Congratulations to the nominees for the Macavity Awards. The Macavity Awards are nominated and voted on by members of Mystery Readers International. Check the list, and then check the Webstore for copies of the books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/.
Macavity Nominees 2024
For works published in 2023
Best Mystery
Dark Ride by Lou Berney Hide by Tracy Clark All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby Happiness Falls by Angie Kim Murder Book by Thomas Perry Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
Best First Mystery
The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry The Golden Gate by Amy Chua Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy Murder by Degrees by Ritu Mukerji Dutch Threat by Josh Pachter
Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical Mystery
Time’s Undoing by Cheryl Head Evergreen by Naomi Hirahara The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger Our Lying Kin by Claudia Hagadus Long The Mistress of Bhatia House by Sujata Massey The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
Best Mystery-related Nonfiction/Critical
Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction by Anjili Babbar Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall by Zeke Faux Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Robert Morgan
Because most of short stories are from magazines, they’re not listed here. Check Mystery Fanfare for the Best Mystery Short Story nominees.
“Fiendishly clever.” That’s how John Charles from The Poisoned Pen described both Stuart Turton and Ruth Ware. Charles welcomed Ware for her first live event at the bookstore, and Turton for his return. Turton’s new book is The Last Murder at the End of the World. Ware’s latest is One Perfect Couple. There are signed copies of both books available in the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/.
Here’s the description of One Perfect Couple.
Harkening to Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None, this high-tension and ingenious thriller follows five couples trapped on a storm-swept island as a killer stalks among them—from Ruth Ware, the New York Times bestselling author who “is turning out to be as ingenious and indefatigable as the Queen of Crime” (The Washington Post).
Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, One Perfect Couple, she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.
But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death.
A fast-paced, spellbinding thriller rife with intrigue and characters that feel so true to life, this novel proves yet again that Ruth Ware is the queen of psychological suspense.
Ruth Ware worked as a waitress, a bookseller, a teacher of English as a foreign language, and a press officer before settling down as a full-time writer. She now lives with her family in Sussex, on the south coast of England. She is the #1 New York Times and Globe and Mail (Toronto) bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood; The Woman in Cabin 10; The Lying Game; The Death of Mrs. Westaway; The Turn of the Key; One by One; The It Girl; and Zero Days. Visit her at RuthWare.com or follow her on X @RuthWareWriter.
Here’s the description of The Last Murder at the End of the World.
FIRST PRINT RUN WITH SPRAYED EDGES!
From the bestselling author of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water comes an inventive, high-concept murder mystery: an ingenious puzzle, an extraordinary backdrop, and an audacious solution.
Solve the murder to save what’s left of the world.
Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched.
On the island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they’re told by the scientists.
Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn’t solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—and everyone on it.
But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer—and they don’t even know it.
And the clock is ticking.
STUART TURTON is a freelance journalist who lives in West London with his wife. Stuart is not to be trusted—in the nicest possible way. The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is his first novel.
Enjoy the conversation with Stuart Turton and Ruth Ware.
The recent event with Craig Johnson was off-site from The Poisoned Pen, and there were Internet issues. You can watch part of the event on YouTube below. And, you can still order signed copies of his latest book, First Frost, through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4bzLV50
Here’s the description of the new Longmire book, First Frost.
The past and future collide in this gripping new addition to the beloved New York Times bestselling Longmire series.
It’s the summer of 1964, and recent college graduates Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear read the writing on the wall and enlist to serve in the Vietnam War. As they catch a few final waves in California before reporting for duty, a sudden storm assaults the shores and capsizes a nearby cargo boat. Walt and Henry jump to action, but it’s soon revealed by the police who greet them ashore that the sunken boat carried valuable contraband from underground sources.
The boys, in their early twenties and in the peak of their physical prowess from playing college football for the last four years, head out on Route 66. The question, of course, is how far they will get before the consequences of their actions catch up to them—the answer being, not very.
Back in the present day, Walt is forced to speak before a Judge following the fatal events of The Longmire Defense. With powerful enemies lurking behind the scenes, the sheriff of Absaroka County must consider his options if he wishes to finish the fight he started.
Going back and forth between 1964 and the present day, Craig Johnson brings us a propulsive dual timeline as Walt Longmire stands between the crossfire of good and evil, law and anarchy, and compassion and cruelty at two pivotal stages in his life.
