Patrick Millikin recently welcomed bestselling author and investigative reporter Caitlin Rother to The Poisoned Pen. Her latest true book is Down to the Bone: A Missing Family’s Murder and the Elusive Quest for Justice. There are signed copies of the book available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/45TdJ3M

Here’s the summary of Down to the Bone.

A twisting, deeply engrossing investigation into the many lingering questions surrounding the sudden disappearance of the McStays, a family of four who vanished from their suburban San Diego home without a trace – until their skeletal remains were found in the Mojave Desert nearly four years later –  from New York Times bestselling author Caitlin Rother.

On February 15, 2010, Joseph McStay, his wife Summer, and their two young sons were reported missing from their new home in San Diego County. They left eggs and fruit rotting on the counter. Their Dodge truck sat in the driveway. Their dogs were abandoned outside without food. But investigators found no blood, signs of a struggle, or clues to their whereabouts. Did the family take an unannounced vacation? Were they running away from personal problems? Or were they victims of foul play?

Nearly four years later, a motorcyclist found the McStays’ remains in and around two shallow graves, one hundred miles away in the Mojave Desert. Their skulls showed signs of blunt-force trauma, likely due to the sledgehammer buried with them. Authorities focused on Charles “Chase” Merritt, a close friend and subcontractor for Joseph’s company. Despite a lack of physical evidence, scenarios that defied logic, and numerous unanswered questions, prosecutors convinced a jury of Merritt’s guilt. After an emotional sentencing hearing, the judge imposed the death penalty. But did another possible suspect, who was ignored by investigators and ducked a subpoena to testify, get away with murder? 

In this twisting, deeply researched true-crime mystery, New York Times bestselling investigative journalist Caitlin Rother hunts for answers to reveal the truth behind a heinous crime that became a nation’s obsession, with a controversial trial in its wake, and lingering questions of justice.

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Caitlin Rother is a New York Times bestselling true crime author and award-winning journalist. She worked for nearly two decades as an investigative reporter and has had work published in Cosmopolitan, The Los Angeles Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, among others. As a TV crime commentator, she has done more than 200 media appearances on episodes of 20/20, People Magazine Investigates, Crime Watch Daily, Australia’s World News, Nancy Grace, Snapped, and numerous shows on Netflix, Investigation Discovery, HLN, REELZ, Oxygen, E!, A&E, C-SPAN and various PBS affiliates. Rother also works as a writing/research coach and consultant, and plays piano and sings in an acoustic band. She lives in Southern California and can be found online at CaitlinRother.com.

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During the event, Rother discusses her last three books. The true crimes all had connections to Arizona. Check it out.

Sulari Gentill launched her new mystery, Five Found Dead, at The Poisoned Pen. The award-winning Australian author discussed her book, an homage to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, but she also talked about her cancer diagnosis and how it relates to the book. I urge you to watch the video from the Pen. It explains so much of the background of the book. There are signed copies, both in hardcover and paperback, available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3V40irt

Here’s the description of Five Found Dead.

On a train, there are only so many places to hide…

Crime fiction author Joe Penvale has won the most brutal battle of his life. Now that he has finished his intense medical treatment, he and his twin sister, Meredith, are boarding the glorious Orient Express in Paris, hoping for some much-needed rest and rejuvenation. Meredith also hopes that the literary ghosts on the train will nudge Joe’s muse awake, and he’ll be inspired to write again. And he is; after their first evening spent getting to know some of their fellow travelers, Joe pulls out his laptop and opens a new document. Seems like this trip is just what the doctor ordered…

And then some. The next morning, Joe and Meredith are shocked to witness that the cabin next door has become a crime scene, bathed in blood but with no body in sight. The pair soon find themselves caught up in an Agatha Christie-esque murder investigation. Without any help from the authorities, and with the victim still not found, Joe and Meredith are asked to join a group of fellow passengers with law enforcement backgrounds to look into the mysterious disappearance of the man in Cabin16G. But when the steward guarding the crime scene is murdered, it marks the beginning of a killing spree which leaves five found dead—and one still missing. Now Joe and Meredith must fight once again to preserve their newfound future and to catch a cunning killer before they reach the end of the line.

USA Today bestselling author Sulari Gentill brings readers on a heart-pounding ride filled with intrigue, suspense, and literary charm in Five Found Dead, perfect for fans of twisty mysteries and books about books.

