Meg Waite Clayton hosted The Poisoned Pen’s virtual event with Peggy Townsend, author of The Botanist’s Assistant. The mystery was the bookstore’s cozy for November, although Barbara Peters calls it a traditional mystery. There are still copies of the book available through the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/y4j7xt26
A murder in the science lab shatters a woman’s quiet and ordered life when she decides she must solve the crime herself in this entertaining and uplifting mystery.
Plenty of people consider Margaret Finch odd. Six-feet-tall and big-boned, she lives alone in a small cabin in the woods, drives a 20-year-old truck, and schedules her life so precisely you can tell the time and day of the week by the chore she is doing and what she is wearing. But the same attributes that cause her to be labeled eccentric—an obsessive attention to detail and the ability to organize almost anything—make her invaluable in her job as Research Assistant II to a talented and charismatic botanist.
It’s those very same qualities, however, that also turn Margaret into a target after a surprising death shakes the small university where she works. Even as authorities claim the death appears to be from natural causes, Margaret fears it might be something more: a murder born of jealousy and dark secrets. With the aid of a newly hired and enigmatic night custodian, Margaret finds herself thrust into the role of detective, forcing her to consider that she may not be able to find the killer before the killer finds her.
With a cast of quirky and likeable characters that one won’t soon forget, The Botanist’s Assistant is a delightful story of perseverance and the power in all of us to survive.
Peggy Townsend is an award-winning journalist and author. Her work has appeared in Catamaran literary magazine, Santa Cruz Noir, Globe Magazine, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. Twice she lived for seven weeks in her van, traveling to Alaska and along the back roads of the US.
Enjoy the conversation with Peggy Townsend and Meg Waite Clayton.
Barbara Peters welcomed Kathy Reichs for a virtual event at The Poisoned Pen. Reichs’ latest Temperance Brennan novel is EvilBones. Reichs has signed all of her books for the bookstore. Signed copies of the latest will be arriving at the bookstore next week, but you can order a copy through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/44CLsNT
Here is the description of Evil Bones.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with a twisty, magnetic thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who finds herself enmeshed in a series of grisly animal killings that escalate into something far more sinister.
Small creatures—a rat, a rabbit, a squirrel—have been turning up throughout Charlotte, North Carolina, mutilated and displayed in a bizarre manner. But one day, as Tempe is relaxing at home alongside her aimless, moody great-niece Ruthie, she’s diverted by a disturbing call. The perp is upping the ante. This find could be human.
Tempe visits the scene and discovers that the victim is a dog. Someone’s pet. As one who has always found animal cruelty abhorrent, Tempe agrees to help apprehend the person responsible, and she acquires an equally outraged ally in semi-retired homicide detective Erskine “Skinny” Slidell. Needing a better understanding of possible motives, Tempe seeks input from a forensic psychologist. The doctor has no definitive answer but offers several possibilities, warning that the escalating pattern of aggression suggests even more macabre discoveries—and a shift in the perp’s focus to humans.
And then it happens. A woman is found disfigured and posed in a manner that mimics the animal killings. Subsequently, people Tempe cares about begin to go missing until it becomes clear she is being taunted, the target in a sick game that has her and Slidell racing against a ticking clock and facing a terrifying question: “What is pure evil?”
Kathy Reichs’s first novel Déjà Dead, published in 1997, won the Ellis Award for Best First Novel and was an international bestseller. Evil Bones is Reichs’s twenty-fourth novel featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Reichs was also a producer of Fox Television’s longest running scripted drama, Bones, which was based on her work and her novels. One of very few forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, Reichs divides her time between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina. Visit her at KathyReichs.com or follow her on X @KathyReichs, Instagram @KathyReichs, or Facebook @KathyReichsBooks.
Critic Oline Cogdill’s list of Best Mystery Novels of 2025 is an excellent place to start if you’re doing gift shopping for someone else, or even yourself. Check for these books at The Poisoned Pen’s Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/. Thank you, Oline for sharing this list, first published in the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The best mystery novels of 2025.
Crime fiction, which includes mysteries and thrillers, is a top genre for a reason, bolstered by authors who deliver rich plots, with fully realized characters of diverse backgrounds and settings. Big cities and small, rural towns; police officers, private detectives, gangsters and ordinary people; families, couples and single people — all are a part of the genre.
Crime fiction makes us examine who we are and how we, as a society, deal with life’s challenges.
2025 was another outstanding year with standard favorites and debuting authors offering their stories. 2025 also saw an unusual number of short story collections based on various themes.
These were the works that stayed with me throughout the year. Once again, narrowing my favorites was difficult, but it’s a wonderful problem to have.
