Did you miss Matt Goldman at The Poisoned Pen yesterday, on book tour for Gone To Dust? You can still order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2wiJ1NJ

Here’s the description of the book.

Set in Minnesota,Gone to Dust is the debut private eye murder mystery from Emmy Award-winning Seinfeld writer Matt Goldman.

“Sharp wit, complex characters, and masterful plotting makes Goldman a writer to watch. Irreverent and insightful, private detective Nils Shapiro is sure to become a fan favorite.”—Harlan Coben,New York Timesbestselling author

A brutal crime. The ultimate cover-up. How do you solve a murder with no useable evidence?

Private detective Nils Shapiro is focused on forgetting his ex-wife and keeping warm during another Minneapolis winter when a former colleague, neighboring Edina Police Detective Anders Ellegaard, calls with the impossible.

Suburban divorcee Maggie Somerville was found murdered in her bedroom, her body covered with the dust from hundreds of emptied vacuum cleaner bags, all potential DNA evidence obscured by the calculating killer.

Digging into Maggie’s cell phone records, Nils finds that the most frequently called number belongs to a mysterious young woman whose true identity could shatter the Somerville family–but could she be guilty of murder?

After the FBI demands that Nils drop the case, Nils and Ellegaard are forced to take their investigation underground, where the case grows as murky as the contents of the vacuum cleaner bags. Is this a strange case of domestic violence or something with far reaching, sinister implications?

“A perfect blend of light touch and dark story—I want more of Nils Shapiro.” —Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author.

*****

You may have missed The Poisoned Pen event with Matt Goldman, but Shelf Awareness Pro interviewed Goldman on Aug. 25. We’d like to share it.

Reading with… Matt Goldman

photo: Peter Konerko

Matt Goldman is an Emmy Award-winning television writer/producer. He was nominated for a Writers Guild Award for his work on Seinfeld. His credits also include Ellen, Coach and The New Adventures of Old Christine. He is in production on Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Goldman splits his time between Minneapolis and Los Angeles. He has two children and a giant poodle that does not have a poodle haircut because those are embarrassing for everyone. Gone to Dust (Forge, August 15, 2017) is his first novel.

On your nightstand now:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. It’s unusual and beautiful and hilarious. I’m a big Saunders fan. The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke. Good writing (vs. plot) matters to me, regardless of whether it’s literary fiction or genre; good writing can make them the same. I just finished the book, my first of Burke’s, and he’s so good from word to word he makes plot a bonus. Little White Lies by Ace Atkins. In addition to his wholly original work, Ace writes Robert B. Parker’s character Spenser. I’ve read Spenser novels, but never written by Ace. I love Ace’s writing. The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty. I watched HBO’s Big Little Lies, loved it, then heard the book was so much better. Really looking forward to this one.

Favorite book when you were a child:

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. I loved the adventure and humor and pushback against authority. Big wish fulfillment for a kid.

Your top five authors:

Gabriel García Márquez, Philip Roth, Raymond Chandler, Mark Twain and–sorry to sound like a jerk–Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The latter could convey volumes of insight in one sentence.

Book you’ve faked reading:

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. And I don’t know if faked is the right word–maybe failed. I sure carried it around for a long time. I will try again.

Book you’re an evangelist for:

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane. Dennis is mostly known for his mysteries like Gone Baby Gone, for Shutter Island and Mystic River and for his television work on The Wire. The Given Day is about the Boston police strike in 1919 and a whole lot more. It’s beautiful, human historical fiction and, I think, one of the greatest American novels ever written.

Book you’ve bought for the cover:

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø. I’d never heard of the Norwegian crime writer. I loved the title and simplicity of the cover, so I picked it up, read the back cover and bought it. The book turned out to be book 3 in the Harry Hole series. I’ve since read every one.

Book you hid from your parents:

I hate to disappoint, but I don’t believe I hid books from my parents. I hid other things. Sometimes inside books.

Book that changed your life:

Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut. I’d already graduated from college. It was the first Vonnegut book I read, and it made me want to be a writer. I aspire to achieve his simple use of language.

Favorite line from a book:

In Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, he describes a Beverly Hills office building and its tenants: “They had half the second floor of one of these candy-pink four-storied buildings where the elevator doors open all by themselves with an electric eye, where the corridors are cool and quiet, and the parking lot has a name on every stall, and the druggist off the front lobby has a sprained wrist from filling bottles of sleeping pills.” Accurate description, social commentary, great joke.

