YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE, NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE.
It’s time to check out the upcoming virtual events at The Poisoned Pen, while planning to buy books by your favorite authors. Check the schedule, and then the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here are the authors scheduled to appear for the rest of this week. Mark your calendars!
Lars Kepler, the writing husband-and-wife team, made a recent appearance, virtually, for The Poisoned Pen. Their fifth Joona Linna thriller, Lazarus, is now available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2FpnIlX
Robert Anglen, award-winning investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic, interviewed the couple, saying they gave us a heck of a Christmas novel. I wouldn’t think of Lazarus that way, but I do think you can read this thriller without yet having read the earlier ones in the series. Afterwards, you’ll want to go back and pick up the others.
Here’s the summary of Lazarus.
“One of the best thrillers of the year! Kepler treats us readers to a nonstop roller coaster of suspense, taking us deep into the hearts and minds of perfectly realized characters. And, oh, what a villain! Lazarus is the definition of a one-sitting read!” —Jeffery Deaver, New York Times best-selling author of The Goodbye Man
Sometimes the past won’t stay buried.
All across Europe, the most ruthless criminals are suffering gruesome deaths. At first, it seems coincidental that their underworld affiliations are finally catching up to them. But when two of the victims are found to have disturbing connections to Detective Joona Linna, it becomes clear that there’s a single killer at work. Still, police are reluctant to launch an investigation. If a mysterious vigilante is making their jobs easier, why stand in his way? Joona, however, is convinced this is no
would-be hero. These deaths serve a much darker purpose.
Desperate for help, Joona turns to Saga Bauer. If his hunch is correct, she’s one of the few people who stands a chance at bringing this criminal mastermind down. But Saga is fighting her own demons—and the killer knows just how to use them to his advantage. He continues to strike with impunity, and no one, it seems, is safe. When the killer begins targeting those closest to Saga and Joona, it appears more and more likely that Joona has been right all along, and that tracking down the person responsible will force him to confront a ghost from his past . . . the most terrifying villain he’s ever had to face.
Now, turn up your volume, and enjoy the virtual event with Lars Kepler.
Patrick Millikin recently introduced Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, and author/editors Laurie R. Kling and Leslie Klinger for a virtual event. King and Klinger appeared to talk about their most recent anthology in their Sherlock Holmes-inspired series of books. Signed copies of In League with Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/33MjfEQ
Here’s the summary of In League with Sherlock Holmes.
The latest entry in Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger’s popular Sherlock Holmes-inspired mystery series, featuring fifteen talented authors and a multitude of new cases for Arthur Conan Doyle’s most acclaimed detective.
Sherlock Holmes has not only captivated readers for more than a century and a quarter, he has fascinated writers as well. Almost immediately, the detective’s genius, mastery, and heroism became the standard by which other creators measured their creations, and the friendship between Holmes and Dr. Watson served as a brilliant model for those who followed Doyle. Not only did the Holmes tales influence the mystery genre but also tales of science-fiction, adventure, and the supernatural. It is little wonder, then, that when the renowned Sherlockians Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger invited their writer-friends and colleagues to be inspired by the Holmes canon, a cornucopia of stories sprang forth, with more than sixty of the greatest modern writers participating in four acclaimed anthologies.
Now, King and Klinger have invited another fifteen masters to become In League with Sherlock Holmes. The contributors to the pair’s next volume, due out in December 2020, include award-winning authors of horror, thrillers, mysteries, westerns, and science-fiction, all bound together in admiration and affection for the original stories. Past tales have spanned the Victorian era, World War I, World War II, the post-war era, and contemporary America and England. They have featured familiar figures from literature and history, children, master sleuths, official police, unassuming amateurs, unlikely protagonists, even ghosts and robots. Some were new tales about Holmes and Watson; others were about people from Holmes’s world or admirers of Holmes and his methods. The resulting stories are funny, haunting, thrilling, and surprising. All are unforgettable. The new collection promises more of the same!
