Andrew Gross recently appeared at The Poisoned Pen while on book tour for his second World War II novel, The Saboteur. The story is based on a true story. You can order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2wbtYqG

Here’s the description.

Based on the stirring true story, The Saboteur is Andrew Gross’s follow-up to the riveting historical thriller, The One Man. A richly-woven story probing the limits of heroism, sacrifice and determination,The Saboteur portrays a hero who must weigh duty against his heart in order to single-handedly end the one threat that could alter the course of World War II.

February, 1943. Both the Allies and the Nazis are closing in on attempts to construct the decisive weapon of the war.

Kurt Nordstrum, an engineer in Oslo, puts his life aside to take up arms against the Germans as part of the Norwegian resistance. After the loss of his fiancée, his outfit whittled to shreds, he commandeers a coastal steamer and escapes to England to transmit secret evidence of the Nazis’s progress towards an atomic bomb at an isolated factory in Norway. There, he joins a team of dedicated Norwegians in training in the Scottish Highlands for a mission to disrupt the Nazis’ plans before they advance any further.

Parachuted onto the most unforgiving terrain in Europe, braving the fiercest of mountain storms, Nordstrum and his team attempt the most daring raid of the war, targeting the heavily-guarded factory built on a shelf of rock thought to be impregnable, a mission even they know they likely will not survive. Months later, Nordstrum is called upon again to do the impossible, opposed by both elite Nazi soldiers and a long-standing enemy who is now a local collaborator—one man against overwhelmingodds, with the fate of the war in the balance, but the choice to act means putting the one person he has a chance to love in peril.

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Intrigued? Then, you’ll want to watch and listen as Andrew Gross discusses Norway and The Saboteur with The Poisoned Pen’s owner, Barbara Peters. Check it out on Livestream. https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/7649380

This week, Poisoned Pen Press lost an author, and the crime fiction community lost a friend who showed up to support other authors. But, we lost so much more. Here’s a portion of the note that was on Frederick Ramsay’s Facebook page, written by his daughter, Eleanor Ramsay.

“Dear friends and fans of Fred. It is my sad task to let you know that he passed away into the arms of the angels in the early morning hours of August 23. He had been battling an aggressive return of kidney cancer and, despite our hopes that he might benefit from new immunotherapy treatments, the cancer could not be contained. If you know him, you knew that he was the definition of a Renaissance Man. He was a teacher, ordained minister, scholar, artist and, of course, a writer of 19 wonderful mysteries. He had almost finished his 20th book, The Onion, which will be completed and published.”

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Here’s the information about the service, and the livestream.

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This is not the time and place to try to sell Fred’s books. But, as a reader, I’m going to miss his Ike Schwartz mysteries. He also wrote crime novels about a country he loved, Botswana, and the Jerusalem mysteries.

It’s been a couple years, but Louise Penny will be back in Scottsdale, appearing for The Poisoned Pen. The author of Glass Houses will appear at The Hilton Scottsdale Resort & Villas, 6333 Scottsdale Rd., on Sunday, Sept. 3 at 2 PM.

Here’s the information about the event.

Event Schedule: 45min discussion with author about new novel, 15 min Q&A and signing to follow.

Doors Open approx, 1:00-1:30 PM Program 2:00 PM

Cash Bar. Valet Parking or parking on site

You may bring 3 personal books to be signed as well with purchase of new book. Photos and multiple book signing is at the authors discretion.

Questions? Call The Poisoned Pen at Toll Free: (888) 560-9919

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As a teaser, and prelude to the event, there are two CBS videos you can watch. The first is from CBS Sunday Morning. https://cbsn.ws/2wzhUT1

Here’s the second video, a shorter one. https://cbsn.ws/2xuavku

Are you familiar with Martin Walker’s novels featuring Bruno, Chief of Police? The most recent one was The Templars’ Last Secret, which is available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2io6oDP

Here’s the summary.