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After setting out to study astrophysics, graduating in law and then abandoning her legal career to write books, SULARI GENTILL now grows French black truffles on her farm in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains of Australia.

Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair mysteries have won and/or been shortlisted for the Davitt Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and her stand-alone metafiction thriller, After She Wrote Him won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel in 2018. Her tenth Sinclair novel, A Testament of Character, was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Best Crime Novel in 2021.

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I seldom write a personal note on this blog, but I think you’ll appreciate the background Sulari Gentill presents in her conversation with Barbara Peters.

Elise Hart Kipness recently appeared at The Poisoned Pen, welcomed by the store’s owner, Barbara Peters. Kipness’ third Kate Green thriller is Close Call. And, it’s relevant to the book that Kipness herself was a sports reporter, as is her character. There are signed copies available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3V4BQX0

Here’s the summary of Close Call.

In a hard-hitting thriller from the author of Lights Out and Dangerous Play, reporter Kate Green courts danger once again when the famous subject of her next story is kidnapped during the US Open.

With a hard-won Emmy now gracing her mantel, sports reporter and former Olympian Kate Green turns her energy to the action unfolding in Flushing Meadows. Working on a feature for her weekly TV show, she spotlights two of today’s biggest female tennis stars: the sunny up-and-comer and the brash veteran. But the project goes sideways when one turns up missing.

Following an interview with Kate, one player receives a sinister text with a disturbing photo of the other woman, bound and gagged. Kate calls on her estranged father, an NYPD detective, for help in launching a search. Although wary he’s hiding something, she’s not sure where else to turn.

Their investigation leads to the victim’s hometown—and a growing list of suspects. The kidnapper threatens to spill secrets that could destroy lives. Tangled up in a deadly web of deceit, Kate races to connect the dots and find the missing player…before it’s too late.

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Elise Hart Kipness is a television sports reporter turned crime fiction writer. Close Call is based on Elise’s experience in the high-pressure, adrenaline-pumping world of live TV. Like her protagonist, Elise chased marquee athletes at the US Open and stood under the glaring lights reporting to national audiences.

In addition to reporting for Fox Sports Network, Elise was a reporter at New York’s WNBC-TV, News 12 Long Island, and the Associated Press. She is currently copresident of Sisters in Crime Connecticut. When not writing, Elise loves reading and binge-watching thrillers, and she will fight you for the last scoop of coffee ice cream.

A graduate of Brown University, Elise has two college-age sons. Elise, her husband, and their three labradoodles split time between Key West, Florida, and Stamford, Connecticut.

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Enjoy Elise Hart Kipness’ discussion.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Francesca Serritella to the bookstore. They began by talking about the sense of smell in novels. The smell of perfume is central to Serritella’s book, Full Bloom. There are signed copies of the book available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3V6gqbW

Here’s the description of Full Bloom.

The power to be seen. The power to be heard. The power to be adored. . .

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A woman’s life is forever changed by a mysterious perfume in this stunning novel about ambition and untapped desire from the New York Times bestselling author of Ghosts of Harvard.

“An absolutely gorgeous read—the perfect combination of romance, mystery, and magical realism, with a vibrant cast of characters.”—Sarah MacLean, author of These Summer Storms

Reeling from a breakup and overlooked at her job as a lighting designer, Iris Sunnegren finds herself stuck, disconnected, and lonely in crowded New York City. Her wealthy friends are married and having babies, while she’s trying to pay for freezing her eggs. And the future she longs for feels out of reach.

Then, a mysterious neighbor, an older Frenchwoman, makes her a gift: a bespoke perfume.

One spritz, a dab behind the ears, and Iris feels like a different woman. Suddenly, she is the object of every man’s desire, and she can satisfy her own hungers for sex, love, and ambition. She can cast off her inhibitions and use her newfound allure to dazzle the high-profile client, attract a man who excites her like no other, and access all the rarified spaces that once excluded her. Invigorated by the perfume, Iris embodies her maximum power—a flower fully bloomed.

But there is danger in connecting to our primal emotions. Scent awakens buried memories, and nightmares of the childhood house fire she barely survived return to haunt her. As Iris ventures deeper into the glamorous and male-dominated worlds of New York real estate, dimly-lit steakhouses, and beachfront mansions in the Hamptons, she finds herself getting closer to unspeakable truths—about the people she trusted, about the people she loved, and about the new circle of power-players that invited her in.