Money — or rather the lack of it — motivates three sisters in “El Dorado Drive,” an intelligent, character-driven thriller that spins on the suspense that infiltrates family dynamics. Raised in the affluent town of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, the sisters were used to the privilege that wealth brings. Until the money dwindled from a series of situations, first because of their father, then their husbands, making them ripe for scams. Abbott succinctly looks at how the heedless pursuit of money and appearances can be soul-numbing, while also exploring the paralyzing effects of regret.
In “The Proving Ground,” the eighth Mickey Haller novel, the Lincoln Lawyer files a negligence suit against a technology company on behalf of a mother whose daughter was murdered. The company is accused of devising a chatbot companion that may target teenagers, especially teenage boys. Mickey is no longer the Lincoln Lawyer – he now drives a Bolt. And he’s given up lucrative criminal law in favor of civil law, which can be profitable but the payoff is slower. Mickey must prove to his clients and to himself that he can manage his new career path. Connelly strongly weaves in current issues, making even the most complicated subjects understandable. In 2025, Connelly also published a second outstanding procedural, “Nightshade,” which launched a new series about L.A. County Sheriff Detective Stilwell stationed in Santa Catalina Island. “Nightshade” turns a light on the greed, corruption and exploitation of the working class that flows through the island.
Several crooks inhabit the outstanding “Crooks.” Most of them are members of the Mercurio family, including the parents and their five children. Spanning more than 50 years, “Crooks” works as both an epic crime tale and an intimate family story as Berney concentrates on his characters. Spare writing, akin to the late Elmore Leonard, quickly gets to the heart and soul of each character. A legacy of criminal tendencies filters through each Mercurio, even those who insist they are law-abiding.
Downing balances dark humor with a hard-boiled approach in “Too Old for This,” impressively keeping the reader on the side of Lottie Jones, a 75-year-old grandmother who used to be a serial killer. Lottie believes she’s retired. She changed her name, moved to a new area, lives quietly, has friends and attends church twice weekly, mainly for the bingo. Then a young producer shows up wanting to do a documentary series. Goodbye, retirement. But Lottie finds new challenges with electronics pinging locations, social media posts, DNA technology. And she often needs a nap.
Lillie delves deep into the treatment of Native American communities and the preservation of their remains in “The Bone Thief,” a second formidable novel about Cherokee archaeologist Syd Walker with the Rhode Island Bureau of Indian Affairs. A detailed look at Native American history and culture never overrides the gripping plot. The discovery of the 300-year-old remains of an infant at an exclusive summer camp and plans for a state-of-the-art museum bring out dark secrets about a group whose wealthy, powerful members claim ancestral rights over contested land, revisiting the tensions between the Native Americans and European colonists.
In “King of Ashes,” Cosby shows the trajectory of Atlanta finance manager Roman Caruthers – akin to Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” – whose initial avoidance of “the family business” gives way to the eventual loss of his soul. Roman is the epitome of an anti-hero, maybe not even worth rooting for, too slick for his own good, arrogant and entitled. But those flaws work because Cosby makes us invested in his outcome. We need to know what happens and how Roman corrals the dark and lethal that’s unleashed in him.
A family grapples with its past, present and a shaky future as the rural area they own in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is invaded by developers, part-time residents and tourists who lack respect and concern about the land where the Sawbrook family’s roots go back to the 19th century. “The Trouble Up North” is a heartfelt story that combines classism, economic struggles, family legacy and parental love, all packed into a tidy plot.
Fredericks takes another leap at creating engrossing historical mysteries depicting real people. Set in New York City during 1920, Fredericks focuses on charming gambler and womanizer Joseph Elwell, whose murder was covered by beginning journalist Morris Markey, with appearances by F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Fredericks doesn’t sanitize the real people, but draws complete portraits including their strengths and flaws. And the Fitzgeralds have a lot of flaws, which are well-documented. “The Girl in the Green Dress” is the perfect marriage of character, era, setting and intriguing plot as Fredericks did in her terrific 2024 novel “The Wharton Plot” about author Edith Wharton.
The action-packed “The Oligarch’s Daughter” is equal parts political thriller and love story in which an investment analyst marries a seemingly struggling photographer. Her down-market East Greenwich Village apartment and simple lifestyle suggest financial struggles — until he met her billionaire father, a Russian oligarch whose mega-opulent lifestyle is beyond luxurious. Guess what! His business isn’t completely legitimate. The newlywed finds his father-in-law’s henchmen and the FBI are overly interested in him and his new family.