Bruno, the beloved chief of police in the idyllic French town of St. Denis, is back! This time a mysterious death brings ancient secrets to light, and it’s up to our hero–and favorite gourmand–to connect the tangled threads of past and present

When a woman’s body is found at the foot of a cliff near St. Denis, Bruno suspects a connection to the great ruin that stands on the cliff above: the Château de Commarque, a long-ago Knights Templar stronghold which, along with the labyrinth of prehistoric caves beneath it, continues to draw the interest of scholars. With the help of Amélie, a young newcomer to the Dordogne, Bruno learns that the dead woman was an archaeologist searching for a religious artifact of incredible importance, the discovery of which could have dramatic repercussions throughout the Middle East–not to mention in St. Denis. And the woman’s ties to Islamic terrorists can only heighten the pressure on Bruno to unravel the centuries-old mystery. Meanwhile, an old flame of Bruno’s is assigned to work with him on the case, and the two find time, naturellement, to enjoy the supreme pleasures of the wine, food, and beauty of the Dordogne.

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Several weeks ago, Eric Asimov took readers into Bruno’s world in an article in The New York Times, “The Delicious World of Bruno, Chief of Police”.  https://nyti.ms/2tEc9CF If you haven’t discovered these mysteries, or Bruno’s world, this is a wonderful introduction to the series, with beautiful slides that will take you to France. Check it out!

Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Keller will be here at The Poisoned Pen on Thursday, Aug. 24 at 7 PM to discuss and sign her latest Bell Elkins’ novel, Fast Falls the Night. Signed copies can be ordered through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2x2DCvL

Today, though, Keller is sharing a piece she wrote for us, a moving piece about three epiphanies about book-and-mortar bookstores, such as The Poisoned Pen. Thank you, Julia.

                              Three Epiphanies –  Magic in brick-and-mortar bookstores
By Julia Keller
     It was a cold, wet evening in downtown Chicago. Steady rain on this autumn night made everything look fuzzy, as if I were viewing the world through somebody else’s glasses. The tall buildings were as gray and ubiquitous as a chain link fence. Taxis took corners too fast, splashing the shoes of those of us who waited for the walk light.

       I was early for my appointment—I was the night’s guest lecturer for a college journalism class taught by a friend. So I had a good twenty minutes to kill.

       And then I saw it, just in the next block: A bookstore. Or to call it by its other name: an answered prayer.

    Typically when I wind up in a bookstore, it’s because I mean to. But it’s the other kind of experience—the accidental, spur-of-the-moment stop—that often yields the magic, when I stumble across a book I wasn’t seeking, by an author I’ve never heard of. I take a chance, buy the book—and my life is never the same again.

    I hope you’ll join me at Poisoned Pen on August 24, where perhaps you will touched by the same magic—and your life, too, will be forever altered.

    Here are my top three epiphanies in bookstores:

1.

    The Broken Shore (2008) by Peter Temple

This is the paperback I came across on that chilly fall night in Chicago, a mystery written with such achingly laconic grace that not a word seems wasted. I found it at Books-A-Million. I changed my own writing style on account of its beautiful severity, snipping off some of the foppish frippery that used to drag down my sentences. (Think of someone trying to swim laps in a three-piece suit.) In Temple’s complex and moody tale, a police detective aims for a quieter life in a small Australian town. He doesn’t find it.

2.

    The Wolf Border (2015) by Sarah Hall

The title and the cover—bone-white, with a sketch of a wolf staring at you as if he knows what you did last night—drew me in. But it was the plot and the prose that gripped me. That prose is muscular, evocative, written in a you-are-there present tense. I found the novel at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Ill. I was there to talk about my own book—so I guess you can argue that this doesn’t technically fit the serendipity definition—but no matter. The novel is grand. A young zoologist is hired to help restore the grey wolf to a forest in northern England. But it’s the wilderness in her own soul that I loved; she’s tough and smart and rebellious. And irresistible.

3.

    Willa Cather (1980) by E.K. Brown and Leon Edel

I’ve saved the best for last—that is, the book that proved to be momentous in determining my destiny, despite the fact that I only found it through the sheerest of accidents.

