Pen Bookstore. Deciding to give listeners an in-depth exploration of a classic noir novel & its adaptations, in this rich, fascinating, & admittedly spoiler-filled conversation, we dive into author William Lindsay Gresham’s dark masterpiece NIGHTMARE ALLEY & the 1947 & 2021 film adaptations from directors Edmund Goulding & Guillermo del Toro that followed. I’m incredibly proud of this episode, which gives listeners the experience of a great night of thoughtful discussion at Poisoned Pen from wherever they push play around the world. Enjoy!

Bio: Patrick Millikin is a bookseller at The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale and a freelance writer and editor. He is the editor of the anthology Phoenix Noir and The Highway Kind: Tales of Fast Cars, Desperate Drivers and Dark Roads, and his work has appeared in Publishers Weekly, Los Angeles Review of Books, and other publications. A longtime devotee of noir fiction, Millikin leads a popular book group called The Hardboiled Discussion Group (now in its twenty-fourth year).

Referenced & Related:

The Poisoned Pen Bookstore Website

The Poisoned Pen YouTube Channel, Twitter, & Instagram

NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947) – “The Fool Who Walks in Motley” – Criterion Collection essay by Kim Morgan

Listen to the Watch With Jen™ Podcast on RSS, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, Apple, Pandora, and More

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Meg Gardiner to the bookstore on release day for Shadow Heart. You can order signed copies of this serial killer book through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3VZ6Adz.

Here’s the description of Shadow Heart.

What happens when two serial killers begin to compete with each other?

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Meg Gardiner comes a new high-octane thriller in the acclaimed UNSUB series.

FBI Special Agent Caitlin Hendrix faces a case from nightmares.

In a Tennessee prison, Efrem Judah Goode draws haunting portraits of women he claims he has killed. Around the country, desperate families of the missing seek answers in his eerie drawings. And on darkened back roads and New York City streets, a new killer poses duct-taped bodies at the sites of Goode’s murders.

Two serial killers are locked in a twisted rivalry. To stop the brutal slayings, FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix must unravel the connection between Goode and the Broken Heart Killer. Their warped competition destroys anyone in their path. Caught between a manipulative psychopath and a ruthless UNSUB, Caitlin has to dive into not one, but two dark and twisted minds. She will risk everything, plunging into the depths of their depraved clash to hunt down an unstoppable killer.

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Meg Gardiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of sixteen novels. Her thrillers have won the Edgar Award and been summer reading picks by the Today show and O, the Oprah Magazine. In August 2022 her latest novel, Heat 2, coauthored with Michael Mann, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. A former lawyer and three-time Jeopardy! champion, Gardiner lives in Austin, Texas.

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Enjoy the conversation with Meg Gardiner.

Patrick Millikin from The Poisoned Pen welcomed Walter Mosley back to the bookstore. Mosley read to the audience from his new Easy Rawlins book, Farewell, Amethystine, and talked about his book. You can order a copy of the book through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3VmCG1a.

Here’s the description of Farewell, Amethystine.

From “master of the genre” (Washington Post) Walter Mosley, Detective Easy Rawlins’ latest client sends him down a warren of memory and nostalgia—blinding him to reason and risk.

January 1970 finds Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, LA’s premier Black detective, at 50 years of age despite all expectations.  He has a loving family, a beautiful home, and a thriving investigation agency.  All is right with the world… and then Amethystine Stoller, his own personal Helen of Troy, arrives. Her ex-husband is missing. A simple enough case. But even as Easy takes his first step in the investigation he trips.  He falls into the memory of things past. Little things, like loss, love, a world war, and a hunger that has eaten at him since he was a Black boy on his own on the streets of Fifth Ward, Houston, Texas.

The missing ex, a young white man named Curt Fields, is found dead. Easy’s only real friend in the LAPD, Melvin Suggs, has gone into hiding rather than allow his femme fatale wife to go to the gas chamber.  And that’s only the beginning.

Easy finds himself pressed into a reckoning. All of his success cannot succor his heart. The 1970’s have ushered in new expectations of men and women, Black and White, and Easy has to make a choice that will almost certainly hasten a permanent descent, one that might sunder his soul.