A sensual and seductive novel set among the upper echelons of New York City, Full Bloom is at once a poignant story of becoming and a riveting mystery that asks: Who are you without your inhibitions? Does being wanted get you what you want, or will you be devoured by desire?

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Francesca Serritella is the New York Times bestselling author of Ghosts of Harvard, nominated for Best First Novel by International Thriller Writers, and a nine-book series of essay collections co-written with her mother, bestselling author Lisa Scottoline, and based on their Sunday column in The Philadelphia Inquirer. She graduated cum laude from Harvard University, where she won multiple awards for her fiction, including the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize.

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Enjoy the conversation with Francesca Serritella.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Lisa Gardner and guest host Isabella Maldonado. Gardner’s latest Frankie Elkin novel is Kiss Her Goodbye. There are signed copies of the book available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/46WuHiS

Here’s the description of Kiss Her Goodbye.

A New York Times bestselling author returns with the latest installment in the addictive Frankie Elkin series, in which Frankie is called to Tucson, Arizona, to find a missing Afghan refugee, whose friend suspects she is in grave danger—before it is too late. “Timely and completely gripping.” (Louise Penny, New York Times bestselling author)

Recent Afghan refugee and young mother Sabera Ahmadi was last seen exiting her place of work three weeks ago. The local police have yet to open a case, while her older, domineering husband seems unconcerned. At the insistence of Sabera’s closest friend, missing persons expert Frankie Elkin agrees to take up the search just in time for a video of Sabera to surface—showing her walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder.    

Frankie quickly notes there’s much more to the Ahmadi family than meets the eye. The father Isaad is a brilliant mathematician, Sabera a gifted linguist, and their little girl Zahra has an uncanny ability to remember anything she sees. Which given everything that has happened during the girl’s short life, may be a terrible curse.

When Isaad also disappears under mysterious circumstances and an attempt is made on Zahra’s life, Frankie realizes she must crack the code of this family’s horrific past. Someone is coming for the Ahmadis. And violence is clearly an option.

When everything is on the line, how far would you go to protect the ones you love? Frankie is about to find out.

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Lisa Gardner, a #1 New York Times bestselling thriller novelist, began her career in food service, but after catching her hair on fire numerous times, she took the hint and focused on writing instead. A self-described research junkie, she has transformed her interest in police procedure and criminal minds into a streak of internationally acclaimed novels, published across 30 countries. Her novel, The Neighbor, won Best Hardcover Novel from the International Thriller Writers.  She has also been honored for her work with animal rescue and at-risk children.  An avid hiker, gardener and cribbage player, Lisa lives with her family in New England.

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Check out Lisa Gardner’s conversation with Isabella Maldonado.

Oline Cogdill recently reviewed Daniel Miller’s The Red Letter for the “South Florida Sun Sentinel”, and allowed us to use her review. You can order a copy of the book through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/45dTvBC

Book review: Murder mystery, believable characters drive ‘The Red Letter’

‘The Red Letter’ by Daniel G. Miller; Poisoned Pen/Sourcebooks; 352 pages; $17.99

Daniel G. Miller delivers an energetic private detective novel with a solid police procedural, bits of Korean culture and visits to New York neighborhoods in “The Red Letter.”

It also works well as a story about a new business getting off the ground and the challenges that entails.

Life has taken a turn for the better for Hazel Cho. Her boutique private investigative firm has finally taken off, her staff is tight-knit, and she and her business partner have thrown a terrific opening party. She’s deeply in love with a nice man, who even has her parents’ approval; he’s also a strong candidate for New York mayor. And her relationship with her family and friends has never been better.

What she doesn’t want is a case that one of her closest friends wants her to take. Father Kenneally, a well-respected Catholic priest, was poisoned, with his death captured on camera inside St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in Lower Manhattan. A young man who did odd jobs and errands for the priest was soon arrested, his fingerprints found on a red envelope containing an odd Bible verse inside the priest’s desk.

Hazel’s reluctance stems from her personal knowledge of the priest. Hazel knew him to be compassionate, involved with an unblemished reputation. She fears that an investigation may prove the priest had a dark side. But she changes her mind after visiting in jail the young man accused of the murder. The case takes a turn when more people who seem to have nothing in common are poisoned, each of whom possessed a red envelope containing similar verses.

A brisk plot keeps “The Red Letter” moving as Miller, who lives in Delray Beach, takes the reader to myriad New York streets teeming with believable characters. Miller invests unique personalities into each of Hazel’s staff and her business partner, Kenny, at C&S Investigations.