    A friend was late to a lunch date. Next door to the café in Ashland, Kentucky, was a Little Professor bookstore—one that has sadly ceased to exist. I decided to wait there instead of the rackety cafe. On the front table was a paperback biography of Cather. The only Cather novel I’d read was for a school assignment, and nothing, of course, stamps out the pleasure of reading quite like being required to do it. And Death Comes for the Archbishop was deadly dull. I thought of Cather as old, slow, boring, and insipid. But this biography was so rich, so involving, and it offered such a moving portrait of the young, dreaming Cather in her native Nebraska—where her isolation reminded me of my own childhood in West Virginia—that I gave her a second chance. I read The Song of the Lark. And O! Pioneers. And Lucy Gayheart. And on and on and on.

    Later that summer, I quit my unsatisfying job, returned to grad school in English Literature, and started dreaming my own dreams about being a writer.

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Thank you, Julia. Serendipity? You never know what you’ll find in a books-and-mortar bookstore, do you? This week, you’ll be able to find Julia Keller’s Fast Falls the Night. You can order a signed copy. https://bit.ly/2x2DCvL  Even better, come into the bookstore that evening. You can meet Julia Keller. And, you never know how your life might change.

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Curious about Fast Falls the Night? Here’s the summary.

Based on a real-life event, Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Keller’s latest Bell Elkins novelFast Falls the Night takes place in a single 24-hour period, unfurling against the backdrop of a shattering personal revelation that will change Bell’s life forever.

The first drug overdose comes just after midnight, when a young woman dies on the dirty floor of a gas station bathroom. To the people of the small town of Acker’s Gap, West Virginia, it is just another tragedy. It is sad—but these days, depressingly familiar.

But then there is another overdose. And another. And another.

Prosecutor Bell Elkins soon realizes that her Appalachian hometown is facing its starkest challenge yet: a day of constant heroin overdoses from a batch tainted with a lethal tranquilizer. While the clock ticks and the bodies fall, Bell and her colleagues desperately track the source of the deadly drug—and engage in fierce debates over the wisdom of expending precious resources to save the lives of self-destructive addicts.

The Poisoned Pen recently sent out a reminder note that Sue Grafton is not touring or signing copies of her new book, Y is for Yesterday, which is due out on Tuesday. You can still order an unsigned copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2x1SHNU

Here’s the summary of the latest Kinsey Millhone novel.

Of #1 New York Times-bestselling author Sue Grafton, NPR’s Maureen Corrigan said, “Makes me wish there were more than 26 letters.” With only one letter left, Grafton’s many devoted readers will share that sentiment.

The darkest and most disturbing case report from the files of Kinsey Millhone, Y is for Yesterday begins in 1979, when four teenage boys from an elite private school sexually assault a fourteen-year-old classmate—and film the attack.  Not long after, the tape goes missing and the suspected thief, a fellow classmate, is murdered. In the investigation that follows, one boy turns state’s evidence and two of his peers are convicted. But the ringleader escapes without a trace.

Now, it’s 1989 and one of the perpetrators, Fritz McCabe, has been released from prison. Moody, unrepentant, and angry, he is a virtual prisoner of his ever-watchful parents—until a copy of the missing tape arrives with a ransom demand. That’s when the McCabes call Kinsey Millhone for help. As she is drawn into their family drama, she keeps a watchful eye on Fritz. But he’s not the only one being haunted by the past. A vicious sociopath with a grudge against Millhone may be leaving traces of himself for her to find…

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And, here’s the link to Marilyn Stasio’s column in The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2vGtJFq She’s not only reviewing Y is for Yesterday, but three other books including Crime Scene by Jonathan Kellerman and his son, Jesse Kellerman. Don’t forget that they’ll be at The Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, Sept. 12 to sign Crime Scene.

Martin Edwards’ latest nonfiction title, The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, is this week’s Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. You can find it in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2wi5UVX

Michael Dirda’s recent review in The Washington Post includes reasons you should want to read this book. https://wapo.st/2wplvSI It’s called “How many of the top 100 crimes novels of the early 20th century have you read?” He says, “To my mind, Edwards particularly shines in the prefatory essays to his 24 categories, in which he mentions some of his own favorite books, such as Henry Wade’s “Lonely Magdalen” — about the murder of a nameless prostitute — and Robert Player’s twisty “The Ingenious Mr. Stone,” which “signaled the end of the era” or, most intriguing of all, Cameron McCabe’s “The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor,” described by Julian Symons as “the detective story to end detective stories.”

