Karen Shaver from The Poisoned Pen recently welcomed Brian Freeman for a conversation about The Zero Night, the eleventh novel in the Jonathan Stride series. It’s hard to believe, but it’s also his fourth book release in 2022. There are signed copies of The Zero Night available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3XfUhrS
Here’s the description of The Zero Night.
“Freeman’s Bourne novels might get more publicity, but his Stride novels are where his skills as a storyteller are really showcased. First-rate.” — Booklist
A woman has been kidnapped.Now Jonathan Stride must decide if her husband wants her back … dead or alive.
After nearly dying of a gunshot wound, Jonathan Stride has been on leave from the Duluth Police for more than a year. When his partner, Maggie Bei, gets called about a suspicious abduction involving a local lawyer, she tells Stride it’s time for him to come back.
Attorney Gavin Webster says he paid $100,000 in ransom money to the men who kidnapped his wife. Now they’ve disappeared with the cash, and she’s still missing. Gavin claims to be desperate to find her—but Stride discovers that the lawyer had plenty of motive to be the mastermind behind the crime.
Even as Stride digs for the truth about Gavin Webster and his wife, he must also deal with a crisis in his own marriage.
His wife, Serena, is struggling after the death of her mother, the abusive woman she hadn’t seen in twenty-five years. When she loses control at a crime scene and draws her gun on a fellow cop, Serena finds herself kicked off the Webster case. Alone at her desk, she begins hunting through old police files and starts to ask questions about a mother’s death that was written off as suicide. That death haunts Serena like an echo of her own childhood—but her obsession with it takes a terrible toll.
As Serena shuts him out of her despair, and his own investigation grows increasingly tangled, Stride wonders whether going back to his detective work was the right decision. But all he can do is keep moving forward. Because Stride fears the Webster kidnapping may be only one part of a horrific murder conspiracy.
And it’s not over yet.
Brian Freeman is a New York Times bestselling author of psychological suspense novels including Spilled Blood, winner of the ITW Thriller Award for best novel.
Mariah Fredericks recently appeared for The Poisoned Pen, hosted by Susan Elia MacNeal. Fredericks’ new book, The Lindbergh Nanny, is the November Historical Fiction Book of the Month at the bookstore. There are signed copies available in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3Gy7UNb
Here is the summary of The Lindbergh Nanny.
Mariah Fredericks’s The Lindbergh Nanny is powerful, propulsive novel about America’s most notorious kidnapping through the eyes of the woman who found herself at the heart of this deadly crime.
“A masterful blending of fact and fiction that is as compelling as it is entertaining.”—Nelson DeMille
When the most famous toddler in America, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., is kidnapped from his family home in New Jersey in 1932, the case makes international headlines. Already celebrated for his flight across the Atlantic, his father, Charles, Sr., is the country’s golden boy, with his wealthy, lovely wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, by his side. But there’s someone else in their household—Betty Gow, a formerly obscure young woman, now known around the world by another name: the Lindbergh Nanny.
A Scottish immigrant deciphering the rules of her new homeland and its East Coast elite, Betty finds Colonel Lindbergh eccentric and often odd, Mrs. Lindbergh kind yet nervous, and Charlie simply a darling. Far from home and bruised from a love affair gone horribly wrong, Betty finds comfort in caring for the child, and warms to the attentions of handsome sailor Henrik, sometimes known as Red. Then, Charlie disappears.
Suddenly a suspect in the eyes of both the media and the public, Betty must find the truth about what really happened that night, in order to clear her own name—and to find justice for the child she loves.
“Gripping and elegant, The Lindbergh Nanny brings readers into the interior of the twentieth century’s most infamous crime.”—Nina de Gramont, New York Times bestselling author of The Christie Affair
MARIAH FREDERICKS was born, raised, and still lives in New York City. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in history. She is the author of the Jane Prescott mystery series, which has twice been nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, as well as several YA novels. She can be reached through her website.
Enjoy the conversation with Mariah Fredericks, Susan Elia MacNeal, and Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen.
Did you miss Elly Griffiths recent virtual appearance for The Poisoned Pen? Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, talked with her about her books, their covers, and the differences in covers from country to country. There are signed copies of the British edition of Bleeding Heart Yard available in the Web Store, along with copies of the American edition. Here’s the link to the page with both versions. https://bit.ly/3EG8wi9
Here’s the description of Bleeding Heart Yard.