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WALTER MOSLEY is one of America’s most celebrated writers. He was given the 2020 National Book Award’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and honored with the Anisfield-Wolf Award, a Grammy, a PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award, the Robert Kirsch Award, numerous Edgars and several NAACP Image Awards. His work is translated into 25 languages.  He has published fiction and nonfiction in The New Yorker, Playboy, and The Nation. As an executive producer, he adapted his novel, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, for AppleTV+ and serves as a writer and executive producer for FX’s “Snowfall.”

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Enjoy Walter Mosley’s appearance at The Poisoned Pen.

John Charles from The Poisoned Pen always likes to ask authors who they are outside of being a writer. Copenhaver says teaching is an important part of who he is. He’s the author of Hall of Mirrors, and there are signed copies of it available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/45twlWk.

Here’s the summary of Hall of Mirrors.

When a popular mystery novelist dies suspiciously, his writing partner must untangle the author’s connection to a serial killer in award-winning John Copenhaver’s new novel set in 1950s McCarthy-era Washington, DC.

In May 1954, Lionel Kane witnesses his apartment engulfed in flames with his lover and writing partner, Roger Raymond, inside. Police declare it a suicide due to gas ignition, but Lionel refuses to believe Roger was suicidal.

A month earlier, Judy Nightingale and Philippa Watson—the tenacious and troubled heroines from The Savage Kind—attend a lecture by Roger and, being eager fans, befriend him. He has just been fired from his day job at the State Department, another victim of the Lavender Scare, an anti-gay crusade led by figures like Senator Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover, claiming homosexuals are security risks. Little do Judy and Philippa know, but their obsessive manhunt of the past several years has fueled the flames of his dismissal.

They have been tracking their old enemy Adrian Bogdan, a spy and vicious serial killer protected by powerful forces in the government. He’s on the rampage again, and the police are ignoring his crimes. Frustrated, they send their research to the media and their favorite mystery writer anonymously, hoping to inspire someone, somehow, to publish on the crimes—anything to draw Bogdan out. But has their persistence brought deadly forces to the writing team behind their most beloved books?

In the wake of Roger’s death, Lionel searches for clues, but Judy and Philippa threaten his quest, concealing dark secrets of their own. As the crimes of the past and present converge, danger mounts, and the characters race to uncover the truth, even if it means bending their moral boundaries to stop a killer.

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John Copenhaver won the 2019 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery for Dodging and Burning and the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Best Mystery for The Savage Kind. He is a co-founder of Queer Crime Writers and an at-large board member of Mystery Writers of America. He cohosts on the House of Mystery Radio Show. He’s a faculty mentor in the University of Nebraska’s Low-Residency MFA program and teaches at VCU in Richmond, VA.

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Enjoy the conversation with John Copenhaver.

John Charles welcomed debut author Jenny Erlingsson for a virtual event for The Poisoned Pen. Erlingsson discussed her background and her first novel, Her Part to Play. You can order a copy of the book through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3xs5M7d.

Here’s the summary of Her Part to Play.

Desperate for extra income after her mother’s passing, Adanne accepts a last-minute job as a makeup artist for a movie filming in her small Alabama hometown. She’s working to save her parents’ legacy and help her brother, but the money hardly seems worth having to face the actor who got her fired from her last job in Hollywood.
 
John Pope has made his share of mistakes over the years. But after turning his life over to God and enduring a messy breakup, he’s ready to start rebuilding his career. Imagine his surprise when the woman called in to cover for his usual makeup artist is a quiet but feisty newcomer on the set–and definitely not a fan.
 
Sparks of tension–and could that be attraction?–fly between them, but Adanne hates the spotlight, and John’s scheming manager has bigger plans for him than to end up with the humble makeup girl from the small-town South. Can these star-crossed lovers find their way to happiness? Or will the bright lights of Hollywood blind their eyes to what’s right in front of them?
 
Debut author Jenny Erlingsson’s diverse cast comes alive with faith, romance, and a touch of humor to create a story worthy of the big screen.

