Author Karen Odden was guest host for Mariah Fredericks’ recent appearance for The Poisoned Pen. Fredericks’ latest book, The Wharton Plot, features Edith Wharton. There are signed copies of The Wharton Plot available in the Webstore. http://tinyurl.com/5n992tmy

Here’s the summary of The Wharton Plot.

Mariah Fredericks’ mesmerizing novel, The Wharton Plot, follows renowned novelist Edith Wharton in the twilight years of the Gilded Age in New York as she tracks a killer.

New York City, 1911. Edith Wharton, almost equally famed for her novels and her sharp tongue, is bone-tired of Manhattan. Finding herself at a crossroads with both her marriage and her writing, she makes the decision to leave America, her publisher, and her loveless marriage.

And then, dashing novelist David Graham Phillips—a writer with often notorious ideas about society and women’s place in it—is shot to death outside the Princeton Club. Edith herself met the man only once, when the two formed a mutual distaste over tea in the Palm Court of the Belmont hotel. When Phillips is killed, Edith’s life takes another turn. His sister is convinced Graham was killed by someone determined to stop the publication of his next book, which promised to uncover secrets that powerful people would rather stayed hidden. Though unconvinced, Edith is curious. What kind of book could push someone to kill?

Inspired by a true story, The Wharton Plot follows Edith Wharton through the fading years of the Gilded Age in a city she once loved so well, telling a taut tale of fame, love, and murder, as she becomes obsessed with solving a crime.

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MARIAH FREDERICKS was born, raised, and still lives in New York City. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in history. She is the author of the Jane Prescott mystery series, which has twice been nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, as well as several YA novels. She can be reached through her website.

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Enjoy the conversation with Mariah Fredericks.

John Charles is always pleased to welcome a debut author to The Poisoned Pen. Mary Liza Hartong’s Love and Hot Chicken is “A Delicious Southern Novel”. Release date is February 20, but you can pre-order a copy through the Webstore. http://tinyurl.com/3r2h3bx2

The debut of a dynamite new voice from the South, Love and Hot Chicken is a spicy and hilarious Tennessee story about family, friendship, fried chicken, and two girls in love.

The Chickie Shak is something of a historical landmark. Red clapboard walls, thriving wasp population, yard-toilets resplendent with sunflowers. My best friend Lee Ray and I used to come after our softball games and snag a picnic table while our mammas ordered the home team special. Truth is, most people around here order the same thing until the day somebody throws their ashes off a roller coaster at Dollywood. The line snakes around the building as far as you can see, the grimiest bunch of Jessies, Pearls, and Scooters you ever did behold, hobnobbing in the parking lot from noon until night.

When PJ Spoon returns home for her beloved daddy’s funeral, she doesn’t expect to stick around. Why abandon her PhD program at Vanderbilt for the humble charms of her hometown, Pennywhistle, Tennessee? Mamma’s broken heart, that’s why. But truth be told, PJ’s own heart ain’t doing too good either. She impulsively takes a job as a fry cook at Pennywhistle’s beloved Chickie Shak, where locals gather for Nashville-style hot chicken. It may not be glamorous, but it’s something to do.

Fate shakes up PJ’s life again when the town rallies around the terribly retro and terribly fun Hot Chicken Pageant. PJ finally notices her cute redheaded coworker Boof, a singer-songwriter with a talent as striking as her curly hair, and learns to fear her smack-talking manager, Linda.

As PJ and Boof fall for each other, Boof’s search for her birth mother—a Pennywhistle native—catapults the budding couple into a mystery that might be better left unsolved. The Chickie Shak pageant takes off, spurring old rivalries and new friendships in this tale of unexpected connections and new beginnings.

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Mary Liza Hartong lives and writes in her hometown of Nashville. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She also holds a master’s from Dartmouth in Creative Writing and a master’s from the University College Cork in British and American Literature via Fulbright grant. Mary Liza is the aunt of five boisterous nieces and a proud member of the queer community. When she’s not writing, you can find her combing yard sales for treasures with her fiancée, Bridget. Love and Hot Chicken is her first novel.