Still undecided? Here’s the summary of the book from the Web Store.

This book tells the story of crime fiction published during the first half of the twentieth century. The diversity of this much-loved genre is breathtaking, and so much greater than many critics have suggested. To illustrate this, the leading expert on classic crime discusses one hundred books ranging from The Hound of the Baskervilles to Strangers on a Trainwhich highlight the entertaining plots, the literary achievements, and the social significance of vintage crime fiction. This book serves as a companion to the acclaimed British Library Crime Classics series but it tells a very diverse story. It presents the development of crime fiction-from Sherlock Holmes to the end of the golden age-in an accessible, informative and engaging style.

Readers who enjoy classic crime will make fascinating discoveries and learn about forgotten gems as well as bestselling authors. Even the most widely read connoisseurs will find books (and trivia) with which they are unfamiliar-as well as unexpected choices to debate. Classic crime is a richly varied and deeply pleasurable genre that is enjoying a world-wide renaissance as dozens of neglected novels and stories are resurrected for modern readers to enjoy. The overriding aim of this book is to provide a launch point that enables readers to embark on their own voyages of discovery.

The Poisoned Pen has a few signed copies of Mark Sullivan’s Beneath a Scarlet Sky available. With the current news about the book, you might want to call the bookstore at Toll Free: (888) 560-9919 to check on the status if you want to order a copy.

Film rights to Lake Union Publishing’s Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan have been acquired by Pascal Pictures, with Spider-Man: Homecoming star Tom Holland attached to play the lead.

An April Kindle First selection, published under the Lake Union Publishing imprint of Amazon Publishing on May 1, 2017, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is now a #1 Amazon Charts, Wall Street Journal, and USA Todaybestseller.

Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, Beneath A Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours.

It follows 17-year-old, real-life hero Pino Lella as he guides hunted Jews out of northern Italy over the rugged winter Alps into Switzerland. The saga continues when Pino is then recruited to become a spy for the Italian Resistance. Working undercover as a driver for a mysterious and powerful Nazi general, Pino gains access deep inside the German High Command but also witnesses the atrocities of the war firsthand.

When he first heard snippets of Pino Lella’s story at a dinner party more than 11 years ago, Mark Sullivan was unable to shake the image of an Italian teenager leading refugees to safety across perilous mountain ridges, and he became determined to tell the tale of this anonymous, unsung hero. Sullivan spent weeks in Italy with Pino, listening to the 79-year-old recount in painstaking detail the most fraught and eventful years of his life. And for the next nine years, Sullivan interviewed historians and Holocaust experts and dug through war archives in Germany, Italy, the U.S., and Great Britain.

As a result of these incredible interviews and research, Beneath A Scarlet Sky is more than just a novel based on true events—it is a piece of history, and Pino’s own memories have given this book its realism, its heart, and its shattering sense of loss and tragedy. It is truly a tale unlike any other—a story of courage and intrigue, love and redemption—and one that can finally be shared.

Mark Sullivan is the acclaimed author of eighteen novels, including the #1 New York Times bestselling Private series, which he writes with James Patterson. Mark has received numerous awards for his writing, including the WHSmith Fresh Talent Award, and his works have been named a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. He lives with his wife in Bozeman, Montana.

Karin Slaughter was just here at The Poisoned Pen, and she signed copies of her latest novel, The Good Daughter, as well as Matchup, the collection from the International Thriller Writers. You can order copies of either or both books through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com

In fact, she signed lots and lots of copies of the books.

Here’s Karin Slaughter signing for a fan.

And, here’s a photo of her with two generations of Slaughter fans.

You’ll really want to watch and listen to Karin Slaughter’s conversation with Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen. In fact, you’ll want to hear her comments about Matchup. You can watch the event on Livestream. https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/7649323