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Jenny Erlingsson is an author and speaker of Nigerian descent. After 12 years working in junior high and women’s ministry, she moved with her family from Alabama to Iceland. When she’s not running after her four kids or ministering alongside her husband, she can be found writing romantic fiction and creative nonfiction to inspire deep faith in diverse settings, as well as encouraging other writers. Her other writings have been featured on (in)courage, Live Original, Velvet Ashes, and more. And in the margins, you might find her reading five books at a time with a side of Icelandic chocolate. Learn more at JennyErlingsson.com.

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Enjoy Jenny Erlingsson’s discussion of her background and first novel.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Steve Berry and Grant Underwood for a virtual event. Their new book, Red Star Falling, is the current Hot Book of the Week at the bookstore. You can order signed copies through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3Rt0dfR.

Here’s the description of Red Star Falling.

From New York Times bestselling authors Steve Berry and Grant Blackwood comes an action-packed adventure: in the waning days of the Cold War, Luke Daniels embarks on a quest in search of the legendary library of Ivan the Terrible—the unlikely key to ending a looming threat orbiting two hundred miles above the earth. 

Wrapping up his latest assignment for the Magellan Billet, Luke Daniels receives a surprise visit from the head of a former-CIA operation named Sommerhaus — a failed attempt to assemble an espionage network within the Ukraine on the eve of the Russian invasion.  Sommerhaus ranks high on Luke’s list of painful regrets for it was during this mission that his friend, CIA case officer John Vince, was captured by Russian operatives and supposedly executed.  But Luke is provided some shocking news.  Vince is alive, in failing health, locked behind the walls of Russia’s brutal Solovetsky Island prison, and has a critical message he’ll give to no one but Luke.  Needing no further convincing Luke vows to bring Vince home.  

However, just as he manages to extract his friend from prison Vince tragically dies and his final words are rambling and incoherent.  Just bits and pieces.  But enough to plunge Luke into a hunt for something lost since the 15th century.  The legendary library of the first Tsar of All Russia, Ivan the Terrible.  

Within that priceless collection of rare manuscripts is the key to unraveling a modern-day cipher and stopping a secret Soviet satellite program that still exists.  But Luke is not the only one on the trail.  Others, both inside and out of Russia, want the library for a totally different reason — to re-start the Red Star program and finally unleash its destructive potential.  Luke’s mission is clear.  Find the lost library, solve the puzzle, and prevent Red Star falling.

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Steve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of eighteen Cotton Malone novels, five stand-alone thrillers, and several works of short fiction. He has more than twenty-six million books in print, translated into forty-one languages. With his wife, Elizabeth, he is the founder of History Matters, an organization dedicated to historical preservation. He serves as an emeritus member of the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board and was a founding member of International Thriller Writers, formerly serving as its co?president.
 
Grant Blackwood is the New York Times bestselling author of the Briggs Tanner series, (The End of Enemies, The Wall of Night, and An Echo of War); the co-author of the Fargo Adventure Series (Spartan Gold, Lost Empire, and The Kingdom) with Clive Cussler; co-author of The Kill Switch with James Rollins; and co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, Dead or Alive, with Tom Clancy.  A U. S. Navy veteran, Grant spent three years aboard a guided missile frigate as an Operations Specialist and a Pilot Rescue Swimmer. Grant lives in Colorado, where he is working on his own standalone series starring a new hero.

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Enjoy the conversation with Steve Berry and Grant Blackwood.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, and Patrick Millikin welcomed Rob Hart to the bookstore. Hart is the author of Assassins Anonymous, so they started by talking about crime novels that centered around the bad guys – thieves, hit men, robbers. Enjoy the discussion, and then you can order a signed copy of Hart’s Assassins Anonymous in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4ejDRad.

Here’s the summary of Assassins Anonymous.

“The best kind of thriller. . . . Suspenseful, sentimental, and ultimately redemptive, Assassins Anonymous is a can’t-miss novel.” — S. A. Cosby,  author of All the Sinners Bleed

In this clever, surprising, page-turner, the world’s most lethal assassin gives up the violent life only to find himself under siege by mysterious assailants. It’s a kill-or-be-killed situation, but the first option is off the table. What’s a reformed hit man to do?

Mark was the most dangerous killer-for-hire in the world. But after learning the hard way that his life’s work made him more monster than man, he left all of that behind, and joined a twelve-step group for reformed killers.

