Everybody Knows that Jordan Harper’s book by that title is the Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. And, why wouldn’t it be? Patrick Millikin from the bookstore recently raved about it for “Ask a Bookseller” on MPRNews. http://bit.ly/3R5OemJ And, Harper will be appearing at the bookstore on Monday, January 30 at 7 PM. You can order signed copies through the Web Store. http://bit.ly/3XVQGPe

Here’s the summary of Everybody Knows.

A fearless black-bag publicist exposes the belly of the L.A. beast in “one of the best LA noir novels I’ve ever read” (Attica Locke) from Edgar Award-winning author Jordan Harper.
Welcome to Mae Pruett’s Los Angeles, where “Nobody talks. But everybody whispers.” As a “black-bag” publicist tasked not with letting the good news out but keeping the bad news in, Mae works for one of LA’s most powerful and sought-after crisis PR firms, at the center of a sprawling web of lawyers, PR flaks, and private security firms she calls “The Beast.” They protect the rich and powerful and depraved by any means necessary. 

After her boss is gunned down in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel in a random attack, Mae takes it upon herself to investigate and runs headfirst into The Beast’s lawless machinations and the twisted systems it exists to perpetuate. It takes her on a roving neon joyride through a Los Angeles full of influencers pumped full of pills and fillers; sprawling mansions footsteps away from sprawling homeless encampments; crooked cops and mysterious wrecking crews in the middle of the night.

Edgar Award-winner Jordan Harper’s EVERYBODY KNOWS is addicting and alarming, a “juggernaut of a novel” and “an absolute tour de force.” It is what the crime novel can achieve in the modern age: portray the human lives at the center of vast American landscapes, and make us thrill at their attempts to face impossible odds.

Recommended by Wall Street Journal • Washington Post • Lit Hub• LA Times •CrimeReads• Alta Online • Kirkus Reviews• Publishers Weekly• NBC/TODAY and many more!

• An ABA January 2023 Indie Next List Pick •

“The book everybody’s been waiting for” —Michael Connelly
“An absolute tour de force”—S. A. Cosby
“The best mystery novel I’ve read in years” —James Patterson

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Jordan Harper is the Edgar-Award winning author of She Rides Shotgun and Love and Other Wounds. Born and educated in Missouri, he now lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a writer and producer for television.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed authors Thomas Perry and Josh Haven to the bookstore. Thomas Perry’s latest book is Murder Book. Josh Haven’s first caper is Fake Money, Blue Smoke. Signed copies of both books are available through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Although Perry’s latest book is Murder Book, he talked about his earliest books, but also the filming of his book, The Old Man. I think you’ll want to listen to the event.

Here’s the summary of Murder Book.

An ex-cop takes on a widespread criminal organization targeting midwestern towns in this new thriller from the author of The Old Man

When a sudden crime wave hits several small midwestern towns, the U.S. Attorney for the region calls on Harry Duncan to investigate. An ex-cop known for his unorthodox methods, Duncan is reluctant to go up against a widespread criminal organization—but the attorney in question is Ellen Leicester, the wife who left him fifteen years earlier, and to her, he can’t say no.

Initially brought in as a consultant to determine if the racketeering is severe enough to require an all-out investigation by the FBI, Duncan quickly finds himself in conflict with a syndicate far more violent than first suspected. As the investigation develops, he begins compiling a “murder book,” the notebook in which a detective keeps records, interviews, photos—everything he needs to build his case. But his scrutiny of the gang soon makes Duncan a target. And Ellen, too.

A thrilling and suspenseful tour of crime-addled midwestern towns, Murder Book is signature Thomas Perry, with characters you won’t soon forget, crisply-described action sequences, and breathlessly-tense plotting that will keep you racing through the pages.

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Thomas Perry is the bestselling author of over twenty novels, including the critically acclaimed Jane Whitefield series, The Old Man, and The Butcher’s Boy, which won the Edgar Award. He lives in Southern California.

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Here’s the description of Fake Money, Blue Smoke.

In the first caper from a “promising new talent” (Publishers Weekly), a skilled counterfeiter hires a crew of career criminals to steal an artwork from a speeding train

When former platoon sergeant Matt Kubelsky is paroled from Ray Brook Federal Correctional Institute in upstate New York, he’s surprised to find his ex-girlfriend waiting for him out in the parking lot. An ex-girlfriend he’s spent years pining for after she dumped him and stopped answering his letters. An ex-girlfriend who wonders if her apparently criminally-hardened ex-boyfriend can help her out of some extra-legal difficulty of her own.

