Chad Dundas appears at The Poisoned Pen on Thursday, January 23 at 7 PM. He’ll sign and discuss his Hot Book of the Week, The Blaze. You can order a signed copy of it through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2v9WGf2
Here’s the summary of The Blaze.
“In Dundas’ assured hands, one man’s search for answers makes for a lyrical, riveting meditation on memory.”–EW
One man knows the connection between two extraordinary acts of arson, fifteen years apart, in his Montana hometown–if only he could remember it.
Having lost much of his memory from a traumatic brain injury sustained in Iraq, army veteran Matthew Rose is called back to Montana after his father’s death to settle his affairs, and hopefully to settle the past as well. It’s not only a blank to him, but a mystery. Why as a teen did he suddenly become sullen and vacant, abandoning the activities and people that had meant most to him? How did he, the son of hippy activists, wind up enlisting in the first place?
Then on his first night back, Matthew sees a house go up in flames, and it turns out a local college student has died inside. And this event sparks a memory of a different fire, an unsolved crime from long ago, a part of Matthew’s past that might lead to all the answers he’s been searching for. What he finds will connect the old fire and the new, a series of long-unsolved mysteries, and a ruthless act of murder.
This is too good not to share. Dana Stabenow recently wrote a post for her own blog with an apology to Jane Austen after she watched the PBS presentation of “Sanditon”. Here’s the link, if you want an amusing reaction. You can also read the comments. https://stabenow.com/2020/01/16/we-are-so-sorry-jane/
After reading that, you might be interested in actually picking up a copy of one of Austen’s books, rather than watching television. Look for a copy of the unfinished Sanditon, as well as Austen’s other books, in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/366SFVq
Here’s the information about Sanditon.
In the vein of Downton Abbey, Jane Austen’s beloved but unfinished masterpiece-often considered her most modern and exciting novel-gets a spectacular second act in this tie-in to a major new limited television series.
Written only months before Austen’s death in 1817, Sanditon tells the story of the joyously impulsive, spirited and unconventional Charlotte Heywood and her spiky relationship with the humorous, charming (and slightly wild!) Sidney Parker. When a chance accident transports her from her rural hometown of Willingden to the would-be coastal resort of the eponymous title, it exposes Charlotte to the intrigues and dalliances of a seaside town on the make, and the characters whose fortunes depend on its commercial success. The twists and turns of the plot, which takes viewers from the West Indies to the rotting alleys of London, exposes the hidden agendas of each character and sees Charlotte discover herself… and ultimately find love.
Author Brent Ghelfi recently was guest host to interview Arizona State Unviversity professor Paul Davies at The Poisoned Pen. Davies is the author of The Demon in the Machine, the 2019 Physics Book of the Year. An unusual choice for the bookstore? Not really. Davies “embraces ideas” of magic and mystery – the magic and mystery of life. It’s available for purchase through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2TK30E2
Here’s the description of The Demon in the Machine.
What is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question, for life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. Huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery.
In this penetrating and wide-ranging book, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name; it is a domain where biology, computing, logic, chemistry, quantum physics, and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity which has the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and force us to fundamentally reconsider what it means to be alive—even illuminating the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe.
From life’s murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine journeys across an astounding landscape of cutting-edge science. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window onto the secret of life itself.
Roz Shea just wrote an excellent review in Bookreporter.com of Sulari Gentill’s latest Rowland Sinclair Mystery, Give the Devil His Due. It can be read at https://bit.ly/379rj2d. Shea provides complete background as to her interest in Australia, the setting for Gentill’s books, the story background, and the review itself. With the current worldwide interest in Australia, you might want to check out the review. Then, look for Gentill’s books, published in the United States by Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press. You can find them, including Give the Devil His Due, in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2DdMLE1
Here’s the summary of Give the Devil His Due.
For fans of Rhys Bowen, Kerry Greenwood and Jacqueline Winspear comes an adventure-packed romp that threads 1934 Sydney’s upper class and its seedy underworld.
Wealthy Rowland Sinclair, an artist with leftist friends and a free-wheeling lifestyle, reluctantly agrees to a charity race. He’ll drive his beloved yellow Mercedes on the Maroubra Speedway, renamed the Killer Track for the lives it has claimed. His teammates are a young Errol Flynn and the well-known driver Joan Richmond. It’s all good fun. But then people start to die…
The body of a journalist covering the race is found murdered in a House of Horrors. An English blueblood with Blackshirt affiliations dies in a Maroubra crash. Reporters stalk Rowly for dirt while bookmakers are after an edge. When someone takes a shot at him—it could be anyone. Then the police arrest one of Rowly’s housemates for murder.
