Barbara Peters, owner of the Poisoned Pen, loves to introduce debut authors and their books to readers. This past week, she introduced Nova Jacobs, author of The Last Equation of Isaac Severy, by reading several reviews of the book. Here’s Bethanne Patrick’s review in The Washington Post, “A hilarious novel about family, death, madness – and math”. https://wapo.st/2FJKOou. Once you get past the possibly scary word, math, you might want to order a copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2prG4tF

You can see the interview via Livestream. https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/8112998

Here’s the description of The Last Equation of Isaac Severy.

*Book of the Month Club Selection
*Indie Next Pick

“Hugely entertaining… The Last Equation of Isaac Severy is full of delight. Though Ms. Jacobs’s writing has echoes of Thomas Pynchon, Nathanael West and J.D. Salinger, her terrific book displays in abundance a magic all its own.”
—The Wall Street Journal

The Family Fang meets The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry in this literary mystery about a struggling bookseller whose recently deceased grandfather, a famed mathematician, left behind a dangerous equation for her to track down—and protect—before others can get their hands on it.

Just days after mathematician and family patriarch Isaac Severy dies of an apparent suicide, his adopted granddaughter Hazel, owner of a struggling Seattle bookstore, receives a letter from him by mail. In it, Isaac alludes to a secretive organization that is after his final bombshell equation, and he charges Hazel with safely delivering it to a trusted colleague. But first, she must find where the equation is hidden.

While in Los Angeles for Isaac’s funeral, Hazel realizes she’s not the only one searching for his life’s work, and that the equation’s implications have potentially disastrous consequences for the extended Severy family, a group of dysfunctional geniuses unmoored by the sudden death of their patriarch.

As agents of an enigmatic company shadow Isaac’s favorite son—a theoretical physicist—and a long-lost cousin mysteriously reappears in Los Angeles, the equation slips further from Hazel’s grasp. She must unravel a series of maddening clues hidden by Isaac inside one of her favorite novels, drawing her ever closer to his mathematical treasure. But when her efforts fall short, she is forced to enlist the help of those with questionable motives.

The Poisoned Pen’s Hot Book of the Week is Lars Kepler’s The Sandman. It’s been all over the media, including at AZ Central, where Roger Anglen reviewed it for The Arizona Republic. https://bit.ly/2FHxKQz. You can order a signed copy of The Sandman through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2FPrLF4

Here’s the description.

“With its tight, staccato chapters and cast of dangerous wraiths lurking everywhere, The Sandman is a nonstop fright.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times

The #1 internationally best-selling thriller from the author of The Hypnotist tells the chilling story of a manipulative serial killer and the two brilliant police agents who must try to beat him at his own game.

Late one night, outside Stockholm, Mikael Kohler-Frost is found wandering. Thirteen years earlier, he went missing along with his younger sister. They were long thought to have been victims of Sweden’s most notorious serial killer, Jurek Walter, now serving a life sentence in a maximum security psychiatric hospital. Now Mikael tells the police that his sister is still alive and being held by someone he knows only as the Sandman. Years ago, Detective Inspector Joona Linna made an excruciating personal sacrifice to ensure Jurek’s capture. He is keenly aware of what this killer is capable of, and now he is certain that Jurek has an accomplice. He knows that any chance of rescuing Mikael’s sister depends on getting Jurek to talk, and that the only agent capable of this is Inspector Saga Bauer, a twenty-seven-year-old prodigy. She will have to go under deep cover in the psychiatric ward where Jurek is imprisoned, and she will have to find a way to get to the psychopath before it’s too late–and before he gets inside her head.

*****

The husband-and-wife team of Lars Kepler was just here at The Poisoned Pen, and Roger Anglen interviewed them. If you would like to “meet” the Swedish couple, and see the interview, it’s available on Livestream. https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/8111370

Sarah Laskow recently wrote a post called “Book Towns Are Made for Book Lovers” for Atlas Obscura. It can be found at https://bit.ly/2IjEK3z

Laskow discusses the many book towns that have sprung up around the world. However, the true expert on book towns is author Alex Johnson. Laskow talks to Johnson, whose new book, Book Towns is due out next week. If you find the topic fascinating, you can order a copy of Book Towns through the Web Store, and plan your next trip. https://bit.ly/2Hw36WA

On Wednesday, March 21 at 7 PM, Willy Vlautin, author of Don’t Skip Out on Me, will join J. Todd Scott (High White Sun) at The Poisoned Pen. Signed copies of both books are available through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Usually, at this point, there will be a summary of the book. And, there is. But, there’s even more after the summary.