Five books you’ll never part with:

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. The Given Day by Dennis Lehane. The High Window by Raymond Chandler. The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The Essays of E.B. White. Most of all an essay entitled “The Death of a Pig.” I love White’s prose, humor, and mining of big truths in small details.

Alexandra Alter said of Gabriel Tallent’s debut novel, “My Absolute Darling seems poised to become the breakout debut of the year.” That was just one review, from The New York Times. Signed copies of My Absolute Darling are available through the Web Store.  https://bit.ly/2gSEA6n It’s the Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen.

Do you want more?

Here’s the summary of this hot title.

A brilliant and immersive, all-consuming read about one fourteen-year-old girl’s heart-stopping fight for her own soul.

Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin. Her social existence is confined to the middle school (where she fends off the interest of anyone, student or teacher, who might penetrate her shell) and to her life with her father.

Then Turtle meets Jacob, a high-school boy who tells jokes, lives in a big clean house, and looks at Turtle as if she is the sunrise. And for the first time, the larger world begins to come into focus: her life with Martin is neither safe nor sustainable. Motivated by her first experience with real friendship and a teenage crush, Turtle starts to imagine escape, using the very survival skills her father devoted himself to teaching her. What follows is a harrowing story of bravery and redemption. With Turtle’s escalating acts of physical and emotional courage, the reader watches, heart in throat, as this teenage girl struggles to become her own hero—and in the process, becomes ours as well.

Shot through with striking language in a fierce natural setting, My Absolute Darling is an urgently told, profoundly moving read that marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer.

*****

If you like debut novels, you might want to order a signed copy of Gabriel Tallent’s My Absolute Darling.

Missing Persons isn’t Michael Brandman’s first novel, but it’s the first in his Buddy Steel mystery series. Signed copies are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2xjFYtk

Here’s the description of the book.

MISSING PERSONS is the first book in the new Buddy Steel mystery series by New York Times best selling author, Michael Brandman.

Steel…smart, aggressive, ironic, spare and cynical…has been content working homicide at the LAPD until his father, the legendary Sheriff Burton Steel, falls ill with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Sheriff Steel is headquartered in Freedom, a privileged coastal community located a hundred miles north of Los Angeles. His health failing, he asks his son Buddy to come home to cover his back and to groom him to be his successor.

Buddy reluctantly agrees. He returns to Freedom despite having outgrown its small town limits, wary of his father’s authoritarianism.

No sooner does he hit town than Buddy learns the wife of the high-flying star of a Freedom based world-renowned television ministry has gone missing. A visit to the woman’s home leads to a hostile confrontation with her husband’s family and Buddy’s realization that something greater than simply a missing person is at stake.

Allegiance between father and son provides the backdrop for Buddy’s complex investigation of twisted families, avaricious con artists, violent gangs, drugs, corruption, and murder. And added to the mix is an enigmatic femme fatale who succeeds in upending Buddy’s tenets regarding contemporary relationships.

MISSING PERSONS is its own book, yet crime fiction fans will find it a joy to trace its literary lineage from Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker through to Sue Grafton and Michael Connelly.

*****

What’s all that have to do with Robert B. Parker? Brandman wrote a couple of the Jesse Stone books after Parker’s death. But, he’s the screenwriter and producer of Jesse Stone movies. He talks about it, and the connection with Robert B. Parker on Livestream. https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/7649432

The summary in the Web Store beautifully introduces Stephen Weeks’ novel The Countess of Prague. It says, “The Countess of Prague is the wonderfully exciting introduction to Beatrice von Falklenburg, known to her intimates as Trixie, who will lead us from Prague through Europe and occasionally beyond on a ten-book set of investigations that begins in 1904 and finishes in 1914.” (You can order a signed copy here. https://bit.ly/2gPt2Vl )

Stephen Weeks wrote a piece that gives some background.