A murderer strikes at a school reunion—but the students are no strangers to death— in this propulsive, twisty thriller from the internationally bestselling author of the Ruth Galloway Mysteries
Is it possible to forget that you’ve committed a murder?
When Cassie Fitzgerald was at school in the late 90s, she and her friends killed a fellow student. Almost twenty years later, Cassie is a happily married mother who loves her job—as a police officer. She closely guards the secret she has all but erased from her memory.
One day her husband finally persuades her to go to a school reunion. Cassie catches up with her high-achieving old friends from the Manor Park School—among them two politicians, a rock star, and a famous actress. But then, shockingly, one of them, Garfield Rice, is found dead in the school bathroom, supposedly from a drug overdose. As Garfield was an eminent—and controversial—MP and the investigation is high profile, it’s headed by Cassie’s new boss, DI Harbinder Kaur, freshly promoted and newly arrived in London. The trouble is, Cassie can’t shake the feeling that one of them has killed again.
Is Cassie right, or was Garfield murdered by one of his political cronies? It’s in Cassie’s interest to skew the investigation so that it looks like it has nothing to do with Manor Park and she seems to be succeeding.
Until someone else from the reunion is found dead in Bleeding Heart Yard…
ELLY GRIFFITHS is the author of the Ruth Galloway and Brighton mystery series, as well as the standalone novels The Stranger Diaries, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and The Postscript Murders. She is the recipient of the CWA Dagger in the Library Award and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She lives in Brighton, England.
Enjoy this lively conversation with Elly Griffiths.
Jeffrey Siger put an entirely different spin on my request for COVID reading. This one’s fun. It does feel funny posting his photo, though. There should be a second one here.
JEFFREY SIGER is an American living on the Aegean Greek island of Mykonos. A Pittsburgh native and former Wall Street lawyer, he gave up his career to write mystery thrillers that tell more than just a fast-paced story. His novels are aimed at exploring societal issues confronting modern day Greece. Visit him at https://jeffreysiger.com/
I’m flattered Lesa asked for my take on books I’ve read since Covid shut the world down in 2020. But I thought a more interesting post might be to cover the choices made by the person who shared two-plus years of isolation with me at our farm in the wilds of Northwest New Jersey.
My wife, Barbara, has spent a dozen years accompanying me to mystery conventions, conferences, and signings. Having subjected her to all of that for so long, I figured she’d earned an opportunity to offer her opinion on what she’d read during the Great Shut-In.
Barbara began her journey in the UK, by reading six Jane Austen novels. She finds them humorous and loved escaping our early 21st Century for Jane’s early 19th.
Next, she was off on an Ann Cleeves marathon that had her devouring eight of Ann’s deeply atmospheric Shetland Series, featuring Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez. Dark-skinned DI Perez is of Spanish origins, possessed of a good, kind, intelligent, and thoughtful nature, but can be as moody and unpredictable as the rough, isolated, and stormy Shetlands themselves. Then she fell in love with Ann’s Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope TV series, titled “Vera,” read the first book in the series, “The Crow Trap,” and is halfway through the second.
Barbara’s Covid reading also took her outside the UK (and not just to my Greece-based manuscripts), most notably to Elena Ferrante’s four Neapolitan Novels, beginning with My Brilliant Friend. Even though they’re not in the mystery genre—except in so far as to the well-hidden identity of its author”“Barbara particularly enjoyed the first two. Her ardor cooled over the final two, but she’d soldiered on to finished them just to see “how things ultimately would turn out”—a luxury afforded by the vast amount of open time afforded by nothing much more to do over two years than read.
I, on the other hand, immersed myself in writing several books, two of which were part of my Greece-based Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series (#11 A Deadly Twist (2020) set on Naxos island, and #12 One Last Chance (2022) set on Ikaria island), my Murder is Everywhere weekly blog, and a monthly column during the heart of the pandemic for Athens Insider Magazine, entitled the “Corona Chronicles.” I’m pleased to say both Kaldis books received stellar reviews and were chosen by Reader’s Digest for inclusion in its bi-monthly Select Editions publication.
Just to show I wasn’t totally consumed by my own work, there is a mystery novel that stood out among what I read, A Deadly Covenant by Michael Stanley. It’s an irresistible page turner and powerful contribution to Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip’s award-winning Botswana-based Detective David “Kubu” Bengu series.