Who hasn’t wanted to leave a nasty note on a car whose driver cut you off, stole your parking spot or was just rude. Friends on a getaway to the Hamptons do just that in “The Note.” But this is not a one-and-done as they find out when they become suspects when the driver disappears. “A simple little note — but the potential for so much damage,” writes Burke, who weaves in women’s friendships and cancel culture.
“Low April Sun” is a poignant look at how the bombing of Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building affected a family. Squires’ novel is considered the first work of fiction to tackle what was the worst act of homegrown terrorism in U.S. history, which marked its 30th anniversary on April 19, 2025. Instead of a historical accounting of how and why this horrific act happened, Squires skillfully mines its effect on a family and how they maneuvered a morass of grief trying to rebuild their live. Squires pinpoints the moral center and the lasting effects of a tragedy.
While football is at the crux of this brisk plot, it isn’t necessary to be a fan, as Edgar Award winner Cranor explores greed, the corruption of the sport, its often naive players and hero worship in “Mississippi Blue 42.” An FBI agent investigating the University of Central Mississippi Chiefs football program tackles a history of fraud, deceit, suspicious deaths and a corrupt politician. Game on.
The five investigators in this new elite, cerebral FBI team call themselves “Head Cases” because, as one character says, they “mostly live in their heads.” Publicly, they are known as the FBI’s Patterns and Recognition team — PAR. The agents would rather stay in the office, but don’t shy away from action. The tight-knit investigators respect each other’s skills and care about their colleagues’ welfare and personal lives, without being intrusive. Rumors that PAR may be dissolved brings them closer but doesn’t affect their devotion to their investigation.
BEST DEBUTS
(in alphabetical order)
A strange photograph leads a young woman to learn that she had an aunt named Carol, who, as a teenager, disappeared decades before but who was never discussed by the family. Carol’s vanishing coincided with the disappearance of six other Black teenage girls between 1963 and 1965 from the same area of Raleigh, N.C. “We Don’t Talk About Carol” is a riveting story of racism, family, community, motherhood and decades of secrets wrapped in a solid plot filled with believable characters and situations.
Pan delivers the story of two young slackers who inadvertently are drawn into the drug trade in “Florida Palms,” a gritty, uncompromising look at the criminal underworld of Central Florida. Pan excels at making the reader care about the two teenagers, who start out as naïve. Pan shows how the Space Coast was shaped by the aerospace industry that elevated the region and now, because of economics, is on the downslide.
The rich scenery of New Zealand and Scotland become facets in themselves in “The Vanishing Place,” while informing the gripping plot and shaping the believable characters. Now a police officer in Scotland, Effie escaped the New Zealand wilderness where she was raised off the grid, isolated with her family. Effie returns to New Zealand to help a girl who may be her niece and who, like her, witnessed a violent act. The plot unravels at a perfect pace as Rankin immerses the story in scenery.
SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGIES
Author Copenhaver and publisher West tapped 26 authors to deliver stories about LGBTQ+ life, community and concerns using queer icons as inspiration in “Crime Ink: Iconic.” Brief essays from each contributor about who inspired their short story as well as brief biographies of the authors are featured.
Art critic, literary editor, biographer and author S.S. Van Dine devised “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Fiction” during the early 20th Century that did more to hamper than enhance the genre. Frankly, those rules made no sense then and even less now. The 20 authors in the smart “Double Crossing Van Dine” don’t just ignore those rules but “break them like kindling,” as McPherson writes. Today, Van Dine may be recognized only by those steeped in the history of mystery fiction. But the authors in this anthology are making an impact.
The story songs by the late Stephen Sondheim, arguably the greatest composer of musical theater who ever lived, are the perfect fodder for this collection.
Each author in this collection has worked in the entertainment business in some aspect — as a performer, a producer, a writer, even catering. Each contributor’s proceeds are being donated to the California Community Foundations Wildfire Recovery Fund. The editors included a mixture of styles, from the hard-boiled to the cozy. Many stories feature well-known landmarks and favorite sites such as Larry Edmunds’ bookstore.
The prestigious “Strand” magazine dates to 1891 — it was the first place readers heard of Sherlock Holmes as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles” appeared here. This anniversary book shows the breadth of short stories the magazine has published during the last 25 years under the Gullis, a brother and sister team. Yes, there is a story by Michael Connelly but also Ray Bradbury, Tennessee Williams, Rudyard Kipling and H.G. Wells, among others.
NONFICTION
An apt title for this comprehensive biography of the late Elmore Leonard, the master of American crime fiction who definitely is and was one of the coolest authors ever. A Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, Leonard’s entertaining plots were punctuated by punchy, tightly coiled prose filled with wit and grit. Many of Leonard’s novels landed on best-sellers lists and remain timeless. “Get Shorty,” “Jackie Brown” and “Justified” are just a few of the films and TV series launched from his books. Just remember his advice to writers: Never start a book with weather.