Craig Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Longmire mysteries, the basis for the hit Netflix original series Longmire. He is the recipient of the Western Writers of America Spur Award for fiction and the Mountain & Plains Independent Booksellers Association’s Reading the West Book Award for fiction. His novella Spirit of Steamboat was the first One Book Wyoming selection. He lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population 26.
Enjoy this short snippet of Craig Johnson’s discussion.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, interviewed Jaclyn Goldis about her latest book, The Main Character, but they also discussed quality train travel and the Orient Express. Check out the video for the discussion. You can order a copy of The Main Character through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/451Mx0W
Here’s the description of The Main Character.
“Rollicking good fun.” —The Wall Street Journal
A bestselling thriller author arranges a luxury train trip that is not what it appears to be in this electrifying modern homage to Agatha Christie from the author of the “tense and twisty” (Julie Clark, New York Times bestselling author) The Chateau.
Reclusive, mysterious author Ginevra Ex is famous for her unusual approach to crafting her big bestselling thrillers: she hires real people and conducts intensive interviews, then fictionalizes them. Her latest main character, Rory, is thrilled when Ginevra presents her with an extravagant bonus—a lavish trip along Italy’s Mediterranean coast on the famed, newly renovated Orient Express. But when Rory boards the train, she’s stunned to discover that her brother, her best friend, and even her ex-fiancé are passengers, as well. All invited by Ginevra, all hiding secrets.
With each stop, from Cinque Terre to Rome to Positano, it becomes increasingly clear that Ginevra has masterminded the ultimate real life twisty plot with Rory as her main character. And as Ginevra’s deceptions mount, and the lies and machinations of Rory’s travel companions pile up, Rory begins to fear that her trip will culminate like one of Ginevra’s books: with a murder or two. In the opulent compartments of the iconic train, Rory must untangle the shocking reasons why Ginevra wanted them all aboard—and to what deadly end.
Another stylish and compulsively readable mystery from Jaclyn Goldis, this is the perfect read for fans of Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley, and Paula Hawkins.
Jaclyn Goldis is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and NYU School of Law. She practiced estate planning law at a large Chicago firm for seven years before leaving her job to travel the world and write novels. After culling her possessions into only what would fit in a backpack, she traveled for over a year until settling in Tel Aviv, where she can often be found writing from cafés near the beach. She is the author of The Chateau and The Main Character.
Tom Straw has an interesting background as a writer for television, and he wrote the Castle novels. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, asked Straw to talk about that before he talked about his new book, The Accidental Joe. You can order his book through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3wMuGyh
Here’s the description of The Accidental Joe.
A maverick celebrity chef reluctantly agrees to let the CIA use his hugely popular international food, culture, and travel TV series as cover for a dangerous espionage mission.
When the CIA approaches celebrity chef Sebastian Pike about using his award-winning food and culture travel show as cover for espionage, the outspoken bad-boy host says no. When they point out how roaming the globe interviewing foodies, heads of state, rock stars, journalists-in-exile, poets, subversives, supermodels—even the pope—gives him perfect cover, Pike smiles and says, “F@#! no.”
They push. Promising it’s only one mission. Vowing he won’t be in danger. Calling him the MVB: Most Valuable Bystander. They’d embed their top agent in his crew to do the spy work.
It’s still no. But when they hit him with the patriotism card, he weakens. And when romantic sparks crackle between him and the female agent, Pike’s all in, kicking off a romantic spy thriller in which the globetrotting celebrity chef uses his TV series to help sneak Putin’s accountant out of Russia before he’s exposed as a mole for US intelligence.
The high-stakes mission quickly puts Pike in harm’s way. So much for MVB. There’s danger, there’s double dealing, there’s torture, there’s shooting with real bullets. Plus, a minefield of complications from the hot romance that grows between Pike and his gutsy CIA handler-producer, Cammie Nova.
From Paris to Provence, this chef is no bystander. Beyond their attraction, Pike and Nova become an operational team, not only to survive the perils they face but to pull off an operation fraught with one twist after another, capped by a shocking, emotional climax.
Tom Straw is an Emmy and Writers Guild of America–nominated writer-producer, New York Times bestselling author, and former Mystery Writers of America board member.
Writing as Richard Castle, Tom originated the hit Nikki Heat series, writing its first seven novels, all New York Times bestsellers, including Heat Rises, which reached number one. Later, he published Buzz Killer under his own name, because Stephen King was already taken.