Here’s hoping that someday soon we’ll all get to hang out together again in person…as opposed to separately. Stay safe and all the best.
The Serpent in Heaven is the fourth in Charlaine Harris’ Gunnie Rose series. She recently appeared for The Poisoned Pen, talking with Patrick King about her new book. You can find signed copies of The Serpent in Heaven available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3EzWyqv
Here’s the summary of The Serpent in Heaven.
#1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Charlaine Harris returns to her alternate history of the United States where magic is an acknowledged but despised power in this fourth installment of the Gunnie Rose series.
Felicia, Lizbeth Rose’s half-sister and a student at the Grigori Rasputin school in San Diego—capital of the Holy Russian Empire—is caught between her own secrets and powerful family struggles. As a granddaughter of Rasputin, she provides an essential service to the hemophiliac Tsar Alexei, providing him the blood transfusions that keep him alive. Felicia is treated like a nonentity at the bedside of the tsar, and at the school she’s seen as a charity case with no magical ability. But when Felicia is snatched outside the school, the facts of her heritage begin to surface. Felicia turns out to be far more than the Russian-Mexican Lizbeth rescued. As Felicia’s history unravels and her true abilities become known, she becomes under attack from all directions. Only her courage will keep her alive.
Charlaine Harris is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing for over thirty years. She was born and raised in the Mississippi River Delta area. She has written four series, and two stand-alone novels, in addition to numerous short stories, novellas, and graphic novels (cowritten with Christopher Golden). Her Sookie Stackhouse books have appeared in twenty-five different languages and on many bestseller lists. They’re also the basis of the HBO series True Blood. Harris now lives in Texas, and when she is not writing her own books, she reads omnivorously. Her house is full of rescue dogs.
It’s always interesting to hear Charlaine Harris’ conversation.
Dawnlands is the third book in Philippa Gregory’s Fairmile series, a series that covers 1640-1689 so far. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen Bookstore, recently welcomed Gregory for a virtual event, along with guest host and author Gareth Russell. There are copies of Dawnlands available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3TBxh3h
Here’s the description of Dawnlands.
Palace intrigue, defiant heroism, and a long-awaited love fulfilled from New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory in her Fairmile series.
It is 1685 and England is on the brink of a renewed civil war. King Charles II has died without an heir and his brother James is to take the throne. But the people are bitterly divided, and many do not welcome the new king or his young queen. Ned Ferryman cannot persuade his sister, Alinor, that he is right to return from America with his Pokanoket servant, Rowan, to join the rebel army. Instead, Alinor and her daughter Alys, have been coaxed by the manipulative Livia to save the queen from the coming siege. The rewards are life-changing: the family could return to their beloved Tidelands, and Alinor could rule where she was once lower than a servant.
Alinor’s son is determined to stay clear of the war, but, in order to keep his own secrets in the past, Livia traps him in a plan to create an imposter Prince of Wales—a surrogate baby to the queen.
From the last battle in the desolate Somerset Levels to the hidden caves on the slave island of Barbados, this third volume of an epic story follows a family from one end of the empire to another, to find a new dawn in a world which is opening up before them with greater rewards and dangers than ever before.
Philippa Gregory is the author of many New York Times bestselling novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl, and is a recognized authority on women’s history. Many of her works have been adapted for the screen including The Other Boleyn Girl. She graduated from the University of Sussex and received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, where she is a Regent. She holds honorary degrees from Teesside University and the University of Sussex. She is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff and was awarded the 2016 Harrogate Festival Award for Contribution to Historical Fiction. She is an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She was awarded a CBE title for services to literature and charity in 2022. She welcomes visitors to her website PhilippaGregory.com.
If you’re a fan of British history or family sagas, you’ll want to listen to this conversation.
This really started out as a Thanksgiving request, but I changed it in the process. I was going to ask a few authors to tell me about books they were grateful for. Instead, since COVID-19 still hangs over everything, I asked them to tell me about books they’re grateful they read in the last several years. I also said they could mention their own books. I’m grateful so many responded! Ellen Byron was the first. Check for Ellen’s book suggestions in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Ellen Byron is the Agatha Award”“winning and USA Today bestselling author of the Cajun Country Mysteries. As Maria DiRico, she also writes the Catering Hall Mysteries. Her website is https://www.ellenbyron.com/
When Covid locked down the world, I comforted myself by doing two things in excess: reading and drinking wine. (I’ve since cut back on the latter, although my husband said he’s never made more money returning bottles to our recycling center.)
