Tessa Lunney is fascinated by the 1920s. In fact, she set her first novel, April in Paris, 1921, in that decade.
She also wrote an article for CrimeReads that discusses authors who wrote about that period, dividing it in two parts, the Masters, such as Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammett, and the Modern Masters, including Kerry Greenwood, author of the Phryne Fisher mysteries. Once you read the article here, https://bit.ly/2LVU6gX you’ll want to come back to the Poisoned Pen’s Web Store to search for titles. https://store.poisonedpen.com
The latest book in Beth Kendrick’s Black Dog Bay series, In Dog We Trust, is scheduled for release on January 8. If you haven’t read any books by the Phoenix author, this particular series is set in Black Dog Bay because it’s been named “the best place in America to bounce back from your breakup”. Because Kendrick is one of our local authors, many of her books, including In Dog We Trust, are available as signed copies. Check out the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2LRSO6E
Here’s the summary of In Dog We Trust.
From the author of Once Upon a Wine, a new novel set in the charming seashore town of Black Dog Bay, Delaware.
When everything has gone to the dogs . . .
When Jocelyn Hillier is named legal guardian for the late Mr. Allardyce’s pack of pedigreed Labrador retrievers, her world is flipped upside down. She’s spent her entire life toiling in the tourism industry in Black Dog Bay and never expected to be living the pampered life of a seasonal resident in an ocean side mansion, complete with a generous stipend. But her new role isn’t without its challenges: The dogs (although lovable) are more high-maintenance than any Hollywood diva, the man she wants to marry breaks her heart, and she’s confronted at every turn by her late benefactor’s estranged son, Liam, who thinks he’s entitled to the inheritance left to the dogs.
Jocelyn has worked too hard to back down without a fight, and she’s determined to keep her new fur family together. As she strives to uphold the “Best in Show” standards her pack requires, Jocelyn finds love, family, and forgiveness in the most unexpected places.
*****
Joyce Lamb recently interviewed Beth Kendrick for the “Happy Ever After” column in USA Today. You can read the interview here. https://bit.ly/2F6daZe
In July, I wrote a post about Kerry Greenwood’s Miss Fisher series. You can read the entire post here, https://bit.ly/2SDYNOU but, this was the summary.
Are you familiar with the Miss Fisher mysteries written by Kerry Greenwood? The books, set in Australia in the 1920s, are published by Poisoned Pen Press. You can order them through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2JfL7W5 Of course, the books have also been made into an Australian television series. Here’s just a little information about the first book in the series, Cocaine Blues.
This is where it all started! The first classic Phryne Fisher mystery, featuring our delectable heroine, cocaine, communism and adventure. Phryne leaves the tedium of English high society for Melbourne, Australia, and never looks back. The London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Honorable Phryne Fisher—she of the green-gray eyes, diamant garters and outfits that should not be sprung suddenly on those of nervous dispositions—is rapidly tiring of the tedium of arranging flowers, making polite conversations with retired colonels, and dancing with weak-chinned men. Instead, Phryne decides it might be rather amusing to try her hand at being a lady detective in Melbourne, Australia. Almost immediately from the time she books into the Windsor Hotel, Phryne is embroiled in mystery: poisoned wives, cocaine smuggling rings, corrupt cops and communism—not to mention erotic encounters with the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse—until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.
*****
Now, we have further good news for fans of the Miss Fisher series. Ani Bundel wrote an article called “Ms Fisher’s MODern Murder Mysteries” Confirmed for 2019.”
“When we first reported on Every Cloud Productions’ aim to bring a Miss Fisher movie trilogy into theaters, it was notable that the big screen version wasn’t the only Miss Fisher-related production the company was looking to launch. There were also rumors producers that Deb Cox and Fiona Eagger were looking to find a way to bring the series back to TV, with talk of pitching a prequel series to Australia’s ABC, focusing on Miss Fisher’s younger years, not unlike the current Inspector Morse prequel Endeavour. At the time, the proposed synopsis was as follows:
That will be a younger Phryne Fisher. She is 18, her family has come into money, and she’s in the UK at a finishing school. She gets word that her best friend from Melbourne is charged of murder and is heading for the gallows. She escapes (from the finishing school) and comes back (to Australia) to save her friend. On the run is where she learns a lot of her (sleuthing) skills.