WRITING THE COUNTESS

by Stephen Weeks

I moved to Prague in 2003. I was drawn to it not only as a “˜romantic’ city (ie by the broad river, the high Castle and the baroque houses and churches) but also because for 40 years up to the end of 1989 the place had been allowed to decay and fall apart under the iron fist of Communism. When I had first visited Prague in 1995 there were only about 8 proper restaurants in the City, and they closed at 9pm ““ or were empty but mysteriously “˜fully booked’. In the rest of the country, the Czech Republic, were more than 600 derelict castles…

Being also a castle restorer, as well as a writer and film-maker, I was intrigued. I was asked to restore all the interiors of a princely palace some 30 miles from Prague, and the owners were surprised that I intended to replicate all the servants’ rooms and special corridors ““ to show how they lived and worked alongside their masters. After all, there were more servants living in grand houses and castles than aristocratic family members. When this country palace did open to the public, as a heritage attraction, the public flocked to it. The State Castles ““ those confiscated by the State and opened as museums ““ never mentioned servants, missing, I would have thought, a great opportunity for some socialist propaganda. Eventually I found out why: when the Communists took over the country in 1948, they rounded up all the senior servants (having already imprisoned or sent down coal or uranium mines those land/castle owners who’d been foolish enough not to flee) and they asked them what it was like to toil for those wicked masters. “˜Quite good,’ many replied, citing the good company, the wonderful environment of a fully-furnished mansion or castle, not to mention the schools and hospitals often erected on the estates at the noblemen’s expense… So it was down the mines too with butlers and major-domos ““ and orders issued to the State Castles not to mention servants!

One might restore buildings, but they needed peopling… and that I could do by writing. I’ve said a lot about servants, for sharing one’s life with servants is the defining difference between our lives of today and those of, say, pre-1939. That is, all of history to 1939. The labour shortage after the millions killed in WWII led to the invention of the domestic washing machine, then the dishwasher ““ and the idea that you didn’t need an employee to push a Hoover around, you could do it yourself!

But what about The Countess herself? I started early making ““ ie directing ““ films. I was scouting for locations when I was 23 and ended up at an amazing palace in Scotland. The Marquess of Bute had the archetypal butler, who’d been with the family for over 40 years… his name was Buick, who carried a bottle of tonic water to me as if it were a vintage wine, label tilted for me to read (and it wasn’t Schweppes but the local supermarket brand!). The house itself had endlessly long corridors, a tall gothic chapel in white marble, staircases with carved gargoyles… I was dizzy with it all. When summer came, I devoted several months to scouring Britain for a castle that (a) attracted me, and (b) I could afford by selling the little 2-up and 2-down house I’d bought in Fulham in London a couple of years before. I found a 12th century castle in Wales, mostly ruined ““ and, full of youthful confidence and ignorance, set about restoring it. There were the usual difficult times, such as waking up one morning with frost on the bedclothes when the roof was being mended, but it all worked out and visitors really enjoyed the growing collection of curiosities with which I filled it. I lived there for 25 years, selling it to move to Prague for the second huge adventure in my life.

But owning a castle in Britain meant that I was approached by the Historic Houses Association, a body of owners of mostly far greater and wealthier castles and palaces than mine. I soon found myself on various committees of this august organisation, sometimes the only member without a title (I am from a humble background). Once the minutes of a meeting were sent to me… Lord this, the Duke of that ““ and at the bottom (it was in alphabetical order) Lord Weeks. The typist has obviously concluded that the committee secretary must have simply forgotten my title.

For some years I worked (this was a voluntary body) with a charming Marchioness who owned a country house (as we call houses like the fictional Downton Abbey) in rolling Welsh countryside, amidst a working forestry and agricultural estate which could produce enough income to fix ““ then gloriously restore ““ the crumbling old mansion. She was brave, independent (going through a divorce when I met her) and, when she’d been 28, the perfect model for my Countess ““ although at that stage she hadn’t even been dreamed of. In Prague I came across an English lady (daughter of a lord) who had moved there during Communism to be with the man she’d fallen in love with. Despite being the model for Socialist hatred, the Secret Police left her alone ““ they thought anyone coming to Communist Czechoslovakia must be mad, rather than bad! The third inspiration for The Countess is this lady’s daughter, simply because she has all the charm and spunk of her mother, but she was then the right age for my heroine.

Visiting large numbers of country houses thanks to the HHA, sometimes staying as a house guest or going shooting on their estates (don’t worry, I didn’t kill anything) I got to know the aristocratic way of life ““ with its phlegmatic ease yet socially responsible, leavened by good humour ““ and to know that at one time it was spread throughout Europe. The so-called Belle Epoque was an idyllic time before the First World War ““ and all that happened as a result of it ““ killed it off. But in my imagination, Trixie lives… and with her the whole world she inhabits, which I hope I bring to life so that you might travel back with me yourselves to those years bathed in a golden sheen…

© Stephen Weeks 2017

It’s always fascinating to see how the conversations can wander when Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomes and visits with authors. She recently hosted Marcia Clark, on book tour for Snap Judgment, and Robert Dugoni, on release date for his new book, Close to Home.

