YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE, NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE.
PoisonedBlogger From time to time, I like to mention mystery sites, and then encourage you to come back to the Poisoned Pen’s Web Store to order books. https://store.poisonedpen.com
Criminal Element took a short hiatus in March, and it looks like they’re back. https://www.criminalelement.com
There are reviews, excerpts from books, some contests. Check out the latest news there, and then come back to the Poisoned Pen for your reading.
Jon Talton is a former columnist for the Arizona Republic, so he has quite an audience when he returns to Arizona. It doesn’t hurt that his latest novel, The Bomb Shelter, was based on an actual bombing in Phoenix. Signed copies are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2vFQj31
Here’s the summary of The Bomb Shelter.
The past never rests easy in Arizona.
Forty years ago, a Phoenix reporter was killed by a car bomb in one of America’s most notorious crimes. Three men went to prison – but was there more to the story of Charles Page’s assassination? More than three low-level players? Did a kingpin order the hit and get away with it? And what was the real motive? Despite the work of teams of journalists and law and legal professionals, no one yet knows why.
It’s a case custom-made for David Mapstone, the historian-turned-sheriff’s deputy. And suddenly Mapstone’s boss, newly re-elected Sheriff Mike Peralta, promises to reopen the investigation into the only murder of an American journalist, in the US, in modern times. Why?
The promise triggers new murders. The crimes are reenactments of Phoenix’s mob-riddled past, where gangsters rubbed elbows with the city’s elite amid crosscurrents of corrupt cops, political payoffs, gambling, prostitution, and murder, all shielded by the sunshine image of a resort city. But who is committing them? A former soldier who is an explosives expert and deadly with a knife? A woman with screen-siren looks and extraordinary computer skills? Or someone out of Phoenix’s seamy, swinging Seventies with secrets to keep, even though the major power brokers are dead?
Mapstone will need all the help he can get. He enlists a PhD candidate and Black Lives Matter activist to help him comb through sealed archives of the original bombing. Mapstone’s wife, Lindsey, a top hacker, rejoins the Sheriff’s Office and plays a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with the perp or perps – one that goes from the digital to the real and risky world. Somewhere in the house of mirrors surrounding the Page case they must find the key that connects the past to the present.
In this swiftly paced, compelling new novel by journalist Jon Talton, the ninth in the David Mapstone series, a big city is trying to keep its darkest history off-limits.
*****
Credit for the photos goes to Timothy Moore who sent them to the Poisoned Pen.
Michael Koryta will be the guest author at the Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, May 15 at 7 PM. Author Nick Petrie will act as host, interviewing Koryta, who will talk about and sign his latest novel, How It Happened. Signed copies of How It Happened, along with copies of Koryta’s other novels, are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2wy0eIj
Here’s the summary of How It Happened.
Booklist magazine celebrates Mystery Month every May, and they have a number of extra features to highlight mysteries of all types. On May 10, they gave author Catriona McPherson a platform to talk about cozy mysteries of any type. But, one book in particular inspired Catriona to pick a subject. Sheila Connolly’s Buried in a Bog, led McPherson to write about Celtic Cozies. You can read the article, “The Celtic Cozies are Coming” here. https://bit.ly/2G5luET
Then, you can check the Web Store for the books that interest you. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Variety reports that “Outlander” will get a fifth and sixth season. That will cover The Fiery Cross and A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Season four will premiere this November. Don’t forget that the Poisoned Pen is the bookstore home of Outlander author Diana Gabaldon. Check the Web Store for copies of these two titles. You can also purchased signed copies of some of the books. https://bit.ly/2DVhCdn
The nominations for the 2018 Anthony Awards were announced on May 9. The Anthonys, named for critic and author Anthony Boucher, will be presented at this year’s Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in St. Petersburg, Florida. Attendees at last year’s convention in Toronto, and those registered for this year’s convention, nominated titles published in 2017. Check the Web Store for the books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Winners will be announced at the Anthony Awards ceremony on Saturday, September 8, 2018.
Nominees for the 2018 Anthony Awards are:
BEST NOVEL
BEST FIRST NOVEL
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
BILL CRIDER AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL IN A SERIES
BEST SHORT STORY
BEST ANTHOLOGY
BEST CRITICAL/NON-FICTION BOOK
BEST ONLINE CONTENT
Owen Laukkanen appears at the Poisoned Pen on Thursday, May 10 at 7 PM, discussing and signing his latest novel, Gale Force. Robert Anglen will interview Laukkanen and Kelli Stanley, author of City of Sharks. If you can’t make it on Thursday, you can order their books through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com
If you’d like to get to know Laukkanen a little better before Thursday, you can check out his blog, Project Nomad. His blog says, “This is #ProjectNomad. A man and his dog, looking for a better path.” If Anglen doesn’t ask him about his journey, you can ask him on Thursday night.
What’s Gale Force about? Here’s the summary.
For all lovers of maritime adventure comes an electrifying thriller of treachery and peril on the high seas featuring a dynamic new heroine, from multi-award-nominated suspense star Owen Laukkanen.
In the high-stakes world of deep-sea salvage, an ocean disaster can mean a huge payoff–if you can survive the chase.
McKenna Rhodes has never been able to get the sight of her father’s death out of her mind. A freak maritime accident has made her the captain of the salvage boat Gale Force, but it’s also made her cautious, sticking closer to the Alaska coastline. She and her crew are just scraping by, when the freighter Pacific Lion, out of Yokohama, founders two hundred miles out in a storm.