From Willy Vlautin,  award-winning author of Lean on Pete and The Motel Life, comes a powerful exploration of identity and loneliness pulled from deep within America’s soul.

Don’t Skip Out On Me is going to make your heart crumple into a little wad of paper and then open it back up into a perfect paper airplane sailing the skies from the hand of a boy. How does a bi-cultural man find a self when he’s been abandoned by his parents? He invents it, that’s how, with his hands, his fists, and that fist-shaped muscle, a heart. No one anywhere writes as beautifully about people whose stories stay close to the dirt. Willy Vlautin is a secular—and thus real and profoundly useful—saint.”
—Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Book of Joan

Horace Hopper has spent most of his life on a Nevada sheep ranch, but dreams of something bigger. Mr. and Mrs. Reese, the aging ranchers, took him in and treated him like a son, intending to leave the ranch in his hands. But Horace, ashamed not only of his half-Paiute, half-Irish heritage, but also of the fact his parents did not want him, feels as if he doesn’t belong on the ranch, or anywhere. Knowing he needs to make a name for himself, he decides to leave the only loving home he’s known to prove his worth as a championship boxer.

Mr. Reese is holding on to a way of life that is no longer sustainable. He’s a seventy-two-year-old rancher with a bad back. He’s not sure how he’ll keep things going without Horace but he knows the boy must find his own way.

To become a champion Horace must change not just the way he eats, trains, and thinks, but who he is. Reinventing himself as Hector Hildago, a scrappy Mexican boxer, he heads to Tucson and begins training and entering fights. His journey brings him to boxing rings across the Southwest and Mexico and finally, to the streets of Las Vegas, where Horace learns he can’t change who he is or outrun his destiny.

A beautiful, wrenching portrait of a downtrodden man, Don’t Skip Out on Me narrates the struggle to find one’s place in a vast and lonely world with profound tenderness, and will make you consider those around you—and yourself—differently.

*****

First, there’s the book trailer for Don’t Skip Out on Me.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XIhIn_t2bQ?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Then, Vlautin performs an acoustic version of “Don’t Skip Out on Me”, the title of his book, and the song Vlautin wrote for Richmond Fontaine.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkk5oNAqpgs?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Join us Wednesday, March 21 at 7 PM to meet author and songwriter Willy Vlautin.

His is a name you might not recognize, but a voice that you may have heard. Scott Brick is an actor, writer, and the award-winning narrator of over 800 audio books. He can be heard on books by Steve Berry, Preston and Child, Gregg Hurwitz, Clive Cussler, Brad Meltzer, Harlan Coben, Dennis Lehane, and many more.

On Tuesday, March 20, at 7 PM, Brick will be in conversation with Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, and authors Steve Berry and John Lescroart, as he discusses what it’s like to be an audio book narrator.

Did you catch Barbara Peters comments in the Livestream interview with Candice Fox? https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/8103495 The owner of Poisoned Pen Bookstore, and editor at Poisoned Pen Press said she’s frequently asked what the next “big thing” after Scandinavian noir is, and she answers Australian crime fiction. If you listened carefully, you can almost hear a history of Australia’s crime novels.

Arthur Upfield is the first well-known Australian crime fiction author, best known for his Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte series, featuring the first half-Aboriginal detective, based in Queensland. The first of those books, The Barrakee Mystery, was published in 1928. They were the basis for a successful Australian television series, “Boney”, in the 1970s.

In 1996, the Australian Crime Writers Association presented the first Ned Kelly Awards, the leading literary award for Australian crime fiction. If you look at a list of award winners, you may be surprised to see names such as Adrian McKinty, Barry Maitland and Michael Robotham, but they are all authors who moved to Australia. Their books are all available through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

But, here are some Australian authors and titles that might not be as recognizable. If there’s a book jacket, the book, and possibly other titles by the author, are available through the Web Store.

Shane Maloney’s The Brush-Off won the Ned Kelly Award in 1997 for Best Novel. It features Murray Whelan, a political operative. Whelan appears in a series by Maloney.

That same year, Peter Temple won the Ned Kelly for Best First Novel for Bad Debts. Temple is the author that Candice Fox said she read and studied for dialogue. Temple won Best Novel in 2000 for Shooting Star, in 2001 for Dead Point, in 2003 for White Dog, and in 2006 for Broken Shore. Temple died on March 8, is featured in Saskia Mabin’s piece in The Guardian. https://bit.ly/2GiaZQ1

Garry Disher is the author of the Challis/Destry police novels that take place on the Mornington Peninsula.