Hazel and crew will be most welcomed back.

The latest video event at the Poisoned Pen featured Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, in conversation with Sarah Stewart Taylor and Archer Sullivan. Taylor’s latest book is Hunter’s Heart Ridge. Sullivan’s debut mystery is The Witch’s Orchard, the First Mystery Club pick for August. There are signed copies of both books available in the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the description of Hunter’s Heart Ridge, the sequel to Agony Hill.

In this sequel to Taylor’s lyrical series debut, Agony Hill, Detective Frank Warren and his formerly CIA-connected neighbor Alice Bellows return to investigate the death of a diplomat.

It’s November of 1965 and the second weekend of Vermont’s regular deer season when Vermont State Police detective Franklin Warren is called out to what looks like an accidental shooting at The Ridge Club, an exclusive men’s hunting and fishing club for congressmen, diplomats, judges, and titans of industry: a former ambassador has been shot while out hunting. With the war in Vietnam picking up speed on the other side of the world, Warren quickly realizes that many of the club’s members are powerful men who may have ulterior motives and connections in high places.

While Warren’s suspicions about the club members build, his neighbor Alice Bellows is throwing a dinner party, preparing for Thanksgiving, and worrying about her pregnant friend and fellow widow, Sylvie Weber, whose due date is coming up. When Alice’s old handler and friend, Arthur Crannock, unexpectedly shows up in Bethany, Alice begins to wonder whether his presence has anything to do with the death at the hunting club.

As an early season snowstorm bears down on Bethany, knocking out power and phone lines and blocking the roads, Warren and his assistant, Trooper Pinky Goodrich, are trapped at the Ridge Club, likely along with a killer, and Alice, increasingly fearful that her past in the intelligence world is no longer in the past, will have to act fast to save Sylvie and her baby.

Sarah Stewart Taylor’s historical series combines the intricacy of a satisfying mystery with keen observation of a time and place during great transformation and upheaval.

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SARAH STEWART TAYLOR is the author of the Sweeney St. George series, set in New England, the Maggie D’arcy mysteries, set in Ireland and on Long Island, and Agony Hill, the first in a new series set in rural Vermont in the 1960s. Sarah has been nominated for an Agatha Award and for the Dashiell Hammett Prize and her mysteries have appeared on numerous Best of the Year lists. A former journalist and teacher, she writes and lives with her family on a farm in Vermont where they raise sheep and grow blueberries.

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Here’s your introduction to the debut, The Witch’s Orchard.

A ninth-generation Appalachian, Archer Sullivan brings the mountains of North Carolina to life in The Witch’s Orchard, a wonderfully atmospheric novel that introduces private investigator Annie Gore.

Former Air Force special investigator Annie Gore joined the military right after high school to escape the fraught homelife of her childhood. Now, she’s getting by as a private investigator, and her latest case takes her to an Appalachian holler not unlike the one where she grew up.

Ten years ago, three little girls went missing from their tiny mountain town. While one was returned, the others were never seen again. After all this time without answers, the brother of one of the girls wants to hire an outsider, and he wants Annie. While she may not be from his town, she gets mountain towns. Mountain people. Driving back into the hills for a case this old—it might be a fool’s errand. But Annie needs to put money in the bank and she can’t turn down a case. Not even one that dredges up her own painful past.

In the shadow of the Blue Ridge, Annie begins to track down the truth, navigating a decade’s worth of secrets, folklore of witches and crows, and a whole town that prefers to forget. But while the case may have been forgotten, echoes of the past linger. And Annie’s arrival stirs someone into action.

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ARCHER SULLIVAN is a ninth generation Appalachian. She’s moved thirty-seven times and has lived everywhere from Monticello, Kentucky to Manhattan, New York and from Black Mountain, North Carolina to Beverly Hills, California. Her work has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Tough, Shotgun Honey, Reckon Review, Rock and a Hard Place, and The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024.

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Enjoy the conversation with Barbara Peters, Sarah Stewart Taylor and Archer Sullivan.

Let’s start with a quote about Scott Carson’s latest book, Departure 37. “Horror meets coming-of-age in this thrilling novel in which forgotten Cold War mysteries make a terrifying reappearance, from a writer Stephen King has called “a master.”

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Scott Carson (a pseudonym for Michael Koryta) for a virtual event to discuss his new novel. There are a few signed copies of Departure 37 left in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4fzpYWz

Here is the description of Departure 37.