This job is their last chance–but there is even more at stake than they know. Unlisted on any manifest, the Lion‘s crew includes a man on the run carrying fifty million dollars in stolen Yakuza bearer bonds. The Japanese gangsters want the money. The thief’s associates want the money. Another salvage ship, far bigger and more powerful than Gale Force, is racing to the rendezvous as well. And the storm rages on. If McKenna can’t find a way to prevail, everything she loves–the ship, her way of life, maybe even her life itself–will be lost.
Filled with bravery, betrayal, sudden twists, and pure excitement, Gale Force is a spectacular new adventure from the fast-rising suspense star.
*****
Still interested? Rob Hart interviewed Owen Laukkanen in a Litreactor. Check out the article, “Owen Laukkanen on Boats, Trains, Dogs, and His Latest Novel ‘Gale Force’.” https://bit.ly/2HZJU8s
Amanda Quick’s The Other Lady Vanishes is the Hot Book of the Week at the Poisoned Pen. You can order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2wjfbxR
If you didn’t know, Amanda Quick is a pseudonym for Jayne Ann Krentz. Krentz and Christina Dodd will be the guests at a Poisoned Pen Tea Party on Saturday, May 12 at 2 PM. You’re also invited! You can RSVP to johnc@poisonedpen.com
Purchase of one of their books from The Poisoned Pen bookstore allows access to the signing line. This supports the author, our store and allows us to have more signings! Thanks!
Now, do you want to know about that Hot Book of the Week? Here’s the summary of The Other Lady Vanishes.
The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Knew Too Muchsweeps readers back to 1930s California–where the most dazzling of illusions can’t hide the darkest secrets…
After escaping from a private sanitarium, Adelaide Blake arrives in Burning Cove, California, desperate to start over.
Working at an herbal tea shop puts her on the radar of those who frequent the seaside resort town: Hollywood movers and shakers always in need of hangover cures and tonics. One such customer is Jake Truett, a recently widowed businessman in town for a therapeutic rest. But unbeknownst to Adelaide, his exhaustion is just a cover.
In Burning Cove, no one is who they seem. Behind facades of glamour and power hide drug dealers, gangsters, and grifters. Into this make-believe world comes psychic to the stars Madame Zolanda. Adelaide and Jake know better than to fall for her kind of con. But when the medium becomes a victim of her own dire prediction and is killed, they’ll be drawn into a murky world of duplicity and misdirection.
Neither Adelaide or Jake can predict that in the shadowy underground they’ll find connections to the woman Adelaide used to be–and uncover the specter of a killer who’s been real all along…
Kelli Stanley, author of City of Sharks, will be at the Poisoned Pen on Thursday, May 10 at 7 PM. Robert Anglen will host Stanley and Owen Laukkanen, author of Gale Force. Signed copies of their books are available through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com
City of Sharks is the latest Miranda Corbie mystery. Here’s the summary.
The blonde secretary was scared when she visited Miranda Corbie’s office. A shove into a streetcar track, a box of poisoned chocolates…hateful, violent letters.
Someone was trying to kill her.
Miranda isn’t sure of anything at first except that Louise Crowley, the blonde who works as an assistant to Niles Alexander, San Francisco publisher, is in trouble. Despite her own preparations for an imminent voyage to a blitzkrieged Britain and a painful farewell to the city she loves, Miranda decides to help Louise and takes on her last case as a private detective in San Francisco…investigating her client, surveying the publishing world of 1940, and stumbling into murder with a trail that leads straight to Alcatraz…an island city of sharks.
Along the way, Miranda explores her beloved San Francisco once more, from Playland-at-the-Beach to Chinatown to Nob Hill and Treasure Island. She encounters John Steinbeck and C.S. Forester, and is aided and abetted by the charming and dapper San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. And she also discovers personal truths she’s long denied…
With her characteristic luxurious, lyrical prose and insightful eye for character, Kelli Stanley paints a rich, authentic portrait of 1940 San Francisco in this latest installment of her award-winning series.
*****
Still curious? The Big Thrill, the magazine of The International Thriller Writers, published an interview with Kelli Stanley when City of Sharks was released. Here’s the link. https://bit.ly/2IpwF02
How could we resist when Stuart Neville said recently he considers the Poisoned Pen one of his local bookstores? And, he even mentions the Pen in this short video from Penguin Random House. But, before the video, here’s a plug for the book he wrote under the name Haylen Beck, Here and Gone. You can still order a signed copy of this thriller, set in Arizona. https://bit.ly/2HKlQlM
Here’s the summary of Here and Gone.
Here and Gone is a gripping, wonderfully tense suspense thriller about a mother’s desperate fight to recover her stolen children from corrupt authorities.
It begins with a woman fleeing through Arizona with her kids in tow, trying to escape an abusive marriage. When she’s pulled over by an unsettling local sheriff, things soon go awry and she is taken into custody. Only when she gets to the station, her kids are gone. And then the cops start saying they never saw any kids with her, that if they’re gone than she must have done something with them…
Meanwhile, halfway across the country a man hears the frenzied news reports about the missing kids, which are eerily similar to events in his own past. As the clock ticks down on the search for the lost children, he too is drawn into the desperate fight for their return.
*****
And, here’s the video, “Meet the Author: Stuart Neville.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4rfeEmkhmo?rel=0&w=560&h=315]