*****
Enjoy the discussion!
Patrick Millikin from the Poisoned Pen recently had the opportunity to host Caz Frear, author of Shed No Tears. He’s been handselling her first book, Sweet Little Lies. That book is in the Web Store, while you’ll have to wait a little, but will want to order the new book. https://bit.ly/2L5zgiJ Do pick up the first book. It introduces Cat Kinsella.
Cat is back in Shed No Tears, the third book in the series, following Stone Cold Heart.
Acclaimed and internationally bestselling crime novelist Caz Frear returns with her third superb novel featuring Cat Kinsella, a cop “on par with Susie Steiner’s and Tana French’s female detectives” (Kirkus Reviews).
Four victims. Killer caught. Case closed . . . or is it?
Growing up in a London family with ties to organized crime, Detective Constable Cat Kinsella knows the criminal world better than most cops do. As a member of the city’s Metropolitan Police, she’s made efforts to distinguish herself from her relatives. But leading an upstanding life isn’t always easy, and Cat has come close to crossing the line, a fact she keeps well hidden from her superiors.
Working their latest case, Cat and her partner Luigi Parnell discover a connection to a notorious criminal: serial killer Christopher Masters, who abducted and killed several women in 2012. Though the cops eventually apprehended him, his final victim, Holly Kemp, was never found and he never confessed to her murder, despite the solid eyewitness testimony against him. Now, six years later, the discovery of Holly’s remains near Cambridge seems to be the definitive proof needed to close the case.
Still, a few key items of evidence don’t quite line up. As Cat and Parnell look closer, they find discrepancies that raise troubling questions. But someone will do anything to keep past secrets hidden—and as they inch closer to the truth, they may be putting themselves in jeopardy . . .
*****
Here’s the virtual event featuring Caz Frear.
You’ll have to catch it early today, 10 AM (noon, ET), but John Charles will be hosting a quintet of Kensington authors who will talk about their holiday mysteries. Don’t forget to look for their books in the Web Store! https://store.poisonedpen.com/
| A Kensington Quintet of Cozies Saturday December 5, 10 AM (Noon ET) Watch the event on Facebook Live! The Poisoned Pen Bookstore 4014 N Goldwater Blvd Scottsdale, AZ 85251 |
HOLIDAY MYSTERIES FROM KENSINGTON PUBLISHING Coco, Nancy. Have Yourself a Fudgy Little Christmas ( $8.99). In Coco’s eighth Candy-Coated Mystery, Christmas on Mackinac Island brings a flurry of festive activity for fudge shop owner Allie McMurphy-but also a body in a snow bank. With fun recipes, cute pets, quirky characters, and an endearing young protagonist, the Candy-Coated Mysteries serve up the perfect holiday ingredients. Corrigan, Maya. Gingerdead Man ( $8.99). This holiday season Bayport, Maryland, is a dead ringer for Victorian London. Val and her grandfather are taking part in the Dickens of a Holiday festival. Val is hosting a private tea party serving the festival’s costumed volunteers, who range from Dickens divas like Madame Defarge and Miss Havisham to Ebenezer Scrooge and old St. Nick himself. But one costumed reveler may have gotten the holidays mixed up. The winner of the creepiest outfit, robed in black with a gift bag covering the head-okay, Ghost of Christmas Present, Val gets it-hands out gingerbread men with white icing skeleton bones. This year’s sour Santa has none of the big fellow’s mirth but plenty of his appetite, and it’s no secret Santa loves cookies. But when the man in red turns blue, Val and Granddad have a cookie-cutter killer to catch before the New Year…. Includes delicious five-ingredient recipes! Day, Maddie. Candy Slain Murder ( $8.99). Christmas cheer has sent the griddle into overdrive at Robbie Jordan’s popular country store and café. And this year, there’s a new seasonal special to feast on: murder… As December sweeps through South Lick, Indiana, Robbie’s life seems merry and bright like the string lights glistening around town. But strange happenings signal a bumpy ride into the holidays. First a man raises eyebrows at Pans ‘N Pancakes when he claiming to be the long-lost