During the years Matt was in prison, Kelly Haggerty discovered she couldn’t earn a satisfactory living as an artist, so she turned her artistic talents to counterfeiting foreign currency—and ended up embroiled in an international money laundering intrigue. Now she hopes she can get herself out of trouble with a cleverly-plotted theft and one last enormous score. 

The missing ingredient is someone Kelly can trust to do the dirty work, recruiting career criminals who won’t flinch at the opportunity to make good money by whatever means necessary. And Matt is happy to oblige, as it seems like the perfect opportunity to settle the score with the men responsible for ruining his life and putting him away for a crime he didn’t commit. The heist—a horseback robbery of valuable artwork from a speeding Amtrak train—seems to be going perfectly, until one of the players starts to suspect he’s been paid in counterfeit bills…

Pulse-pounding suspense, wholly original action scenes, and enough double-crosses to leave readers reeling make this caper a must-read for fans of fast, adrenaline-fueled crime fiction. The first thriller from the author whose seafaring adventure novels are published as J.H. Gelernter, Fake Money, Blue Smoke announces an exciting new voice in the genre.

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Before publishing his first novel, Josh Haven was an art critic for magazines & newspapers in the US & Europe and an astrogeophysicist who solved the Saturn-Hyperion density/porosity problem. His seafaring adventure novels are published under the name J.H. Gelernter, and Fake Money, Blue Smoke is his first crime novel.

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Enjoy the conversations as the authors talk about multiple books.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed PJ Tracy for a virtual event. Tracy’s third book in the Detective Margaret Nolan series is The Devil You Know. There are signed copies available in the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/5xw8z42v

Here’s the summary of The Devil You Know.

Darkness is nothing new to LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan, but in P.J. Tracy’s The Devil You Know, even she isn’t prepared for the scandalous deception of deadly proportions that shakes the very foundation of Hollywood and its untouchables…and leaves her entangled in its rotten core.

Los Angeles has many faces: the real LA where regular people live and work, the degenerate underbelly of any big city, and the rarefied world of wealth, power, and celebrity. LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan’s latest case plunges her into this insular realm of privilege, and gives her a glimpse of the decay behind the glitter.

Beloved actor Evan Hobbes is found in the rubble of a Malibu rockslide, a day after a fake video ruins his career. It’s not clear to Nolan if it’s an accident, a suicide, or a murder, and things get murkier as the investigation expands to his luminary friends and colleagues. Meanwhile, Hobbes’s agent is dealing with damage control, his psychotic boss, and a woman he’s scorned.

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P. J. Tracy is the pseudonym of Traci Lambrecht, bestselling and award winning author of the Monkeewrench series. Lambrecht and her mother, P. J., wrote eight novels together as P. J. Tracy before P. J. passed away in 2016. Lambrecht has since continued the Monkeewrench series solo. She spent most of her childhood painting and showing Arabian horses, and graduated with a Russian Studies major from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she also studied voice. She now lives outside Minneapolis.

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Enjoy the conversation about Tracy’s new book, and police as characters.

Kate Alice Marshall’s debut adult crime thriller, What Lies in the Woods, is The Poisoned Pen’s January Crime Collector’s Book of the Month. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, recently welcomed Marshall to the bookstore to discuss What Lies in the Woods. There are signed copies of the book available in the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/ms3zfh3a

Here’s the description of What Lies in the Woods.

They were eleven when they sent a killer to prison. They were heroes . . . but they were liars.

Kate Alice Marshall’s What Lies in the Woods is a thrilling novel about friendship, secrets, betrayal, and lies – and having the courage to face the past.

“Clever and deliciously dark.” —Alice Feeney, bestselling author of Rock Paper Scissors
“Shines an incisive light on the secrets of a small-town community…Great writing and boldly drawn characters bring a terrifying tale to all-too-vivid life.” —Kirkus, starred review

Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes.

And they were liars.

For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods—no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be.

“What Lies In the Woods is a gorgeous fever dream of a novel about the dangers lurking in the hearts and imaginations of little girls. Kate Alice Marshall deftly charts a winding path through her creepy woods, doubling back and changing course to build a labyrinth of secrets and lies in which I was delighted to lose myself for hours. Hands down, it’s the best thriller I’ve read in a long, long time.”—Chandler Baker, bestselling author of The Husbands

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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.

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Enjoy the conversation from The Poisoned Pen.