Tom dropped out of UCLA to become a DJ, and soon after, a TV weathercaster. Subsequently, he began a television writing career on comedies including Night Court, for which he earned two WGA “Best Comedy Writer” nominations and a Primetime Emmy nomination. Tom served as head writer and executive producer of Dave’s World, Grace Under Fire, Whoopi, and Nurse Jackie. He also wrote for CBS’s Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Seems like Tom Straw can’t keep a job.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson to the bookstore for the first time in person. The two authors are taking over the “Clancyverse” with Jack Ryan, after Marc Cameron moved on to write his own books. And, of course, it’s the fortieth anniversary of Hunt for Red October. Their first book in the Jack Ryan series is Tom Clancy Act of Defiance. There are signed copies available through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4bv0Ptn
Here’s the description of Tom Clancy Act of Defiance.
A rogue nuclear Russian submarine is steaming toward the East Coast of the United States. For President Jack Ryan, memories of past events may seem stunningly vivid, but the dangers are terrifyingly real in the latest entry in this #1 New York Times bestselling series.
US intelligence is reporting turmoil in the Russian navy. Their deadliest submarine, the Belgorod, has unexpectedly launched, and taken along with it a long list of questions. Who authorized the departure? What mission is it on? And, most disturbing of all, what weapons do the giant doors on the sub’s bow hide?
It’s been four decades since a similar incident with the Soviet sub, Red October, ended happily, thanks to a young CIA analyst named Jack Ryan.
Now, President Jack Ryan finds himself with fleets of ships, squadrons of jets, and teams of SEALs at his command, but what he doesn’t have is insight into the plans of the Belgorod’s commander. It falls to a younger generation of Ryans to do the dangerous work that will reveal that information.
But there’s always a price to be paid. When the final moments tick away, will Jack Ryan have to choose between the safety of his country and the safety of his child?
Thirty-five years ago, Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore’s Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October, sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it “the perfect yarn.” From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense. He passed away in October 2013.
Brian Andrews is a U.S. Navy veteran, Park Leadership Fellow, and former submarine officer with a psychology degree from Vanderbilt and a masters in business from Cornell University.
Jeffrey Wilson has worked as an actor, firefighter, paramedic, jet pilot, and diving instructor, as well as a vascular and trauma surgeon. He served in the U.S. Navy for fourteen years and made multiple deployments as a combat surgeon with an East Coast-based SEAL Team. He and his wife, Wendy, live in Southwest Florida with their four children.
Enjoy the conversation about the book, and how Andrews and Wilson write together.
Patrick Millikin is right in his wheelhouse hosting Daniel Weizmann for The Poisoned Pen. This is the Pacific Coast Highway series featuring a failed songwriter and accidental crime solver. The first book was The Last Songbird. You can order the new book, Cinnamon Girl, through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4bTo6Vl
Here’s the description of Cinnamon Girl.
“Evocative, nostalgic, haunting, twisty, and true, Weizmann’s fast paced and smartly written CINNAMON GIRL is everything there is to love about a classic PI novel and more … much more.” — Reed Farrel Coleman, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of SLEEPLESS CITY
From the author of the acclaimed The Last Songbird, Lyft driver-turned-sleuth Adam Zantz returns in a neo-noir dive into the dark side of LA’s rock scene . . .
Adam Zantz is still driving for Lyft, struggling to make ends meet, when his beloved former piano teacher makes a deathbed request: He wants Zantz to prove his son’s innocence in a decades-earlier murder case.
There doesn’t seem to be much hope of solving such a cold case—until Zantz stumbles onto a test pressing of a never-released vinyl LP. The recording is of a high school garage band lost to the tides of the Paisley Underground, the acid-fueled early ’80s music scene that spawned the Bangles and the Three O’Clock.
Down the psychedelic rabbit hole Adam falls, tracing the band’s journey from the middle class garage to the precipice of fame—a twisted tale marked by crooked DJs, elder-scammers, wellness hucksters, a teen cult, and the woman who held the key to the band’s triumph and ruin.
One part Raymond Chandler, one part Ziggy Stardust, Cinnamon Girlis both an indelible, moving portrait of Los .Angeles, and a suspenseful tale of greed, lust, betrayal, and the hidden price of teenage yearning.