half-brother of Robbie’s assistant. Then a fire destroys the home of a controversial anesthesiologist, exposing skeletal remains in his attic. Helplessly intrigued, all Robbie wants for Christmas is to stop her winter wonderland from becoming a real nightmare. With a decades-old mystery taking shape, can she run as fast as she can in pursuit of a killer who’s harder to crack than a stale gingerbread man? Ireland, Liz. Mrs. Claus and the Santaland Slayings ($15.95). Set at the North Pole, this exceptional series launch from Ireland features such delightful characters as Old Charlie, a snowman; Blitzen, a reindeer descended from the Blitzen of “The Night Before Christmas” fame; and Jingles, the elf steward at frigid Castle Kringle. All of them are potential perps in the murder of Giblet Hollyberry, a notoriously unpleasant elf, but the chief suspect is Nick Claus, the acting Santa of Santaland. Constable Crinkles is soon on the case, along with detective Jake Frost, but it’s going to be up to April Claus, Nick’s wife, to clear her husband’s name. Rumors have circulated since the death of Nick’s older brother, Chris Claus, that Nick had something to do with it, because he coveted Chris’s job as Santa, and now an elf is dead. April has only a few days to find the killer before Christmas. Meanwhile, she must cope with the quirks of the extended Claus family. This fun, well-plotted mystery is the perfect holiday entertainment. *Redmond, Heather. A Christmas Carol Murder ($26). December, 1835. Nothing says Christmas like caroling outside the counting house of Emmanuel Screws, and nothing dampens the Christmas spirit like having a chained corpse fall from an overhead window to the ground before the eyes of Charles Dickens and his horrified fellow carolers. Soon after the killjoy is identified as Jacob Harley, Screws’ partner, his body inside its coffin vanishes from the custody of the undertaker Dawes. But that’s the least of Charles’ headaches. He’s already scrambling to disprove the allegation of serving maid Madge Porter that he fathered Timothy, the son of Madge’s late sister, Lizzie. Moved by the holiday spirit and simple humanity, Charles has taken up the infant and placed him with pregnant actress Julie Aga, the wife of his fellow journalist William Aga. His solicitude for the defenseless child is a distinctly bad look for his fiancée, Kate Hogarth, and a worse one for her father, George, who, as editor of the Morning Chronicle, holds a great deal of power over his employee’s future. When the prospective publisher of Sketches by Boz begins to back away from his contract, it seems the only thing that will redeem Dickens is proof that he’s not Timothy’s father. Oh, and solving what by now is a pair of murders as well.”-Kirkus Review |
Thomas Perry, author of Eddie’s Boy, answered an unusual question from Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen. Why does he skip around as he writes series, going from one to another? His answer? He was born with a short attention span. You’ll want to catch the entire virtual conversation. But, first, you’ll want to check out all of Perry’s books that are available through the Web Store, including signed copies of Eddie’s Boy, the latest book in the Butcher’s Boy series. https://bit.ly/2FdR5bs
Here’s Eddie’s Boy.
Michael Shaeffer is a retired American businessman, living peacefully in England with his aristocratic wife. But her annual summer party brings strangers to their house, and with them, an attempt on Michael’s life. He is immediately thrust into action, luring his lethal pursuers to Australia before venturing into the lion’s den—the States—to figure out why the mafia is after him again, and how to stop them.
Eddie’s Boy jumps between Michael’s current predicament and the past, between the skillset he now ruthlessly and successfully employs and the training that made him what he is. We glimpse the days before he became the Butcher’s Boy, the highly skilled hit man who pulled a slaughter job on some double-crossing clients and started a mob war, to his childhood spent apprenticed to Eddie, a seasoned hired assassin. And we watch him pit two prominent mafia families against each other to eliminate his enemies one by one.