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Enjoy John Charles’ interview and introduction to Mary Liza Hartong.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Kate Alice Marshall back to the bookstore for a live event. There are signed copies of Marshall’s latest book, No One Can Know, available in the Webstore. http://tinyurl.com/ydx58f4r

Here is the description of No One Can Know.

Three sisters, two murders, and too many secrets to count.
“A propulsive and intricate psychological thriller. . . Meticulously plotted. . .Family connections prove both their damage and their worth in this community-focused thriller.” —Kirkus(starred review)

Fourteen years ago, the Palmer sisters—Emma, Juliette, and Daphne—left their home in Arden Hills and never returned. But when Emma discovers she’s pregnant and her husband loses his job, she has no option but to return to the house that she and her estranged sisters still own . . . and where their parents were murdered.

Emma has never told anyone what she saw the night her parents died, even when she became the prime suspect. But her presence in the house threatens to uncover secrets that have stayed hidden for years, and the sisters are drawn together once again. As they face their memories of the past, rivalries restart, connections are forged, and, for the first time, Emma starts to ask questions about what really happened that night.

The more Emma learns, the more riddles emerge. And Emma begins to wonder just what her siblings will do to keep the past buried, and whether she did the right thing staying quiet about what was whispered that night: “No one can know.”

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Kate Alice Marshall is the author of the young adult novels I Am Still Alive, Rules for Vanishing, and Our Last Echoes, as well as the Secrets of Eden Eld middle grade series. She lives outside of Seattle, where she spends her time playing board games, tending a chaotic vegetable garden, and wrangling dogs and children. No One Can Know is her second adult novel.

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Enjoy the discussion with Kate Alice Marshall.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Michael C. Grumley to the bookstore for his first appearance there. Signed copies of his latest book, Deep Freeze, are available through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3HB4HLY

Here’s the summary of Deep Freeze.

From the bestselling author of the Breakthrough series: In his next near-future thriller, Michael C. Grumley explores humanity’s thirst for immortality—at any cost…

“A fast-paced juggernaut of a story, where revelations pile upon revelations, building to a stunning conclusion that will leave readers clamoring for more.” —James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sigma Force series

The accident came quickly. With no warning. In the dead of night, a precipitous plunge into a freezing river trapped everyone inside the bus. It was then that Army veteran John Reiff’s life came to an end. Extinguished in the sudden rush of frigid water.

There was no expectation of survival. None. Let alone waking up beneath blinding hospital lights. Struggling to move, or see, or even breathe. But the doctors assure him that everything is normal. That things will improve. And yet, he has a strange feeling that there’s something they’re not telling him.

As Reiff’s mind and body gradually recover, he becomes certain that the doctors are lying to him. One-by-one, puzzle pieces are slowly falling into place, and he soon realizes that things are not at all what they seem. Critical information is being kept from him. Secrets. Supposedly for his own good. But who is doing this? Why? And the most important question: can he keep himself alive long enough to uncover the truth?

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MICHAEL C. GRUMLEY is the bestselling author of the Breakthrough and Monument series. He lives in Northern California with his two young daughters, where he’s an avid reader, runner, and most of all father, and dotes on his girls every chance he gets.

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Enjoy the conversation with Michael C. Grumley.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Janice Hallett for a virtual event. You’ll have to watch the event, and hear the discussion of Agatha Christie. Hallett’s latest book is The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels. There are copies available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3S9R0sh

Here’s the summary of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

“The queen of found footage thrillers.” —Julia Bartz, New York Times bestselling author

A whip-smart and “fast-paced mystery” (The Daily Telegraph, London) from the internationally bestselling author of The Twyford Code and The Appeal about a true crime journalist who revives a long-buried case about a cult—and finds herself too close to the story.

Everyone knows the story of the Alperton Angels: the cult who brainwashed a teenage girl into believing her baby was the anti-Christ. When the girl came to her senses and called the police, the Angels committed suicide and mother and baby disappeared.

Now, true crime author Amanda Bailey is looking to revive her career by writing a book on the case. The Alperton baby has turned eighteen; finding them will be the scoop of the year. But rival author Oliver Menzies is just as smart, better connected, and also on the baby’s trail.

