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As Ian Hamilton starts his term as Writer in Residence at the Poisoned Pen, it’s only appropriate to look back with him. But, first, here’s Hamilton and his latest book The Iman of Tawi-Tawi. Signed copies are available through the Web Store.  https://store.poisonedpen.com

Here’s the description of the 11th Ava Lee novel.

Ava has spent two nights luxuriating in a hotel in Yunnan Province with the actress Pang Fai, with whom she has begun a secret relationship. She receives an urgent phone call from Chang Wang, the right hand to the billionaire Tommy Ordonez and one of Uncle’s oldest friends. Years ago, Ava and Uncle helped Tommy recover $50 million in a land swindle.

Chang asks Ava to fly to Manila to meet with his friend, Senator Miguel Ramirez. Ramirez asks Ava to investigate a college in Tawi-Tawi, an island province in the Philippines, which he suspects is training terrorists. Ava’s investigation leads to a partnership with a CIA agent, and together they attempt to stop an international plot, horrific in size and scope, only to have it turn on them. Ava’s judgement and morals — which Uncle helped her forge — are tested like never before.

Last May, Hamilton wrote an article for Lithub.com. It was on researching the Ava Lee series. The article was called “Capturing the True Criminality of Chinese State Corruption.” It’s just the background a reader might want for this series. Here’s the link. https://bit.ly/2G4eLLC

The Poisoned Pen’s Hot Book of the Week is a science fiction thriller. There are signed copies of Tom Sweterlitsch’s The Gone World available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2BQqZcC

Here’s the description of The Gone World.

“I promise you have never read a story like this.”–Blake Crouch, New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter

Inception meets True Detective in this science fiction thriller of spellbinding tension and staggering scope that follows a special agent into a savage murder case with grave implications for the fate of mankind…

Shannon Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In western Pennsylvania, 1997, she is assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL’s family–and to locate his vanished teenage daughter. Though she can’t share the information with conventional law enforcement, Moss discovers that the missing SEAL was an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra–a ship assumed lost to the currents of Deep Time. Moss knows first-hand the mental trauma of time-travel and believes the SEAL’s experience with the future has triggered this violence.

Determined to find the missing girl and driven by a troubling connection from her own past, Moss travels ahead in time to explore possible versions of the future, seeking evidence to crack the present-day case. To her horror, the future reveals that it’s not only the fate of a family that hinges on her work, for what she witnesses rising over time’s horizon and hurtling toward the present is the Terminus: the terrifying and cataclysmic end of humanity itself.

Luminous and unsettling, The Gone World bristles with world-shattering ideas yet remains at its heart an intensely human story.

Dana Stabenow entitled her recent post for Femmes Fatales blog as “C is for Cabin”. She could have made that courage. That’s the courage women writers need to forge their own future. Or, she could have swiped the Femmes Fatales tagline and said “F” is for “Ferociously Talented Women”. Stabenow, the author of Silk and Song, once took some advice from Sue Grafton. Now, she’s sharing the help and support she’s received over the years with other women through Storyknife, a retreat for women writers. https://storyknife.org/

Here’s Dana Stabenow’s piece about her own experiences, Sue Grafton, and the future. It’s at Femmes Fatales. https://bit.ly/2BNQRpH

*****

Thanks to Dana Stabenow for sharing the background and information about Storyknife. Now, I’ll share the link to her latest book, Silk and Song.  Signed copies are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2Egm9mH

The ever-popular Charles Todd returns to The Poisoned Pen on Monday, March 12 at 7 PM.

The mother-son team will be here to discuss their latest Ian Rutledge novel, The Gate Keeper, with their host that evening, Stephanie Barron. You can pre-order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2EsADDf

**Exclusive for Poisoned Pen Customers with the purchase of a signed, The Gate Keeper you will receive a specially designed “wedding invite”…..while supplies last**  ““ Miles M. @ The Poisoned Pen (Jan30-18)

Did you see Marilyn Stasio’s review of The Gate Keeper in The New York Times Book Review? It was the lead book in her recent column. https://nyti.ms/2FDV4KD

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, just hosted authors Lisa Gardner and Meg Gardiner in a double thriller event. It was release day for Lisa Gardner’s latest D.D. Warren novel, Look for Me. Meg Gardiner’s new UNSUB novel, Into the Black Nowhere, came out a week earlier. Signed copies of both books are available in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com

How often do you get to watch an event with these authors? You can watch this one on Livestream. https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/8046878

Maybe you missed bestselling author Alafair Burke when she was here at The Poisoned Pen in January. She was on tour for her new book, The Wife. Signed copies are still available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2ElJhDA

If you missed that program, you might want to check out Hilli Levin’s interview with Burke in BookPage. https://bit.ly/2GV0xhx

After reading that, here’s the summary of Alafair Burke’s The Wife.

His Scandal
Her Secret

From New York Times bestselling author Alafair Burke, a stunning domestic thriller in the vein of Behind Closed Doors and The Woman in Cabin 10—in which a woman must make the impossible choice between defending her husband and saving herself.