He’s meticulous in his approach, using an old contact turned adversary in the Organized Crime Division of the Justice Department for information, without ever allowing her to get too close to his trail. But will he be able to escape this new wave of young contract killers, or will the years finally catch up to him?
Perry’s Edgar Award”“winning Butcher’s Boy returns in full force in this exhilarating new installment to the beloved series.
*****
Enjoy the virtual event with Thomas Perry.
Let’s talk about mysteries for children. Why not? It’s the time of year to buy presents, and, if you’re a mystery reader yourself, you might have a young person in your life you can hook on the genre. It was a gift of a bag of books from an aunt that introduced me to the world of Gothic romances years ago, Phyllis A. Whitney, Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart.
Marthe Jocelyn, author of Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen, recently optioned for the screen, has a fascinating article about mysteries for children, and why you should introduce them to mysteries. The article is called, “6 Reasons to Hook Your Kid on Mysteries”. It’s available at CrimeReads, https://crimereads.com/6-reasons-to-hook-your-kid-on-mysteries/. Once you’ve read the article, you just might want to check the Web Store for some of those titles. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Don’t forget to look for Jocelyn’s Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: The Body Under the Piano.
A smart and charming middle-grade mystery series starring young detective Aggie Morton and her friend Hector, inspired by the imagined life of Agatha Christie as a child and her most popular creation, Hercule Poirot. For fans of Lemony Snicket and Enola Holmes.
Aggie Morton lives in a small town on the coast of England in 1902. Adventurous and imaginative but deeply shy, Aggie hasn’t got much to do since the death of her beloved father . . . until the fateful day when she crosses paths with twelve-year-old Belgian immigrant Hector Perot and discovers a dead body on the floor of the Mermaid Dance Room! As the number of suspects grows and the murder threatens to tear the town apart, Aggie and her new friend will need every tool at their disposal — including their insatiable curiosity, deductive skills and not a little help from their friends — to solve the case before Aggie’s beloved dance instructor is charged with a crime Aggie is sure she didn’t commit.
Filled with mystery, adventure, an unforgettable heroine and several helpings of tea and sweets, The Body Under the Piano is the clever debut of a new series for middle-grade readers and Christie and Poirot fans everywhere, from a Governor General’s Award–nominated author of historical fiction for children.
What a long strange trip it’s been… 2020, that is.. Thanks to everyone for sticking in there with us as we navigate these strangest of days together. The December Booknews is packed with great new reads for everyone on your holiday list. Enjoy!
If you’re a fan of the work of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, I’m guessing you already subscribe to their newsletter. In case you don’t, I’m copying the most recent one here. They link to The Poisoned Pen’s website for a signed copy of the upcoming Nora Kelly book, The Scorpion’s Tail. But, they also have a tale to tell. If you’ve missed the earlier parts of the story, they link to that as well. Enjoy!
| Dear Reader, Here is the fourth installment of the story of Roger Smithback’s search into the mysterious past of A.X.L.Pendergast. If you haven’t read the first three parts to the story, you can do so at this link. Before we launch into the story, we wanted to let you know of a few things you might find interesting. To order a double signed, first edition copy of the new Nora Kelly novel, THE SCORPION’S TAIL, click here. The book comes with a collectible postcard of Doug on horseback, exploring the remote White Sands of New Mexico, available nowhere else. |
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| Doug will be giving an online class called Writing Wild with the bestselling author Hampton Sides. In three presentations spread over three days in early December, Hampton and Doug will teach participants the secrets of narrative non-fiction writing about adventure—including natural science, environmental politics, adventure sports, exploration, and exotic travel. If you have an interest in writing adventure stories for publication and would like to learn more about taking this class, click here. With our warm regards, Doug & Linc |
Part 4
The strange spell that had come over the room was broken by the entrance of the maid carrying a silver platter. Madame Brissot drew what sounded like a quiet sigh of relief as the woman laid out china tea cups, cream and sugar and a plate of beignets.