Signed copies of the books are available through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Now, you can listen and watch the fascinating discussion on Livestream. https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/7649415

(And, thank you to Bob Dugoni for permission to use the photo of the two authors.)

Kristen Lepionka, author of The Last Place You Look, recently wrote a piece called “Top 10 Female Detectives in Fiction” for The Guardian. You can read her article here.  https://bit.ly/2xMnzST

You can also order Lepionka’s own novel featuring a female detective, The Last Place You Look, through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2gDtXnP

I’ll give you one hint from Lepionka’s list. Appearing at #4 is Rachel Howzell Hall, author of City of Saviors. She’ll be at The Poisoned Pen on Sunday, Sept. 10 at 2 PM to discuss and sign her new book. You can order a signed copy. https://bit.ly/2wC4VP5

Here’s the description of Hall’s new book featuring Los Angeles Homicide Detective Elouise Norton.

“A fresh voice in crime fiction. Fast, funny, heartbreaking and wise…Elouise Norton is the best new character you’ll meet this year.”–Lee Child

“Hall deserves to be compared to Kathy Reichs or Patricia Cornwell, and it will not be long before she is recognized as every bit as big a crime writing star.”–Daily Mail (UK)

Los Angeles Homicide Detective Elouise Norton encounters her toughest case yet in City of Saviors, the fourth installment in the critically acclaimed mystery series from author Rachel Howzell Hall.

After a long Labor Day weekend, seventy-three-year-old Eugene Washington is found dead in his Leimert Park home. At first blush, his death seems unremarkable—heatwave combined with food poisoning from a holiday barbecue. But something in the way Washington died doesn’t make sense. LAPD Homicide Detective Elouise “Lou” Norton is called to investigate the death and learns that the only family Washington had was the 6,000-member congregation of Blessed Mission Ministries, led by Bishop Solomon Tate.

But something wicked is lurking among the congregants of this church.

Lou’s partner, Detective Colin Taggert, thinks her focus on the congregation comes from her distrust of organized religion. But Lou is convinced that the murderer is sitting in one of those red velvet pews—and that Bishop Tate may be protecting the wolf in the flock. Lou must force the truth into the light and confront her own demons in order to save another soul before it’s too late.

“Hall has created a strong and likable African American detective who rivals Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch in grit, intelligence, and tenacity.”–Library Journal(starred review)

Jonathan Kellerman and his son, Jesse Kellerman, will be at The Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, Sept. 12 at 6:30 PM to discuss and sign their book, Crime Scene. Signed copies are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2w0YgdP

Here’s the summary.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “¢ A former star athlete turned deputy coroner is drawn into a brutal, complicated murder in this psychological thriller from a father-son writing team that delivers “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King).

Natural causes or foul play? That’s the question Clay Edison must answer each time he examines a body. Figuring out motives and chasing down suspects aren’t part of his beat—not until a seemingly open-and-shut case proves to be more than meets his highly trained eye.

Eccentric, reclusive Walter Rennert lies cold at the bottom of his stairs. At first glance the scene looks straightforward: a once-respected psychology professor, done in by booze and a bad heart. But his daughter Tatiana insists that her father has been murdered, and she persuades Clay to take a closer look at the grim facts of Rennert’s life.

What emerges is a history of scandal and violence, and an experiment gone horribly wrong that ended in the brutal murder of a coed. Walter Rennert, it appears, was a broken man—and maybe a marked one. And when Clay learns that a colleague of Rennert’s died in a nearly identical manner, he begins to question everything in the official record.

All the while, his relationship with Tatiana is evolving into something forbidden. The closer they grow, the more determined he becomes to catch her father’s killer—even if he has to overstep his bounds to do it.

The twisting trail Clay follows will lead him into the darkest corners of the human soul. It’s his job to listen to the tales the dead tell. But this time, he’s part of a story that makes his blood run cold.

*****

Before you come to the event or before you read the book, you might want a little background. Frances Dinkelspiel wrote an article for Berkeleyside.com called, “In Jesse Kellerman’s bestselling crime novel, Berkeley is a character”,  and sent the link so we could share it with readers.  https://bit.ly/2xKTdAa

I think you’ll want to check it out.

Did you miss Louise Penny’s event this past weekend for The Poisoned Pen? I did, and I wish I had been able to be there. She’s on book tour for Glass Houses, the new Armand Gamache mystery. We still have signed copies for sale in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2eTzlmC

Here’s what we missed.