Are you ready to look at book suggestions for December? Deb Lewis from The Poisoned Pen has some suggestions. You can check them out at the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Thank you, Deb. She says there are “lots of bones ahead”.
Madeline Brimley, new owner of a bookstore in a small Georgia town, finds herself playing sleuth when a friend is charged with the murder of a much-disliked woman.
Lilian Jackson Braun Award finalist, Indie Next pick, Library Reads pick, SIBA Read This Next! selection -Madeline Brimley returns to the small town Georgia bookstore she inherited, discovering that small towns hold deadly secrets.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with a twisty, magnetic thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who finds herself enmeshed in a series of grisly animal killings that escalate into something far more sinister. (Signed copies available.)
“Powerful, moving and wise – Val McDermid’s books are always enthralling.”—Harlan Coben
“A beautifully structured, witty and twisty novel.”—Ann Cleeves
The new installment in the “relentlessly engrossing series” (Wall Street Journal) finds Karen Pirie and her team investigating the murder of a journalist paved under a motorway—but was it his work or his private life that put him there?
When a local fisherman is mauled to death, it seems like the only possible cause is a mythical creature in the latest puzzling entry in thisUSA Today bestselling series.
An old family secret leads from the streets of Sydney to Italy’s sun-drenched Neapolitan coast, in this immersive historical mystery from #1 international bestselling author Tara Moss.
“What could be more magical than a writer who can flip from hilarity to darkness and back on the same page? Jennie Godfrey does this and more…in a voice that is as authentic as it is unforgettable.” —Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street
“We’ll make a list. A list of all the people and things we see that are suspicious. And then… we’ll investigate them.”
From the breakout author of Swiped comes a compulsively readable, surprisingly funny, and genuinely thrilling pageturner about a TikTok true crime investigator, a ’90s serial killer that may not be as dead as everyone would like, a text thread from hell, and long buried secrets that just won’t stay in the grave where they belong.
Mike Lupica has taken over Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series. The latest book in the series is released today, Robert B. Parker’s Showdown. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, hosted Lupica for a virtual event to talk about the book and the series. Signed copies of the book are available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3Mk8Pp4
Here’s the description of Robert B. Parker’s Showdown.
Spenser may have uncovered an explosive secret that threatens the career of a controversial figure, in this latest installment of Robert B. Parker’s beloved series.
Vic Hale isn’t anyone’s idea of a father figure. He is one of the biggest – and loudest — podcasters in the nation and got there by spewing overheated rhetoric that’s reviled by some but loved by even more. His particular brand of “entertainment” is so successful, he’s about to sign the biggest contract in the history of online broadcasting. Vic’s riding high…until he gets a visit from Spenser, who specializes in bringing guys like Hale back down to Earth.
Spenser is there on behalf of Daniel Lopez, a young man who believes Hale may be his father. It’s a potentially explosive revelation for a man in the podcaster’s position and it might even be enough to blow up his massive new deal. That could explain the bodies that start popping up – bodies connected in one way or another with the mystery surrounding Daniel’s birth. There are a lot of questions remaining, and Spenser’s going to have to find the answers before someone shuts Hale or Daniel up for good.
Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring Police Chief Jesse Stone, the acclaimed Virgil Cole-Everett Hitch Westerns, and the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010.
Mike Lupica is a Hall of Fame sports columnist and New York Times bestselling author of more than forty works of fiction and nonfiction, in addition to being a frequent co-writer with James Patterson. A longtime friend to Robert B. Parker, he was selected by the Parker estate to continue the Spenser series, after having previously done the same with the Sunny Randall series, and with Jesse Stone.
Tuesday, Nov. 25 is release date for Traci Hall’s cozy mystery, Murder at the Scottish Games. The mystery is the seventh in Hall’s Scottish Shire mystery series. A copy can be pre-ordered through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/47XJMAP
Critic Oline Cogdill recently reviewed if for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Thank you, Oline, for sharing the review.
LOTS OF SCOTTISH LORE
‘Murder at the Scottish Games’ by Traci Hall; Kensington; 304 pages; $17.95
Sports can bring out the best — and just as often — the worst in people. The stakes are tripled, and the score even more important, when the sport is wrapped up in tradition, history and family reputation, as is the case in Traci Hall’s lively “Murder at the Scottish Games.”
Hall keeps her light plot churning with bits of humor, a town filled with suspects and lots of Scottish lore.