Winner of the 2018 Ned Kelly Award for Best Mystery.
Other Rowland Sinclair Mysteries: A Few Right Thinking Men A Decline in Prophets Miles off Course Paving the New Road A Murder Unmentioned Gentlemen Formerly Dressed
Bookreporter.com caught up with J.P. Smith, whose psychological thriller, If She Were Dead, is a recent release from Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press. You can find the interview here. https://bit.ly/2Tzzst1
Here’s the description of J.P. Smith’s If She Were Dead.
“Smith spins out a sensuous, sinuous psychological thriller that compels attention to the final line.”—Booklist
Amelie and Janet are in love with the same man: Janet’s husband. One knows it; the other doesn’t. Or does she?
As bestselling novelist Amelie Ferrar knows, an affair with a married person is like a work of fiction: a kind of spy story with its rules and customs, negotiations and compromises, and many private rituals. But like any spy story, there will inevitably be a betrayal: something will slip, someone else will find out, someone may even die.
As Amelie falls deeper into her obsession with the man she loves—and his wife—the line between the fiction she writes and the reality she lives begins to blur…and the twisted ending to this story is one that not even she could have seen coming.
Where do you get your ideas? Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, doesn’t ask that question, but authors Nick Petrie and Andrew Grant both talked about their inspiration at a recent event. Petrie’s latest Peter Ash thriller, The Wild One, is set in Iceland. Andrew Grant talked about his second Paul McGrath thriller, Too Close to Home. Signed copies of both books, and other books by the authors, are available through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here’s The Wild One by Nick Petrie, the fifth Peter Ash novel.
War veteran Peter Ash tracks a murderer and his criminal family through the most forbidding and stark landscape he has ever encountered, in the latest thriller from the bestselling author of The Drifter.
Losing ground in his fight against post-traumatic claustrophobia, war veteran Peter Ash has no intention of getting on an airplane–until a grieving woman asks Peter to find her eight-year-old grandson. The woman’s daughter has been murdered. Erik, the dead daughter’s husband, is the sole suspect, and he has taken his young son and fled to Iceland for the protection of Erik’s lawless family. Finding the boy becomes more complicated when Peter is met at the airport by a man from the United States Embassy. For reasons both unknown and unofficial, it seems that Peter’s own government doesn’t want him in Iceland. The police give Peter two days of sightseeing in Reykjavik before he must report back for the first available seat home. . . and when they realize Peter isn’t going home until he accomplishes his mission, they start hunting him, too. From the northernmost European capital to a rustbound fishing vessel to a remote farm a stone’s throw from the arctic, Peter must confront his growing PTSD and the most powerful Icelandic snowstorm in a generation to find a killer, save an eight-year-old boy, and keep himself out of an Icelandic prison–or a cold Icelandic grave.
*****
Here’s the description of Andrew Grant’s Too Close to Home.
His cover: courthouse janitor. His cause: justice. But when Paul McGrath uncovers a shocking connection to a file of missing evidence, he finds the truth sometimes hits a little too close to home.
An intelligence agent-turned-courthouse janitor, Paul McGrath notices everything and everyone—but no one notices him. It’s the perfect cover for the justice he seeks for both his father and the people who’ve been wronged by a corrupt system. Now he’s discovered a missing file on Alex Pardew—the man who defrauded and likely murdered McGrath’s father but avoided conviction, thanks in large part to the loss of this very file. And what lies behind its disappearance is even worse than McGrath had feared.
Meanwhile, at the courthouse, he stumbles on the case of Len Hendrie, a small businessman who’s been accused of torching a venture capitalist’s mansion. Though Hendrie admits starting the fire, McGrath learns how the VC has preyed on average Joes to benefit himself—and his extensive wine collection. McGrath can’t resist looking deeper into this financial predator and soon finds himself in a gray area between his avenging moral compass and the limits of the law.
Then, just as the Hendrie case is heating up, McGrath receives word of the death of his father’s former housekeeper, sending him back to his family home to confront unfinished business from his past. And he’s about to find some unwelcome truths about the mother he lost as a child—and the father who hid even more secrets than he realized.
*****
What inspired books by these authors? Check out the video of the recent event to find out.
When Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently hosted Tasha Alexander and Karen Odden, she started out by talking about Odden’s Poisoned Pen scones and Peters’ own Victorian-appearing clothing. She admitted they’ll talk some about the books, but the digressions are more fun. Alexander appeared to sign In the Shadow of Vesuvius while Odden is the author of A Trace of Deceit. Signed copies of both books are available through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here’s the information about In the Shadow of Vesuvius.
In skillfully intertwined storylines from the dawn of the twentieth century and the heyday of the Roman Empire, Tasha Alexander’s In the Shadow of Vesuvius, the latest installment to her bestselling series, brings Lady Emily and her husband to Pompeii, where they uncover a recent crime in the ancient city.
Some corpses lie undisturbed longer than others. But when Lady Emily discovers a body hidden in plain sight amongst the ruins of Pompeii, she sets in motion a deadly chain of events that ties her future to the fate of a woman whose story had been lost for nearly two thousand years.
Emily and her husband, Colin Hargreaves, have accompanied her dear friend Ivy Brandon on a trip to Pompeii. When they uncover a corpse and the police dismiss the murder as the work of local gangsters, Emily launches an investigation of her own. She seems to be aided by the archaeologists excavating the ruins, including a moody painter, the enigmatic site director, and a free-thinking American capable of sparring with even the Duke of Bainbridge. But each of them has secrets hiding among the ruins.
The sudden appearance of a beautiful young woman who claims a shocking relationship to the Hargreaves family throws Emily’s investigation off-course. And as she struggles to face an unsettling truth about Colin’s past, it becomes clear that someone else wants her off the case—for good. Emily’s resolve to unearth the facts is unshakable. But how far below the surface can she dig before she risks burying herself along with the truth?
*****
Here’s Karen Odden’s A Trace of Deceit.
From the author of A Dangerous Duet comes the next book in her Victorian mystery series, this time following a daring female painter and the Scotland Yard detective who is investigating her brother’s suspicious death.
A young painter digs beneath the veneer of Victorian London’s art world to learn the truth behind her brother’s murder…
Edwin is dead. That’s what Inspector Matthew Hallam of Scotland Yard tells Annabel Rowe when she discovers him searching her brother’s flat for clues. While the news is shocking, Annabel can’t say it’s wholly unexpected, given Edwin’s past as a dissolute risk-taker and art forger, although he swore he’d reformed. After years spent blaming his reckless behavior for their parents’ deaths, Annabel is now faced with the question of who murdered him—because Edwin’s death was both violent and deliberate. A valuable French painting he’d been restoring for an auction house is missing from his studio: find the painting, find the murderer. But the owner of the artwork claims it was destroyed in a warehouse fire years ago.
As a painter at the prestigious Slade School of Art and as Edwin’s closest relative, Annabel makes the case that she is crucial to Matthew’s investigation. But in their search for the painting, Matthew and Annabel trace a path of deceit and viciousness that reaches far beyond the elegant rooms of the auction house, into an underworld of politics, corruption, and secrets someone will kill to keep.
*****
And, here’s your chance to eavesdrop on the conversation and the digressions.
Chris Hauty’s debut thriller, Deep State, is the current Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. Hauty appears at the bookstore on Thursday, January 16 at 7 PM. You can reserve a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2QndU0H
“Deep State is a propulsive, page-turning, compelling, fragmentation grenade of a debut thriller.” —C.J. Box, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wolf Pack and The Bitterroots
“The plot…rings eerily true…will keep you turning the pages well into the night.” —Jack Carr, former Navy SEAL and acclaimed author of The Terminal List and True Believer
In this white-knuckled, timely, and whip-smart debut thriller, a deadly plot against the president’s life emerges from the shadows of the Deep State.
Recently elected President Richard Monroe—populist, controversial, and divisive—is at the center of an increasingly polarized Washington, DC. Never has the partisan drama been so tense or the paranoia so rampant. In the midst of contentious political turf wars, the White House chief of staff is found dead in his house. A tenacious intern discovers a single, ominous clue that suggests he died from something other than natural causes, and that a wide-ranging conspiracy is running beneath the surface of everyday events: powerful government figures are scheming to undermine the rule of law—and democracy itself. Allies are exposed as enemies, once-dependable authorities fall under suspicion, and no one seems to be who they say they are. The unthinkable is happening. The Deep State is real. Who will die to keep its secrets and who will kill to uncover the truth?