EXTRA! A QR code will be added for the liner notes of the album by The Daily Telegraph. These feature importantly in the novel.
Daniel Weizmann is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Billboard, the Guardian, AP Newswire, and more. Under the nom de plume, Shredder, Weizmann also wrote for the long running Flipside fanzine, as well as LA Weekly, which once called him “an incomparable punk stylist.” Most recently, Weizmann co-authored Game Changer by Michael Solomon and Rishon Blumberg (Harper Leadership, 2020). He lives in Los Angeles, California.
Enjoy Millikin’s conversation with Daniel Weizmann.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Matt Goldman to the bookstore. Goldman’s standalone is Still Waters, and there are signed copies of it in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3WM4iiC
Here’s the summary of Still Waters.
If you’re reading this email, I am dead. I know this will sound strange, but someone has been trying to kill me.
Liv and Gabe Ahlstrom are estranged siblings who haven’t seen each other in years, but that’s about to change when they receive a rare call from their older brother’s wife. “Mack is dead,” she says. “He died of a seizure.” Five minutes after they hang up, Liv and Gabe each receive a scheduled email from their dead brother, claiming that he was murdered.
The siblings return to their family-run resort in the Northwoods of Minnesota to investigate Mack’s claims, but Leech Lake has more in store for them than either could imagine. Drawn into a tangled web of lies and betrayal that spans decades, they put their lives on the line to unravel the truth about their brother, their parents, themselves, and the small town in which they grew up. After all, no one can keep a secret in a small town, but someone in Leech Lake is willing to kill for the truth to stay buried.
New York Times bestselling and Emmy award-winning author Matt Goldman returns with a gripping, emotional thrill ride in this compelling story on grief and uncovering the past before it’s too late.
Matt Goldman is a playwright and Emmy Award-winning television writer for Seinfeld, Ellen, and other shows. He brings his signature storytelling abilities and light touch to his Nils Shapiro series, which begins with Gone to Dust. He lives in Minnesota with his wife, pets, and whichever children happen to be around.
Enjoy the discussion of Goldman’s background and his books.
After Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, introduced Graham Moore and his new thriller, The Wealth of Shadows by mentioning Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations, Moore joked he was going to have a hard time overcoming that. But, Moore does manage to talk about his thriller and history. You can find signed copies of The Wealth of Shadows in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3wKhWYV
Here’s the description of The Wealth of Shadows.
“A thriller of a different kind—with an unlikely band of economists and bureaucrats working in the shadows to save the world.”—Charles Frazier, New York Times bestselling author of Cold Mountain
An ordinary man joins a secret mission to bring down the Nazi war machine by crashing their economy in this thrilling novel based on a true story, from the Academy Award–winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and bestselling author of The Last Days of Night.
1939. Ansel Luxford has everything a person could want—a comfortable career, a brilliant spouse, a beautiful new baby. But he is obsessed by a belief that Europe is on the precipice of a war that will grow to consume the world. The United States is officially proclaiming neutrality in any foreign conflict, but when Ansel is offered an opportunity to move to Washington, D.C., to join a clandestine project within the Treasury Department that is working to undermine Nazi Germany, he uproots his family overnight and takes on the challenge of a lifetime.
How can they defeat the enemy without firing a bullet?
To thwart the Nazis, Ansel and his team invent a powerful new theater of battle: economic warfare. Money is a dangerous weapon, and Ansel’s efforts will plunge him into a world full of peril and deceit. He will crisscross the globe to broker backroom deals, undertake daring heists, and spar with titans of industry like J.P. Morgan and the century’s greatest economic mind, Britain’s John Maynard Keynes. When Ansel’s wife takes a job with the FBI to hunt for spies within the government, the need for subterfuge extends to the home front. And Ansel discovers that he might be closer to those spies than he could ever imagine.
The Wealth of Shadows is a mind-expanding historical novel about the mysterious powers of money, the lies worth telling to defeat evil, and a hidden war that shaped the modern world.
Graham Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of The Holdout, The Last Days of Night, and The Sherlockian; and the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game, for which he also won a Writers Guild of America Award; and director and co-writer of The Outfit, which was nominated for a British Independent Film Award. Moore was born in Chicago, received a B.A. in religious history from Columbia University. He lives in Los Angeles.
Enjoy Graham Moore’s discussion of history and his book.