He won the 2007 Ned Kelly Award for Best Novel for Chain of Evidence in that series, and in 2010, he won for Wyatt, a novel featuring his anti-hero of that name.

Peter Corris had a long career before announcing his retirement from writing in 2017. He wrote forty-one books in his Cliff Hardy series featuring the private investigator in Australia, as well as other crime novels. Ironically, he won his Ned Kelly Award for Deep Water, a story in which Hardy travels to the United States.

Candice Fox herself has won two Ned Kelly awards for her Archer and Bennett thriller series.

In 2014, she won the Best First Novel for Hades, and followed up by winning Best Novel in 2015 for Eden. Now, she’s touring for Crimson Lake, and has co-written Fifty Fifty with James Patterson.

The most recent winner of the Ned Kelly Best First Novel Award is Jane Harper for The Dry, featuring Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk. Falk also is the investigating officer in Harper’s second book, Force of Nature.

Kerry Greenwood may not have won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Novel or Best First Novel, but in 2003 she was awarded the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award. The author of the Phryne Fisher mysteries, set in the 1920s, is published by Poisoned Pen Press in the United States.

Sulari Gentill is another author whose historical mysteries are published by Poisoned Pen Press in the U.S. They feature Rowland Sinclair, a gentleman and artist in 1930s Australia where his investigations involve Communists and Fascists.

Sulari has been a featured guest on the blog several times, first when she was In the Hot Seat for an interview, https://poisonedpen.com/2016/06/01/sulari-gentill-in-the-hot-seat/ The second time, she talked about Australia. https://poisonedpen.com/2017/04/11/sulari-gentills-australia/

If you’re looking for a reader’s list of Australian crime fiction, there’s one on Goodreads. https://bit.ly/2HqQsIs. Or you can check out the list of Ned Kelly Award winners and nominees. https://bit.ly/2tCLkPv

Candice Fox said Australia has a dark side. If you explore some of the country’s crime fiction, you may discover it.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, said she’s often asked what the next “big thing” in crime fiction is. In her interview with author Candice Fox, she says it’s Australian crime fiction. Candice Fox is the author of Crimson Lake, and, with James Patterson, Fifty Fifty. Signed copies of both books are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2HnCiYy

Fox was just at The Poisoned Pen, and you can listen to her discuss her writing, and Australian crime writers, with Barbara Peters via Livestream. https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/8103495

Did you know this is Brad Meltzer’s twentieth year in the writing business? He’ll be at The Poisoned Pen on Thursday, March 15 at 6:30 PM. He’ll be joined by Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger. Meltzer will be signing his latest book, The Escape Artist. Signed copies can be ordered through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2F6Oi05

Here’s the summary of The Escape Artist.

At CriminalElement.com, reviewer John Valeri says, “If I Die Tonight is a triumph of sophisticated, stylized storytelling. Though the fractured family is an age-old rite of passage, Gaylin—whose finger always seems to be on the pulse of societal stressors—infuses the topic with absolute immediacy.” His entire review can be read here. https://bit.ly/2D3ft9V

Gaylin, author of If I Die Tonight, joins Phillip Margolin, author of The Third Victim, at The Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, March 13 at 7 PM. Signed copies of Gaylin’s novel are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2I2wHIm

Here’s the summary of If I Die Tonight.

Reminiscent of the bestsellers of Laura Lippman and Harlan Coben—with a dose of Big Little Lies or Stranger Things—an absorbing, addictive tale of psychological suspense from the author of the highly acclaimed and Edgar Award-nominated What Remains of Me and the USA Today bestselling and Shamus Award-winning Brenna Spector series, in which a seemingly open-and-shut police case with a clear-cut hero and villain turns out to be anything but simple.

Late one night in the quiet Hudson Valley town of Havenkill, a distraught woman stumbles into the police station—and lives are changed forever.

Aimee En, once a darling of the ’80s pop music scene, claims that a teenage boy stole her car, then ran over another young man who’d rushed to help.

As Liam Miller’s life hangs in the balance, the events of that fateful night begin to come into focus. But is everything as it seems?

The case quickly consumes social media, transforming Liam, a local high school football star, into a folk hero, and the suspect, a high school outcast named Wade Reed, into a depraved would-be killer. But is Wade really guilty? And if he isn’t, why won’t he talk?

Told from a kaleidoscope of viewpoints—Wade’s mother Jackie, his younger brother Connor, Aimee En and Pearl Maze, a young police officer with a tragic past, If I Die Tonight is a story of family ties and dark secrets—and the lengths we’ll go to protect ourselves.