But then the Kickstarter for the Miss Fisher film happened, and in all the excitement of bringing Phryne to the big screen, the talk of a spinoff prequel was drowned out. But this didn’t mean it disappeared altogether. It seems, like the movie, ABC was not initially sold on the idea of a “Young Miss Fisher” series. But instead of Kickstartering like they did for the movie, Every Cloud Productions merely shopped the idea around, tweaking it until they found a buyer. It wound up landing on The Seven Network, who quietly confirmed it had greenlit a new series back over the summer.
This week, the first trailer dropped ahead of the show’s premiere in the new year. But this is no Edwardian set prequel series. Instead, it moves forward in time to introduce audiences to a whole new “Ms” Fisher.”
Set in 1964, audiences will meet the gorgeously reckless Peregrine Fisher who inherits a windfall when the famous aunt she never knew goes missing over the highlands of New Guinea. Peregrine must prove herself brilliant enough to become a world-class private detective in her own right.
The new Ms. Fisher will star Geraldine Hakewill as Peregrine, best known as Chelsea Babbage from the Australian TV series Wanted. Costars include Catherine McClements, whom most Australians know for her starring turn in Rush, but Americans will recognize better as part of the original stage cast of Baz Luhrmann‘s Strictly Ballroom before it became a film. Fisher’s semi-love interest will be played by Joel Jackson, who is best known as the title character in Peter Allen: Not The Boy Next Door.
According to Deb Cox, all the things fans love about the oldMiss Fisher will transfer to the new, just set in a different era.
Ms Fisher, next generation, will be as glamorous as her aunt, brandishing her signature pearl-handled pistol and bantering endlessly with the main man in her life – but her stylish apartment, her sleek sports-car and her cutting-edge wardrobe have certainly moved with the times.”
Here’s the first trailer for you to watch. Let’s hope the series will eventually be shown in the U.S.
Lyndsay Faye, author of Jane Steele, will be back at the Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, January 15 at 7 PM with her new historical thriller, The Paragon Hotel. You can order copies of Faye’s books, including a signed copy of The Paragon Hotel, through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2Rvwghl
Here’s the description of The Paragon Hotel.
The new and exciting historical thriller by Lyndsay Faye, author of Edgar-nominated Jane Steele and Gods of Gotham, which follows Alice “Nobody” from Prohibition-era Harlem to Portland’s the Paragon Hotel.
The year is 1921, and “Nobody” Alice James is on a cross-country train, carrying a bullet wound and fleeing for her life following an illicit drug and liquor deal gone horribly wrong. Desperate to get as far away as possible from New York City and those who want her dead, she has her sights set on Oregon: a distant frontier that seems the end of the line.
She befriends Max, a black Pullman porter who reminds her achingly of Harlem, who leads Alice to the Paragon Hotel upon arrival in Portland. Her unlikely sanctuary turns out to be the only all-black hotel in the city, and its lodgers seem unduly terrified of a white woman on the premises. But as she meets the churlish Dr. Pendleton, the stately Mavereen, and the unforgettable club chanteuse Blossom Fontaine, she begins to understand the reason for their dread. The Ku Klux Klan has arrived in Portland in fearful numbers–burning crosses, inciting violence, electing officials, and brutalizing blacks. And only Alice, along with her new “family” of Paragon residents, are willing to search for a missing mulatto child who has mysteriously vanished into the Oregon woods.
Why was “Nobody” Alice James forced to escape Harlem? Why do the Paragon’s denizens live in fear–and what other sins are they hiding? Where did the orphaned child who went missing from the hotel, Davy Lee, come from in the first place? And, perhaps most important, why does Blossom Fontaine seem to be at the very center of this tangled web?
Julian Symons’ The Belting Inheritance has just been rereleased as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, and, in the United States, by Poisoned Pen Press. Martin Edwards wrote the introduction to the new edition. You can order it through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2BUofc2
Here’s the summary of The Belting Inheritance.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MARTIN EDWARDS
‘Cleverly told … brilliant character work and plotting up to the usual Symons standard.’ ““ Observer
Lady Wainwright presides over the gothic gloom at Belting, in mourning for her two sons lost in the Second World War. Long afterwards a stranger arrives at Belting, claiming to be the missing David Wainwright – who was not killed after all, but held captive for years in a Russian prison camp. With Lady Wainwright’s health fading, her inheritance is at stake, and the family is torn apart by doubts over its mysterious long-lost son. Belting is shadowed by suspicion and intrigue – and then the first body is found.
This atmospheric novel of family secrets, first published in 1964, is by a winner of the CWA Diamond Dagger.