I read so many books I couldn’t keep track of them — Note to self: keep a list of what you read! — but a few stand out as particularly memorable for a range of reasons:
Death of a Showman, by Mariah Fredericks. My favorite genre is historical mysteries. I could fill a page listing all the series I read and love. But I have a particular fondness for Fredericks’ Jane Prescott Mysteries. I’m a native New Yorker and grew up fascinated by the city’s Gilded Age past. Death of a Showman is set in 1914, so it straddles that particular time period while foreshadowing another historical event I’m obsessed with, World War I. Fredericks’ series features a smart, compassionate female protagonist, which always appeals to me. And as a playwright who spent a lot of her formative years in the New York theatre scene, I loved the book’s plot was set against the backdrop of Broadway.
Good Girl: A Memoir of Overcoming Rape, Breast Cancer & Fundamentalism, Laura Jensen Walker. When I’m not reading mysteries, I read non-fiction and this memoir was the best I’ve read in a long time. Despite the traumatic subject matter, the tone of the book is so conversational that it’s easy to forget Laura isn’t in the room with you. She not only brings readers to tears, she also inspires them and even provides laughs on occasion. It’s a super impressive hat trick.
A Death in Jerusalem, by Jonathan Dunsky. My introduction to this series was literally prompted by the lockdown. I arrived at my local gym to discover it was closed due to Covid. (Sadly, it never reopened.) Heading back to the parking lot, I ran into another gym regular, who said, “I was hoping to see you today. I know you write mysteries and I wanted to give you this book.” She handed me a copy of the first Adam Lipid Mystery, and soon I was hooked on the series. It’s set during Israel’s nascent days as a country. (Told you I loved historical mysteries!) Adam Lipid, once a Hungarian detective, is now a P.I. and Holocaust survivor haunted by the loss of his family in the concentration camps. The plot of A Death in Jerusalem revolves around the 1952 storming of Israeli parliament, offering an eerie and topical parallel to the January 6th storming of our own nation’s capital.
(Note from Lesa – Sadly, this book is hard to find.)
Galatoire’s: Biography of a Bistro, by Marda Barton and Kenneth Holditch. I have such a personal connection to this book. I picked it up as research for my new series, the Vintage Cookbook Mysteries, which is set in the New Orleans mansion-turned-museum of a late restauranteur. I mentioned the book purchase to my friend Jan Gilbert, a NOLA native, and she said, “There’s a chapter in it about my mom and aunt.” I responded, “Get out!” and ran to read it. Indeed, the chapter titled “Alice O’Shaughnessy & Helen Gilbert, The Two Sisters: Birds of a Feather,” is all about how the two sisters held court at Galatoire’s every Friday lunch hour. There’s even a quote from Jan. It was like a sign from the writing heavens that I was on the right track with my new series.
Speaking of which…
I launched not one but two new series during lockdown, the aforementioned Vintage Cookbook Mysteries and the Catering Hall Mysteries (as Maria DiRico). I’m thrilled to share they’re both available for preorder right here at Poisoned Pen.
Wined and Died in New Orleans, Vintage Cookbook Mystery #2, release date February 7, 2023. No, this book wasn’t inspired by my own copious wine consumption during lockdown. The plot comes from a story I read on the Internet about how a couple remodeling their country home discovered a vast amount of whiskey dating back to the 1920s hidden in the crawl space. I substituted 150-year-old Madeira wine for whiskey in my book and added the threat of a hurricane, based on several bouts of threats and actual storms I experienced myself.
Four Parties and a Funeral, Catering Hall Mystery #4, release date March 28, 2023. Remember how I mentioned I’m a native New Yorker? I channeled my own experience of growing up in Queens with cousins who ran two catering halls into this series. I even use my late nonna’s maiden name, Maria DiRico, as my pen name and my protagonist Mia Carina actually lives in Nonna’s real-life two-family house in Astoria. InFour Parties and a Funeral, the filming of a ridiculous reality series, The Dons of Ditmars Boulevard, sparks both humor and murder. This series has received a seal of approval from various DiRico, DiNardo, DiVirgilio, Tenaglia, Testa, and Caniglia family members.
A toast —whiskey or wine, your call —to the indefatigable bookshop owners who soldiered on through the pandemic and improvised creative ways to provide us with the literary escape we so desperately needed. Now that the world has opened up again, I hope you’ll visit your local independent bookstore to thank them and shop with them in person.