The Highland Games have come to Nairn, Scotland, and that’s good news for local businesses, especially for Paislee Shaw, who owns a sweater and yarn shop. It’s almost as if Paislee is printing money the way tourists are shopping in her Cashmere Crush store. For extra help, Paislee hires Rhona Smythe, whose salary will go to her parents to pay off her many speeding tickets.
Everyone in Nairn seems to have Highland Games fever. The new dog-herding event is expected to be a big hit. Rhona is in the Highland Dance and her boyfriend, Artie Whittle, is participating in several events, including the caber toss, in which he will throw a tapered log measuring about 16 feet long. Nothing could go wrong there — until someone tampers with the log. A fatality and rumors of steroid use put a damper on the event.
A strength of “Murder at the Scottish Games” is how Hall makes Paislee’s involvement as an amateur sleuth organic to the plot. Paislee’s instincts and eye for detail go further than matching yarn colors. Her home life, including her grumpy grandfather and brooding 13-year-old son Brody, and her interest in D.I. Mack Zeffer add to the believable story.
Hall’s view of Scotland, punctuated by occasional bits of dialect, will make readers want to book a trip there.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, said they are fortunate that Jack Viertal and his son, Josh, will both be able to sign copies of The Glass Eel, the bookstores’s First Mystery selection for September. Copies can be ordered through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/43J72jr
Here’s the description of The Glass Eel.
Caterpillar Island is off the central coast of Maine—beloved vacationland of lobster bakes and quaint fried clam shacks, kayaking and country houses. At night, though, by the light of a headlamp, the island is alive with cash, guns, and poachers. Oxy addicts, struggling retirees, and unemployable deadbeats dip their nets in the creeks to catch elvers—two-inch-long baby eels that fetch $2000 a pound on the international black market.
Into this dark and dangerous world falls Jeanette King, who has, up to this moment, been earning her meager living mainly by picking and packaging peekytoe crab meat for shipment to New York and Boston. As Jeanette gets drawn into a fast-moving story of risk and violent consequences, she enlists the aid of a local policeman and an Indigenous activist. Together they try to set things right for the people and the planet. But the deeper they dig, the more dangerous things get. An ensuing procession of colorful locals, corrupt state politicians, and treacherous outsiders weaves a tale that reveals the underbelly of a deadly business.
J. J. Viertel is the pseudonym used by the father-son writing team of Jack and Josh Viertel who live in Maine and New York. When they aren’t writing crime thrillers together, they each have their own careers: Jack creates Broadway plays and musicals and Josh creates organic farms. Josh is a fly fisherman and bow hunter and Jack is a scuba diver and barbecue chef. In addition to writing, they play the blues together.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Mike Maden to the bookstore. Maden’s latest book in the Cussler universe in Clive Cussler Quantum Tempest. You can order signed copies through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/47Rk4Oi
Here’s the description of Clive Cussler Quantum Tempest.
Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon face a ghost ship, deadly assassins and a threat from Cabrillo’s own past in their race to stop the launch of the world’s deadliest machine in this electrifying new entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.
There’s a tempest brewing in Central America. A government crackdown on cartels leaves most of the drug lords locked up in an impregnable prison. In response, Amador Fierro, a brilliant, tech-savvy crime boss forges the seven largest cartels into an allegiance called La Liga. If they are to defeat the U.S. led offensive, they will need a powerful weapon. Thus is born Project Q: an Artificial General Intelligence computer that, when finished, will grant Fierro such overwhelming control of America.
Chairman Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon are the only ones standing in his way, but they have their own problems. While two members of the team are unreachable in the Darien Gap searching for an Iranian Quds Force base, the Oregon crew have a mole in their midst. Meanwhile, other dark forces are at play, competing for the all consuming power at hand.
The race to stop the launching of Project Q will come down to the wire, but it’s a race neither Juan Cabrillo, nor the western world, can afford to lose.
Clive Cussler was the author of more than eighty books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt®, NUMA Files®, Oregon Files®, Isaac Bell®, and Sam and Remi Fargo®. His life nearly paralleled that of his hero Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, he and his NUMA crew of volunteers discovered and surveyed more than seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Civil War submarine Hunley, which was raised in 2000 with much publicity. Cussler passed away in February 2020.
Mike Maden is the author of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier, Clive Cussler Fire Strike, Clive Cussler’s Hellburner, the critically acclaimed Drone series, and four novels in Tom Clancy’s #1 New York Times bestselling Jack Ryan Jr. series. He holds both a master’s and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Davis, specializing in international relations and comparative politics. He has lectured and consulted on the topics of war and the Middle East, among others. Maden has served as a political consultant and campaign manager in state and national elections, and hosted his own local weekly radio show for a year.
Enjoy the conversation, including the discussion of motivation.