When Mark is viciously attacked by an unknown assailant, he is forced on the run. From New York to Singapore to London, he chases after clues while dodging attacks and trying to solve the puzzle of who’s after him. All without killing anyone. Or getting killed himself. For an assassin, Mark learns, nonviolence is a real hassle.

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Rob Hart is the author of The Paradox Hotel, The Warehouse, and the Ash McKenna crime series, and the co-author of Scott Free with James Patterson. He’s worked as a book publisher, a reporter, a political communications director, and a commissioner for the city of New York. Hart lives on Staten Island.

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Enjoy the discussion with Rob Hart.

Randy Wayne White recently appeared at The Poisoned Pen to talk about his latest Doc Ford novel, One Deadly Eye. White complimented Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, calling her “The First Lady of Independent Bookstores”. Then, he proceeded to talk about the reasons he and his wife stayed on Sanibel Island during the hurricane of 2022. He showed slides of the island, and talked about hurricanes, saying the most recent hurricane was the inspiration for his latest book, One Deadly Eye. You can order signed copies of the book through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3KFIePt.

Here’s the description of One Deadly Eye.

From New York Times bestselling author Randy Wayne White, after the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast in a century, Doc Ford must stop a gang of thieves—and worse—during the twelve hours of chaos that follow the passing of a storm’s eye.

A Russian diplomat disappears while Doc is tagging great white sharks in South Africa, and members of a criminal brotherhood, Bratva, don’t think it’s a coincidence. They track the biologist to Dinkin’s Bay Marina on the west coast of Florida, where Brotherhood mercenaries have already deployed, prepared to pillage and kill in the wake of an approaching hurricane.

No one, however, is prepared for a cataclysmic event that will forever change the island and leaves Doc to deal with escapees from Russia’s most dangerous prison, including a serial killer—the Vulture Monk—who has a taste for blood. His only ally is an enigmatic British inventor whose decision to ride out the storm might have more to do with revenge than protecting a priceless art collection.

Doc has a lot at stake—the lives of his fiancée, Hannah Smith, and their son, plus the fate of his hipster pal, Tomlinson, whose sailboat has disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico. The greatest threat of all, though, is a force that cannot be escaped—a Category Five hurricane that, minute by minute, melds sins of the past with Florida’s precarious future.

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Randy Wayne White is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Doc Ford series. In 2011, White was named a Florida Literary Legend by the Florida Heritage Society. A fishing and nature enthusiast, he has also written extensively for National Geographic Adventure, Men’s Journal, Playboy and Men’s Health. He lives on Sanibel Island, Florida, where he was a light-tackle fishing guide for many years, and spends much of his free time windsurfing, playing baseball and hanging out at Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grille. Sharks Incorporated is his middle grade series, including Fins and Stingers.

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Enjoy the discussion, and a few of the slides.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Alex Finlay to the bookstore. They’ve talked for a virtual event, but this was Finlay’s first actual appearance at the bookstore. The conversation didn’t dwell on his new book, If Something Happens to Me because they didn’t want spoilers. There are signed copies of the book in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4b6siQN.

Here’s the description of If Something Happens to Me.

From “one of the genre’s most exciting voices” (E! News) comes one of the year’s most-anticipated thrillers.

For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali’s piercing scream as she is taken.

With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He’s put his past behind him.

Until, on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali’s car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me…

Then, halfway around the world, the unthinkable happens: Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night.

As Ryan races from the rolling hills of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the glittering streets of Paris in search of the truth, he has no idea that his salvation may lie with a young sheriff’s deputy in Kansas working her first case, and a mobster in Philadelphia who’s experienced tragedy of his own.

In classic Alex Finlay form, If Something Happens to Me is told by several distinct, compelling characters whose paths intersect, detonating into a story of twist after pulse-pounding twist. The novel cements Finlay as one of the leading thriller writers today.

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ALEX FINLAY is the author of several critically acclaimed novels, including the 2021 breakout Every Last Fear and the 2022 Goodreads Choice Nominee for Best Mystery & Thriller The Night Shift. His work regularly appears on best-of-the-year lists and has been translated into twenty-two languages, and all of his novels have been optioned for film or television. Every Last Fear is in development for a major limited series. Alex lives in Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

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Enjoy the conversation with Alex Finlay.