On a clear October day, the American skies empty after hundreds of pilots refuse to fly, triggering a complete ground stop as authorities seek to explain an act of baffling coordination that the pilots insist was anything but planned. The pilots received disturbing, middle-of-the-night calls from their mothers, and each mother had a simple and urgent request: do not fly today.

There are a few concerning elements to the calls. None of the mothers remember making them—and some of the mothers are dead.

While the nation’s military chiefs and artificial intelligence experts mobilize in search of answers, a sixteen-year-old girl named Charlie on the coast of Maine watches a strange, silvery balloon drift across the water and toward her home—a place she loathes. Her father’s dream of opening a craft brewery on an old airfield has been a disaster, and all she wants is an escape back to Brooklyn.

She’s about to get much more than that.

Her new home is ground zero for a story that begins at a remote naval base in Indiana during the winter of 1962, when a physicist named Martin Hazelton discovered something extraordinary—and deadly. All Hazelton wanted was time to seek an explanation, but pressure from both American and Russian actors forced him into a perilous race.

Moving between the two characters and timelines, Scott Carson deftly weaves Cold War espionage with contemporary terror in a story that explains why #1 New York Times bestseller Joe Hill has declared himself “a fan for life.”

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Scott Carson is the pseudonym of Michael Koryta, a New York Times bestselling author whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages, adapted into major motion pictures, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A former private investigator and reporter, his writing has been praised by Stephen King, Michael Connelly, and Dean Koontz, among many others. Raised in Bloomington, Indiana, he now lives in Indiana and Maine.

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This is a very serious conversation with Scott Carson.

Joe Pan recently appeared at The Poisoned Pen to discuss his debut novel, Florida Palms. There are signed copies available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4mcIGWs

Thanks to Oline Cogdill for sharing her review of Florida Palms as it appeared in the South Florida SunSentinel.

Book review: ‘Florida Palms’ shows a fascinating part of the Sunshine State

‘Florida Palms’ by Joe Pan; Simon & Schuster; 480 pages; $29.99

Award-winning poet Joe Pan confidently delivers an uncompromising look at the criminal underworld of Central Florida in his fiction debut “Florida Palms.”

With the Space Coast as the backdrop, “Florida Palms” depicts a setting that would not draw tourists or residents. But even as Pan illustrates a gritty area, he also shows a fascinating part of the Sunshine State shaped by the aerospace industry that elevated the region and now, because of economics, is on the downslide.

“Florida Palms” is devoid of heroes, but works as a coming-of-age tale about two slackers dealing with a lack of jobs, ambition and their own limitations.

Newly graduated from high school, Eddy and Cueball don’t see much of a future. That’s actually all right, in a way. They’d much rather spend their time fishing off the Melbourne Causeway, smoking weed, getting drunk or watching TV. Their goals are less than minimal. The only reason they want a job is because they need cash to buy more booze or weed.

The two are offered a job by Cueball’s father, Bird, delivering furniture for his company. Bird, who was in prison for drug trafficking, seems to be operating a legitimate business. But instead, he’s just found a different way to run drugs.

Cueball and Eddy actually prove to be conscientious workers, making deliveries on time and being careful with the items. Then crime boss Seizer, for whom Bird used to work, sees the perfect cover — hide a new designer drug in the furniture being moved along the East Coast. Cueball and Eddy are unwittingly drawn into the scheme and pulled into a turf war between Seizer’s crew, which includes Bird, and a rival gang.

Pan shifts the focus from Cueball and Eddy to Bird. The teens come to understand the brutality of the business they’re being drawn into and of the men they are working with. Bird begins to take more control of the criminal enterprise as he tries to get more power. His capacity for violence has no limit as Pan unflinchingly delves into darker and darker territory. Pan’s eye for scenery works in tandem with the plot as “Florida Palms” moves from the towns of the Space Coast such as Satellite Beach, Melbourne and Cocoa, down to Miami to Georgia and environs.

Pan excels at making the reader care about Cueball and Eddy, who start out as naive, harmless slackers. It’s almost heartbreaking as they succumb to the lure of what seems to be easy money and drugs. They will need every bit of inner resolve to survive.

While other authors have used the Space Coast for individual scenes, this region of Florida remains an untapped area for mystery writers. Although a bit of trimming would have enhanced the story, “Florida Palms” ushers in a new talent.

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If you’d like to see Joe Pan’s conversation with Patrick Millikin from The Poisoned Pen, you can watch it here.