What books are you anticipating in 2019? If you’re a thriller reader, The Real Book Spy has a reading list to kick off the year. He titles it, “The Real Book Spy’s 2019 Reading Guide: Every Thriller We Know About So Far.” I know thriller readers will be pleased to see the schedule here. https://bit.ly/2Aof7fS
But, just a note. Instead of clicking on “Order Now”, please check the Web Store on The Poisoned Pen’s site. After all, you might get to meet the author at The Poisoned Pen, or at least buy a signed copy. https://store.poisonedpen.com
Is there a better way to kick off 2019 than with Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child? Preston will appear for The Poisoned Pen on Saturday, Jan. 5 at 7 PM, while Lincoln Child will join via Skype. The event will be at ASU KERR Cultural Center 6110 N Scottsdale Rd Scottsdale, AZ 85253
The authors are joining the Pen to celebrate their latest Pendergast novel, Verses for the Dead. The book is the Hot Book of the Week, and you can order a signed copy of that book, or other books by the authors, through the Web Store. Verses for the Dead comes with a special collectible postcard written by Pendergast to his protegee, Corrie Swanson. You can order books here. https://bit.ly/2R4bSEH
Here’s the summary of Verses for the Dead.
Preston & Child return with their #1 bestselling series, confronting FBI Special Agent Pendergast with the one challenge he never expected: a partner.
After an overhaul of leadership at the FBI’s New York field office, A. X. L. Pendergast is abruptly forced to accept an unthinkable condition of continued employment: the famously rogue agent must now work with a partner. Pendergast and his new colleague, junior agent Coldmoon, are assigned to investigate a rash of killings in Miami Beach, where a bloodthirsty psychopath is cutting out the hearts of his victims and leaving them with cryptic handwritten letters at local gravestones. The graves are unconnected save in one bizarre way: all belong to women who committed suicide. But the seeming lack of connection between the old suicides and the new murders is soon the least of Pendergast’s worries. Because as he digs deeper, he realizes the brutal new crimes may be just the tip of the iceberg: a conspiracy of death that reaches back decades.
Here’s a suggestion for ending 2018 on a high note, or starting 2019 the same way. Why don’t you check the Web Store for signed books by your favorite author? Or, browse the collection of signed books that are in stock at The Poisoned Pen, and discover a new author, or start a new collection. Are you a Lee Child or Michael Connelly fan? Child’s Past Tense and Connelly’s Dark Sacred Night are both available. There are crime novels, literary fiction, fantasy. Here’s the link to all 1552 titles that are available as of today. Check it out! https://bit.ly/2CFRIbl
It’s time to start marking your January calendar for author visits at The Poisoned Pen and January releases. Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen will be at the bookstore on Wednesday, January 16 at 7 PM to discuss and sign their latest book, An Anonymous Girl. You can pre-order it through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2CHeoYz
There’s a reason I’m already talking about An Anonymous Girl, but, first, here’s the summary of the book.
The next novel of psychological suspense and obsession from the authors of the blockbuster bestseller The Wife Between Us
Seeking women ages 18″“32 to participate in a study on ethics and morality. Generous compensation. Anonymity guaranteed.
When Jessica Farris signs up for a psychology study conducted by the mysterious Dr. Shields, she thinks all she’ll have to do is answer a few questions, collect her money, and leave.
Question #1: Could you tell a lie without feeling guilt?
But as the questions grow more and more intense and invasive and the sessions become outings where Jess is told what to wear and how to act, she begins to feel as though Dr. Shields may know what she’s thinking…and what she’s hiding.
Question #2: Have you ever deeply hurt someone you care about?
As Jess’s paranoia grows, it becomes clear that she can no longer trust what in her life is real, and what is one of Dr. Shields’ manipulative experiments. Caught in a web of deceit and jealousy, Jess quickly learns that some obsessions can be deadly.
Question #3: Should a punishment always fit the crime?
From the authors of the blockbuster bestseller The Wife Between Us comes an electrifying new novel about doubt, passion, and just how much you can trust someone.
Praise for The Wife Between Us:
“A fiendishly smart cat-and-mouse thriller” —New York Times Book Review
“[A] seamless thriller that will keep readers on their toes to the very end…Readers will enjoy the dizzying back-and-forth as they attempt to figure out just who to root for and as the suspense ratchets up to one hell of a conclusion.” —Booklist
*****
It’s not as early as you think. You can put this date on your calendar, and enjoy Adam Wagner’s GIFNotes description of the book, via Criminal Element. Check it out! https://bit.ly/2CFUpcW