When Angela met Jason Powell while catering a dinner party in East Hampton, she assumed their romance would be a short-lived fling, like so many relationships between locals and summer visitors. To her surprise, Jason, a brilliant economics professor at NYU, had other plans, and they married the following summer. For Angela, the marriage turned out to be a chance to reboot her life. She and her son were finally able to move out of her mother’s home to Manhattan, where no one knew about her tragic past.

Six years later, thanks to a bestselling book and a growing media career, Jason has become a cultural lightning rod, placing Angela near the spotlight she worked so carefully to avoid. When a college intern makes an accusation against Jason, and another woman, Kerry Lynch, comes forward with an even more troubling allegation, their perfect life begins to unravel. Jason insists he is innocent, and Angela believes him. But when Kerry disappears, Angela is forced to take a closer look—at both the man she married and the women she chose not to believe.

This much-anticipated follow-up to Burke’s Edgar-nominated The Ex asks how far a wife will go to protect the man she loves: Will she stand by his side, even if he drags her down with him?

Today is release date for Kristin Hannah’s novel of Alaska, The Great Alone. You can order signed copies through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2FMA3NA

Here’s the summary.

“A TOUR DE FORCE.” —Kirkus (starred review)

Alaska, 1974.
Unpredictable. Unforgiving. Untamed.
For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival.

Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown.

At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.

In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska—a place of incomparable beauty and danger.The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.

*****

Here’s Kristin Hannah discussing The Great Alone.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHvhfLp3wmA?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

And, here’s the book trailer for The Great Alone.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT_NehX9Jzc?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

We’ve had a few lessons about writing on the blog lately. Diana Gabaldon showed how she composes a sentence. Dana Stabenow wrote about the importance of setting. Now, Stabenow, the author of Silk and Song, talks about the research she does for her books. It was essential to do that for Silk and Song, her novel about Marco Polo’s granddaughter and the Silk Road. Copies of the book are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2E1Ifci

Dana Stabenow’s post about research was originally written for M.K. Tod’s “A Writer of History”. Here’s the link to that article. https://bit.ly/2EG5MB1

Karen Cleveland’s Need to Know is the current Hot Book of the Week at the Poisoned Pen. You can order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2EAQygx

Here’s the summary of this week’s Hot Book.

Perfect husband. Perfect father. Perfect liar?

“Terrific.”—John Grisham
“Superb.”—Lee Child
“Breathtaking, heart-pounding.”—Louise Penny
“A fast-paced, relentlessly gripping read.”—Chris Pavone

In pursuit of a Russian sleeper cell on American soil, CIA analyst Vivian Miller uncovers a dangerous secret that will threaten her job, her family—and her life. On track for a much-needed promotion, she’s developed a system for identifying Russian agents, seemingly normal people living in plain sight.

After accessing the computer of a potential Russian operative, Vivian stumbles on a secret dossier of deep-cover agents within America’s borders. A few clicks later, everything that matters to her—her job, her husband, even her four children—is threatened.”Ž

Vivian has vowed to defend her country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But now she’s facing impossible choices. Torn between loyalty and betrayal, allegiance and treason, love and suspicion, who can she trust?

Film rights sold to Universal Pictures for Charlize Theron “¢ Rights sold in more than 20 markets

“Shaping up to be one of the year’s biggest new thrillers.”—Entertainment Weekly
 
“So timely . . . Think of the perfect mix of Homeland and The Americans. . . . Need to Know needs to be read by all who relish spy novels. As entertaining as it is informative and as irresistible as it is impossible to put down.”—Providence Journal
 
“Pulse-pounding.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
 
“Accomplished . . . a nonstop thriller tapping into a hot mix of contemporary digital counterintelligence, old-school spying and ageless family drama.”—Shelf Awareness

“An early contender for next year’s Gone Girl.”—GQ (UK)

“The Russia page-turner that should be on everyone’s list.”—New York Post

Have you been waiting for Gregg Hurwitz’ new Orphan X book, Hellbent? You can order it from the Web Store, and if you order now, you can buy a signed first edition that comes with a CIA letter that ties in with the book. https://bit.ly/2Eyuz9S

Here’s the summary of the book.

Evan Smoak—government assassin gone rogue—returns inHellbent, an engrossing, unputdownable thriller from Gregg Hurwitz, the latest in his #1 international bestselling Orphan X series.

Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as an off-the-books government assassin: Orphan X. After he broke with the Orphan Program, Evan disappeared and reinvented himself as the Nowhere Man, a man spoken about only in whispers and dedicated to helping the truly desperate.

But this time, the voice on the other end is Jack Johns, the man who raised and trained him, the only father Evan has ever known. Secret government forces are busy trying to scrub the remaining assets and traces of the Orphan Program and they have finally tracked down Jack. With little time remaining, Jack gives Evan his last assignment: find and protect his last protégé and recruit for the program.

But Evan isn’t the only one after this last Orphan—the new head of the Orphan Program, Van Sciver, is mustering all the assets at his disposal to take out both Evan (Orphan X) and the target he is trying to protect.

*****

I know most of us reading this blog missed the event. Patrick Millikin from the Poisoned Pen interviewed Gregg Hurwitz.

But, if you missed it, you can now watch the interview on Livestream. https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/8038276

Enjoy!