Yesterday, Left Coast Crime sent out the press release featuring nominees for the 2023 Lefty Awards. Check out the list, and then check the Web Store for the books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

2023 Left Coast Crime “Lefty” Award Nominations Announced
January 17, 2023 — Tucson — Left Coast Crime 2023 will be presenting four Lefty Awards at
our 33rd annual convention, to be held in Tucson in March: humorous, historical, debut, and best.

The awards will be voted on at the convention and presented at a banquet on Saturday, March 18,
at El Conquistador Resort in the Oro Valley of Tucson. The award nominees have been selected
by convention registrants, and LCC is delighted to announce the 2023 Lefty Award nominees for
books published in 2022:

Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel.

The nominees are:
? Ellen Byron, Bayou Book Thief (Berkley Prime Crime)
? Jennifer J. Chow, Death by Bubble Tea (Berkley Prime Crime)
? A.J. Devlin, Five Moves of Doom (NeWest Press)
? T.G. Herren, A Streetcar Named Murder (Crooked Lane Books)
? Catriona McPherson, Scot in a Trap (Severn House)

Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel for books set before 1970 (The Bill Gottfried
Memorial).

The nominees are:
? Dianne Freeman, A Bride’s Guide to Marriage and Murder (Kensington Books)
? Catriona McPherson, In Place of Fear (Mobius)
? Wanda M. Morris, Anywhere You Run (William Morrow)
? Karen Odden, Under a Veiled Moon (Crooked Lane Books)
? Ann Parker, The Secret in the Wall (Poisoned Pen Press)
? Iona Whishaw, Framed in Fire (TouchWood Editions)

Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel.

The nominees are:
? Erin E. Adams, Jackal (Bantam Books)
? Eli Cranor, Don’t Know Tough (Soho Crime)
? Ramona Emerson, Shutter (Soho Crime)
? Meredith Hambrock, Other People’s Secrets (Crooked Lane Books)
? Harini Nagendra, The Bangalore Detectives Club (Pegasus Crime)
? Rob Osler, Devil’s Chew Toy (Crooked Lane Books)
? Jane Pek, The Verifiers (Vintage Books)

Lefty for Best Mystery Novel (not in other categories).

The nominees are:
? Kellye Garrett, Like a Sister (Mulholland Books)
? Laurie R. King, Back to the Garden (Bantam Books)
? James L’Etoile, Dead Drop (Level Best Books)
? Gigi Pandian, Under Lock & Skeleton Key (Minotaur Books)
? Louise Penny, A World of Curiosities (Minotaur Books)
? Alex Segura, Secret Identity (Flatiron Books)

The Left Coast Crime Convention is an annual event sponsored by mystery fans, both readers and
authors. Held in the western half of North America, LCC’s intent is to host an event where
readers, authors, critics, librarians, publishers, and other fans can gather in convivial surroundings
to pursue their mutual interests. Lefty Awards have been given since 1996.

In 2020, Left Coast Crime received the Raven Award from Mystery Writers of America, for
“outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing.”

The 33rd annual Left Coast Crime Convention will take place in Tucson, Arizona, March 16-19,

2023. This year’s Guests of Honor are authors Glen Erik Hamilton and Sujata Massey. J.A. Jance
      will be recognized for Lifetime Achievement. Dru Ann Love is the Fan Guest of Honor, and
      author Ellen Byron will serve as Toastmaster.

Kate Alice Marshall will be guest author at The Poisoned Pen on Thursday, January 19 at 7 PM for a live event. She’ll be talking about her new book, What Lies in the Woods. There are signed copies of Marshall’s book, the Hot Book of the Week, in the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/2vadzwry

Here’s the description of What Lies in the Woods.

They were eleven when they sent a killer to prison. They were heroes . . . but they were liars.

Kate Alice Marshall’s What Lies in the Woods is a thrilling novel about friendship, secrets, betrayal, and lies – and having the courage to face the past.

“Clever and deliciously dark.” —Alice Feeney, bestselling author of Rock Paper Scissors
“Shines an incisive light on the secrets of a small-town community…Great writing and boldly drawn characters bring a terrifying tale to all-too-vivid life.” —Kirkus, starred review

Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes.

And they were liars.

For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods—no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be.

“What Lies In the Woods is a gorgeous fever dream of a novel about the dangers lurking in the hearts and imaginations of little girls. Kate Alice Marshall deftly charts a winding path through her creepy woods, doubling back and changing course to build a labyrinth of secrets and lies in which I was delighted to lose myself for hours. Hands down, it’s the best thriller I’ve read in a long, long time.”—Chandler Baker, bestselling author of The Husbands

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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.