Looks like it was a fun event. Next year, we all need to try to make it for the program!

Tess Gerritsen will be at The Poisoned Pen on Monday, Sept. 4 at 4 PM to discuss her new book, I Know a Secret. That title is this week’s Hot Book of the Week.

Even if you can’t be there, you can order a signed copy of the book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2vTJRjE

Here’s the summary.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “¢ Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles—the inspiration for the smash hit TNT series—continue their bestselling crime-solving streak, as they pursue a shadowy psychopath keeping secrets and taking lives.

“Suspense doesn’t get smarter than this.”—Lee Child

Two separate homicides, at different locations, with unrelated victims, have more in common than just being investigated by Boston PD detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles. In both cases, the bodies bear startling wounds—yet the actual cause of death is unknown. It’s a doubly challenging case for the cop and the coroner to be taking on, at a fraught time for both of them. As Jane struggles to save her mother from the crumbling marriage that threatens to bury her, Maura grapples with the imminent death of her own mother—infamous serial killer Amalthea Lank.

While Jane tends to her mother, there’s nothing Maura can do for Amalthea, except endure one final battle of wills with the woman whose shadow has haunted her all her life. Though succumbing to cancer, Amalthea hasn’t lost her taste for manipulating her estranged daughter—this time by dangling a cryptic clue about the two bizarre murders Maura and Jane are desperately trying to solve.

But whatever the dying convict knows is only a piece of the puzzle. Soon the investigation leads to a secretive young woman who survived a shocking abuse scandal, an independent horror film that may be rooted in reality, and a slew of martyred saints who died cruel and unusual deaths. And just when Rizzoli and Isles think they’ve cornered a devilish predator, the long-buried past rears its head—and threatens to engulf more innocent lives, including their own.

Praise for I Know a Secret: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

“Tess Gerritsen brings back Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles to tackle another baffling mystery . . . weaving a thriller that slowly unfolds in unexpected ways. . . . Rizzoli and Isles feel like real people, and readers who are fans of either the book series or the former TV show know there’s an emotional angle to the proceedings and care about everything that happens to the duo. . . . Gerritsen writes effortlessly, and this is another stellar entry in the series.”—The Washington Post

“The unforgettable team of Rizzoli and Isles is back working on a chilling and difficult case. . . . The twists and turns this novel takes will force Gerritsen’s heroines to face difficult emotions and their own biases. As always, Gerritsen is a master storyteller!”—RT Book Reviews

“The characters converge in dynamic, diabolical ways and, in doing so, reveal past events that continue to haunt the present day. . . . Gerritsen continues to surprise with the depth and range of her storytelling ambitions. . . . Like the best of big-screen boogeyman blockbusters, there’s complex villainy, a distortion between appearance and reality, and a third-act plot twist that will both surprise and satisfy. This one’s a tasty treat with substance.”—CriminalElement.com

“Be prepared for an exciting ride with unexpected twists and terrific writing.”—Library Journal

In a recent newsletter, Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, mentioned that we will not have signed copies of John le Carré’s latest novel, A Legacy of Spies. You can still order a copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2iNH36u

There’s a great deal of buzz around this new book. Here’s the summary.

The undisputed master returns with a riveting new book—his first Smiley novel in more than twenty-five years 

Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, is living out his old age on the family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London, and involved such characters as Alec Leamas, Jim Prideaux, George Smiley and Peter Guillam himself, are to be scrutinized by a generation with no memory of the Cold War and no patience with its justifications.

Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own intense story, John le Carré has spun a single plot as ingenious and thrilling as the two predecessors on which it looks back: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In a story resonating with tension, humor and moral ambivalence, le Carré and his narrator Peter Guillam present the reader with a legacy of unforgettable characters old and new.

*****

Dwight Garner reviewed A Legacy of Spies in The New York Times‘ Books of the Times article, “George Smiley and Other Old Friends Return in John le Carré’s ‘A Legacy of Spies’.  https://nyti.ms/2vD1O5Q

Perhaps the most riveting article is also in The New York Times, Sarah Lyall’s “Spies Like Us: A Conversation With John le Carré and Ben Macintyre”. https://nyti.ms/2vuRw80

If you haven’t yet had your fill, check out David Cranmer’s annotated list of books in Criminal Element, “Into the Cold: A George Smiley Primer”.  https://bit.ly/2wYtNly

It’s enough to make you want to buy a copy of the book, isn’t it?