As Amanda and Oliver are forced to collaborate, they realize that the truth about the Angels is much darker and stranger than they’d ever imagined, and in pursuit of the story they risk becoming part of it.

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Janice Hallett is a former magazine editor, award-winning journalist, and government communications writer. She wrote articles and speeches for, among others, the Cabinet Office, Home Office, and Department for International Development. Her enthusiasm for travel has taken her around the world several times, from Madagascar to the Galapagos, Guatemala to Zimbabwe, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. A playwright and screenwriter, she penned the feminist Shakespearean stage comedy NetherBard and cowrote the feature film Retreat. She lives in London and is the author of The Examiner, The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, The Appeal, The Christmas Appeal, and The Twyford Code.

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Enjoy the conversation with Barbara Peters and Janice Hallett.

Patrick Millikin welcomed author Duane Swierczynski and film critic Jen Johans to The Poisoned Pen. Millikin and Johans tag-teamed to question Swierczynski about his new book California Bear. There are signed copies of California Bear available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3HtU8ub

Here’s the description of California Bear.

This “fresh, exciting, and brilliantly unpredictable” thriller (James Patterson) from a “great storyteller” (Michael Connelly) follows four unlikely vigilantes who pit themselves against the villain behind California’s coldest case when they decide to take justice into their own hands.NONE OF YOU ARE SAFE

“KILLER”: Jack Queen has been exonerated and freed from prison thanks to retired LAPD officer Cato Hightower. But when guilt gnaws at Jack, he admits: “I actually did it.” To which Hightower responds: “Yeah, no kidding.” You see, the ex-cop has a special job in mind for the ex-con…

THE GIRL DETECTIVE: Fifteen-year-old Matilda Finnerty has been handed a potential death sentence in the form of a leukemia diagnosis. But that’s not going to stop her from tackling the most important mystery of her life: Is her father guilty of murder?

GENE JEANIE: Jeanie Hightower mends family trees for a living, but the genealogist is unable to repair her own marriage. And her soon-to-be ex may have entangled her in a scheme that has drawn the bloody wrath of…

THE BEAR: A prolific serial killer who disappeared forty years ago, who is only now emerging from hibernation when the conditions are just right. And this time, the California Bear is not content to hunt in the shadows…

From two-time Edgar nominee Duane Swierczynski, California Bear is clever, moving, and surprising as it takes aim at the true crime industry, Hollywood, justice, and the killers inside us all.

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Duane Swierczynski is the two-time Edgar-nominated author of ten novels including Revolver, Canary, as well as the graphic novel Breakneck, many of which are in development for film/TV. Most recently, Duane co-authored Lion & Lamb with James Patterson, and co-scripted James Patterson’s The Guilty, an Audible Original starring John Lithgow and Bryce Dallas Howard. He lives in Southern California with his family.

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Enjoy the conversation with Duane Swierczynski.

While Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Stephen Hunter for a virtual event at the bookstore, Jack Carr acted as guest host. Peters said they’re talking about the Swagger-verse, three generations of the Swagger family in Front Sight. Hunter structured the book around films. You can order a signed copy of Front Sight through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3tXrjTQ

Here’s the description of Front Sight.

This collection of three interconnected novellas follows each generation of the iconic Swagger family—grandfather Charles, father Earl, and fan favorite hero Bob Lee—from New York Times bestselling author, Pulitzer Prize winner, and “true master at the pinnacle of his craft” (Jack Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Stephen Hunter.

In The Night Train, Charles Swagger is on the hunt for notorious bank robber Baby Face Nelson when he traces a tip to the Chicago stock yards. While there, he’s brutally assaulted and discovers that the madman who attacked him is involved in a nearby narcotics ring with plans to spread its new drug to the residents of the disenfranchised 7th District of Chicago. Worse, this is no ordinary drug—it makes some users happy, drives others insane, and kills many of the rest. Will Charles be able to stop the ring before it’s too late? Or is he in over his head among the dark streets of Chicago?