“Thank you, my dear,” she said to the maid, who curtsied and left.
She removed the tea cozy and poured out cups for both of them, adding milk and sugar. “Now, where was I?” she asked.
“The burning of the Pendergast mansion,” Roger Smithback replied. “Rochenoire.”
“Yes. Of course.” She took a sip of tea. “The family had a library, with books going back centuries. There were quite a few strange Pendergast ancestors, I’ve been told, mad scientists and quack doctors and what have you, and some of those books were not suitable for a boy, especially one like…like the brother of Aloysius.”
Curious, Smithback thought, how this old woman seemed so hesitant to mention the name of Diogenes.
“He was a very curious boy—in the wrong sort of way,” she went on. I’m told he spent days in that library, wheeling the ladder with the brass wheels about, squeak squeak squeak, and climbing up for the most obscure books kept intentionally on the top shelves. He got his hands on a book called the Quinque Capitulis de Lucifugus Rofocalus—the The Five Chapters of Lucifuge Rofocale.“
“I’m not sure what that means.”
“Lucifuge Rofocale is the name of a lesser demon. But not all that lesser, if you understand me; only one step below Lucifer himself. As I understand it, I mean.”
“I see.” Smithback pushed the cell phone that he using to record a little farther across the tea table. How would this ancient matriarch know about such things? He wondered if it had anything to do with her unwillingness to mention the boy’s name aloud.
“It was an old book, published in the 16th century. According to the story I heard, he, ah…he decided to follow the directions in the book to raise that particular demon. While he couldn’t exactly read Latin fluently, he apparently puzzled his way through it.”
“How old was he then?”
“Eleven. Perhaps twelve—a precocious twelve. The book, unfortunately, outlined a hideous, five-step path to raising this demon. It involved the killing of certain animals in particular ways, the collection and burning of certain herbs, and the digging up of coffins to retrieve…certain items.”
“Jesus,” said Smithback.
“Good to invoke that name,” said Brissot. “Dogs and cats began turning up killed and mutilated. Everyone was terribly upset. You can imagine the effect that had in that wealthy quarter of town. Other religions—or rites, if you will—besides Christianity run deep in New Orleans, and fear of them has never fully gone away. The mutilations were most hideous.”
“Um, can you tell me what sort?”
The old woman went still again for a long moment. Finally, she said: “No. No, I won’t.”
When the old woman refused to give him any details about what Diogenes had done, Roger Smithback nodded.
“But it was the disturbing of the dead that put the neighborhood in a real uproar. Not far from the mansion, on Basin Street, is St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, one of the most famous in New Orleans. It is where Marie Laveau is buried.”
“Marie Laveau?”
“The voodoo queen, or so it’s claimed. One wouldn’t actually dig up a body in New Orleans, of course, because of the water table. But several mausoleums were broken into—he was good at picking locks, I was informed—the marble coffins inside smashed, and the dead disturbed.”
“How?”
Brissot paused, and gave a long sigh. “Removal of hair. Fingernails. Teeth. I won’t say anymore, except that these acts followed, to the letter, the directions in that terrible book. You can imagine the uproar this caused. But nobody knew who was perpetrating it—except one person. Her name was Josephine Villere, a rather strange, middle-aged French lady, and she was the Pendergasts’ cook. She caught…the boy one day with pieces of one of the animals he butchered. She confronted him, and he brazenly admitted what he was doing. She tried to get him to stop, but he simply taunted her, daring her to reveal it, and finally—after the incidents in the cemetery—she told his parents.”
“Do you have their first names?”
“Linnaeus and Isabella.” She paused to sip her tea and pick up a beignet.