Clare Mackintosh’s The Last Party is The Poisoned Pen’s British Crime Club Selection of the Month. It’s also the first in a new series. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, recently welcomed Mackintosh for a virtual event and discussion of her new book. You can order copies of The Last Party through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3V5Tqbp
Here’s the description of The Last Party.
“Wicked fun, devilishly clever, with echoes of Agatha Christie.” —Patricia Cornwell, #1 New York Times bestselling author
At midnight, one of them is dead. By morning, all of them are suspects.
It’s the party to end all parties….but not everyone is here to celebrate.
On New Year’s Eve, Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests. His vacation homes on Mirror Lake are a success, and he’s generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbors.
But by midnight, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake.
On New Year’s Day, Ffion Morgan has a village full of suspects. The tiny community is her home, so the suspects are her neighbors, friends and family—and Ffion has her own secrets to protect.
With a lie uncovered at every turn, soon the question isn’t who wanted Rhys dead…but who finally killed him.
In a village with this many secrets, murder is just the beginning.
“Brilliant, so atmospheric….I fell in love with the courageous, complicated detective Ffion Morgan and I think readers will too.” —Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author of The It Girl
CLARE MACKINTOSH is the multi-award-winning author of four Sunday Times bestselling novels. Translated into forty languages, her books have sold more than two million copies worldwide, have been New York Times and international bestsellers, and have spent a combined total of 50 weeks on the Sunday Times bestseller chart. Her most recent novel is Hostage. Mackintosh lives in North Wales with her husband and their three children. She can be found at claremackintosh.com, facebook.com/ClareMackWrites, or on Twitter @ClareMackint0sh.
Enjoy Clare Mackintosh’s conversation with Barbara Peters.
Diana Gabaldon was recently guest host for The Poisoned Pen, welcoming author Mary Robinette Kowal for a virtual event. Kowal is the author of The Spare Man. There are signed copies of it in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3A38App
Here’s the summary of The Spare Man.
Hugo, Locus, and Nebula-Award winner Mary Robinette Kowal blends her no-nonsense approach to life in space with her talent for creating glittering high-society in this stylish SF mystery, The Spare Man.
Tesla Crane, a brilliant inventor and an heiress, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between the Moon and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and the festering chowderheads who run security have the audacity to arrest her spouse. Armed with banter, martinis and her small service dog, Tesla is determined to solve the crime so that the newlyweds can get back to canoodling—and keep the real killer from striking again.
Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning alternate history novel, The Calculating Stars, the first book in the Lady Astronaut series. She is also the author of The Glamourist Histories series and Ghost Talkers and has received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, four Hugo Awards, the Nebula, and Locus Awards. Her stories appear in Asimov’s, Uncanny, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Mary Robinette has also worked as a professional puppeteer, is a member of the Award-winning podcast Writing Excuses, and performs as a voice actor (SAG/AFTRA), recording fiction for authors including Seanan McGuire, Cory Doctorow, and Neal Stephenson. She lives in Tennessee with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters.
Enjoy the casual conversation with Mary Robinette Kowal and Diana Gabaldon.
Robert Anglen from The Arizona Republic, joined Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, to host Michael Connelly. Connelly’s latest book is Desert Star, and he talks about Harry Bosch, Bosch’s career, and the books. There are signed copies of Desert Star available in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3A4AKAm
For years, Harry Bosch has been working a case that haunts him—the murder of an entire family by a psychopath who still walks free. Ballard makes Bosch an offer: come volunteer as an investigator in her new Open-Unsolved Unit, and he can pursue his “white whale” with the resources of the LAPD behind him.
First priority for Ballard is to clear the unsolved rape and murder of a sixteen-year-old girl. The decades-old case is essential to the councilman who supported re-forming the unit, and who could shutter it again—the victim was his sister. When Ballard gets a “cold hit” connecting the killing to a similar crime, proving that a serial predator has been at work in the city for years, the political pressure has never been higher. To keep momentum going, she has to pull Bosch off his own investigation, the case that is the consummation of his lifelong mission.
The two must put aside old resentments and new tensions to run to ground not one but two dangerous killers who have operated with brash impunity. In what may be his most gripping and profoundly moving book yet, Michael Connelly shows once again why he has been dubbed “one of the greatest crime writers of all time” (Ryan Steck, Crimereads).
