Julia & Julia, in Conversation

Julia Dahl’s latest novel is The Missing Hours. Award-winning author Julia Spencer-Fleming hosted the virtual event on behalf of The Poisoned Pen. You can order signed copies through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3lOs4pR

Here’s the description of The Missing Hours.

From the critically acclaimed author of Invisible City and ConvictionThe Missing Hours is a novel about obsession, privilege, and the explosive consequences of one violent act.

From a distance, Claudia Castro has it all: a famous family, a trust fund, thousands of Instagram followers, and a spot in NYU’s freshman class. But look closer, and things are messier: her parents are separating, she’s just been humiliated by a sleazy documentary, and her sister is about to have a baby with a man she barely knows.

Claudia starts the school year resolved to find a path toward something positive, maybe even meaningful ““ and then one drunken night everything changes. Reeling, her memory hazy, Claudia cuts herself off from her family, seeking solace in a new friendship. But when the rest of school comes back from spring break, Claudia is missing.

Suddenly, the whole city is trying to piece together the hours of that terrible night.


Julia Dahl is the author of ConvictionRun You Down, and Invisible City, which was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, one of the Boston Globe‘s Best Books of 2014, and has been translated into eight languages. A former reporter for CBS News and the New York Post, she now teaches journalism at NYU.


Enjoy the conversation about the works of both authors, with a focus on The Missing Hours.