“The parents were horrified and tried to speak to their son about it, but he was obdurate and defiant. So they made arrangements to send him away to boarding school, as they had done with Aloysius. He was furious at the cook for telling on him, and so he—what is the word?—framed her.”
“How did he do that?”
The woman nibbled on her beignet.
“At this point, young man, you understand that everything I’ve heard is second-hand. I can’t be sure how much is true, although I suspect that most or all of it is. In any case, it was apparently fiendishly clever for such a young boy. He killed a cat, mutilated it, put it in her freezer, and contrived for it to be found. Word got out, the neighborhood was in an uproar, and a group assembled and arrived at the house to demand the cook come out. They were going to take her to the police station. Or so they said later. But from what I heard, it looked more like a mob than a posse comitatus. Mr. and Mrs. Pendergast, who of course knew the cook was innocent but didn’t want the truth to be revealed, came out to try to reason with the crowd. There were some who’d been drinking, of course. I also believe there was an agitator in the crowd: a person from a family with a long, enmity to the Pendergasts, going back centuries. That, at any rate, was what Bertin told me.”
“Do you know the name of this other family?”
“Barbeaux. Over the generations, the Pendergast family had accumulated more than their share of enemies, for a variety of reasons. In any case, the parents refused to give up the cook; the crowd got unruly; shots were fired; and then, somehow, that fire was started. Bertin thought the Barbeaux family member might have done it under the cover of the unruly crowd. But today, it’s impossible to know for sure. But it was a dreadful fire, and it was hungry. That was an old house, with many wooden timbers, stuffed with bric-a-brac, books and papers. The parents didn’t escape, nor did poor Villiers, but Bertin, who knew about the passageway out of the crypt and had a key to its entrance, managed to save the young boy who was the cause of it all, along with some servants. He led them downstairs and through the secret passage to safety. Of course, as soon as the fire started in earnest, the crowd dispersed. Nothing could be proved and nobody was arrested. The ruins of the house were bulldozed. It was a vacant lot briefly, before the entire area was sealed in asphalt.”
She finished her tea and poured herself another, Smithback hadn’t touched his, so enthralled was he by the story. He now took a few gulps and ate a beignet.
“I wonder,” he asked, “does that passageway still exists?”
“You’d have to break into the Pendergast mausoleum at St. Louis No. 1 to find out. I would not think that advisable.”
“Right. Of course.”
She finished her second cup of tea and said, brightly, “Well, we’ve had a lovely tea, but it is now time for my rest.”
Smithback thanked her most effusively and went off, so thrilled with what he’d learned that he even smiled at the sour-faced butler.
Next on the agenda: breaking into the Pendergast mausoleum.
Matthew Hart’s The Russian Pink is the Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. Looking for something a little different to give as a gift? How about a signed copy of The Russian Pink? You can order it through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/39sJsMp
Here’s the description of The Russian Pink.
An explosive debut featuring renowned diamond expert caught in a web of deception and malice while trying to uncover the secrets behind the most expensive diamond in the world.
When “The Russian Pink”—a stunningly large rose-hued diamond—makes a surprise appearance around the neck of Honey Li, the wife of surging presidential candidate Harry Nash, Alex Turner, an investigator for the Treasury Department’s diamond division and former C.I.A. agent, finds himself spiraling down a seemingly endless rabbit hole. A diamond like that always carries secrets, but the web of mystery behind “The Pink” is more complex than Alex could ever image.
Starting with the trail of damage from botched sting operation, Alex wavers between legal and illegal tactics, friends, family, and foes to find out why a mysterious Russian double agent betrayed him and the diamond ended up on a potential path to the White House. For wherever the Russian Pink goes, secrecy, deception, and death surely follow.
With echos of both John Le Carre and Jason Matthews, The Russian Pink is a stylish and fresh page-turner that catapults the reader into the world of blood diamond trading, a world that Matthew Hart, the author of the critically acclaimed Diamond, navigates with authoritative authenticity and wit.