Earl Swagger investigates a violent bank robbery in Johnny Tuesday that left two dead and a fortune missing in small-town Maryland. At every turn, however, he’s met with silence and hostility from the townsfolk, which makes sense when he uncovers municipal corruption, working-class exploitation, gang politics, jaded aristocrats, scheming gamblers, a hitman, a femme fatale. And a whole bunch of men with guns. Luckily, Earl has brought his own guns in this unputdownable noir mystery.

Finally, in Five Dolls for the Gut Hook, a thirty-two-year-old Bob Lee Swagger is back from Vietnam nearly broken over good men lost for nothing. He’s turned hard down that whiskey road to hell. But one afternoon he’s wakened from his nightmares by two men with a problem. As nearby Hot Springs tries to retool its image from gambling paradise to family resort, a butcher has begun to prey on the city’s young women, a figure straight out of a horror movie. Hot Springs Homicide is baffled. “I’m a sniper,” says Bob, “not a detective.”

“But,” comes the reply, “you are the son and grandson of two of the greatest detectives this state has ever produced.” On that premise alone, Bob takes up the hunt for a killer who not only kills but desecrates. Using his sniper’s mind, Swagger is able to see things others have missed, drawing ever closer to a showdown. But equally, we understand, Bob Lee Swagger is hunting his own salvation.

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Stephen Hunter has written over twenty novels. The retired chief film critic for The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, he has also published two collections of film criticism and a nonfiction work, American Gunfight. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

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Enjoy the conversation about film and Stephen Hunter’s work.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Jonathan Santlofer to talk about his historical fiction, The Last Mona Lisa, and his current book, The Lost Van Gogh. There are signed copies of The Lost Van Gogh available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3vIXWoO

Here’s the description of The Lost Van Gogh.

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER!

“Ingeniously plotted, irresistibly readable, brimming with inside information about the high-stakes art world of theft, forgery, and murder…Also included are brilliantly rendered drawings by the author, who is as accomplished an artist as he is a writer of suspense thrillers.” —Joyce Carol Oates

From the author of the much-praised The Last Mona Lisa comes another thrilling story of masterpieces, masterminds, and mystery.

For years, there have been whispers that, before his death, Van Gogh completed a final self-portrait. Curators and art historians have savored this rumor, hoping it could illuminate some of the troubled artist’s many secrets, but even they have to concede that the missing painting is likely lost forever.

But when Luke Perrone, artist and great-grandson of the man who stole the Mona Lisa, and Alexis Verde, daughter of a notorious art thief, discover what may be the missing portrait, they are drawn into a most epic art puzzles. When only days later the painting disappears again, they are reunited with INTERPOL agent John Washington Smith in a dangerous and deadly search that will not only expose secrets of the artist’s last days but draws them into one of history’s darkest eras.

Beneath the paint and canvas, beneath the beauty and the legend, the artwork has become linked with something evil, something that continues to flourish on the dark web and on the shadiest corridors of the underground art world.

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JONATHAN SANTLOFER is a writer and artist. His debut novel, The Death Artist, was an international bestseller translated into 17 languages. His fourth novel, Anatomy of Fear, won the Nero Award for best crime novel, and his most recent novel is The Last Mona Lisa. Jonathan created the Crime Fiction Academy as The Center for Fiction. As an artist, Jonathan has been making replications of famous paintings for wealthy clients for more than 20 years. www.jonathansantlofer.com

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Enjoy the conversation about art and history.

Guest host Olivia Fierro welcomed Rachel Hawkins to The Poisoned Pen. Hawkins is the author of the Gothic thriller, The Heiress. There are signed copies of the book available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3S6BP2X

Here is the description of The Heiress.

A January Indie Next Pick and LibraryReads Pick

“The reigning queen of the Gothic thriller.” —Entertainment Weekly

THERE’S NOTHING AS GOOD AS THE RICH GONE BAD

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

But in the aftermath of her death, her adopted son, Camden, wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.

Ten years later, his uncle’s death pulls Cam and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but the legacy of Ruby is inescapable.

And as Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will––and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.

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Rachel Hawkins is the New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs, Reckless Girls, The Villa, and The Heiress, as well as multiple books for young readers. Her work has been translated into over a dozen languages. She studied gender and sexuality in Victorian literature at Auburn University and currently lives in Alabama.

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Enjoy the conversation with Rachel Hawkins.