A special extra issue of the Booknews, including a listing of our remaining 2022 events (live and virtual), plus a sampling of holiday gift ideas for everyone on your list! Remember, shop early this year…!
Ellen Byron & Books
This really started out as a Thanksgiving request, but I changed it in the process. I was going to ask a few authors to tell me about books they were grateful for. Instead, since COVID-19 still hangs over everything, I asked them to tell me about books they’re grateful they read in the last several years. I also said they could mention their own books. I’m grateful so many responded! Ellen Byron was the first. Check for Ellen’s book suggestions in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Ellen Byron is the Agatha Award”“winning and USA Today bestselling author of the Cajun Country Mysteries. As Maria DiRico, she also writes the Catering Hall Mysteries. Her website is https://www.ellenbyron.com/
When Covid locked down the world, I comforted myself by doing two things in excess: reading and drinking wine. (I’ve since cut back on the latter, although my husband said he’s never made more money returning bottles to our recycling center.)
I read so many books I couldn’t keep track of them — Note to self: keep a list of what you read! — but a few stand out as particularly memorable for a range of reasons:
Death of a Showman, by Mariah Fredericks. My favorite genre is historical mysteries. I could fill a page listing all the series I read and love. But I have a particular fondness for Fredericks’ Jane Prescott Mysteries. I’m a native New Yorker and grew up fascinated by the city’s Gilded Age past. Death of a Showman is set in 1914, so it straddles that particular time period while foreshadowing another historical event I’m obsessed with, World War I. Fredericks’ series features a smart, compassionate female protagonist, which always appeals to me. And as a playwright who spent a lot of her formative years in the New York theatre scene, I loved the book’s plot was set against the backdrop of Broadway.
Good Girl: A Memoir of Overcoming Rape, Breast Cancer & Fundamentalism, Laura Jensen Walker. When I’m not reading mysteries, I read non-fiction and this memoir was the best I’ve read in a long time. Despite the traumatic subject matter, the tone of the book is so conversational that it’s easy to forget Laura isn’t in the room with you. She not only brings readers to tears, she also inspires them and even provides laughs on occasion. It’s a super impressive hat trick.
A Death in Jerusalem, by Jonathan Dunsky. My introduction to this series was literally prompted by the lockdown. I arrived at my local gym to discover it was closed due to Covid. (Sadly, it never reopened.) Heading back to the parking lot, I ran into another gym regular, who said, “I was hoping to see you today. I know you write mysteries and I wanted to give you this book.” She handed me a copy of the first Adam Lipid Mystery, and soon I was hooked on the series. It’s set during Israel’s nascent days as a country. (Told you I loved historical mysteries!) Adam Lipid, once a Hungarian detective, is now a P.I. and Holocaust survivor haunted by the loss of his family in the concentration camps. The plot of A Death in Jerusalem revolves around the 1952 storming of Israeli parliament, offering an eerie and topical parallel to the January 6th storming of our own nation’s capital.
(Note from Lesa – Sadly, this book is hard to find.)
Galatoire’s: Biography of a Bistro, by Marda Barton and Kenneth Holditch. I have such a personal connection to this book. I picked it up as research for my new series, the Vintage Cookbook Mysteries, which is set in the New Orleans mansion-turned-museum of a late restauranteur. I mentioned the book purchase to my friend Jan Gilbert, a NOLA native, and she said, “There’s a chapter in it about my mom and aunt.” I responded, “Get out!” and ran to read it. Indeed, the chapter titled “Alice O’Shaughnessy & Helen Gilbert, The Two Sisters: Birds of a Feather,” is all about how the two sisters held court at Galatoire’s every Friday lunch hour. There’s even a quote from Jan. It was like a sign from the writing heavens that I was on the right track with my new series.
Speaking of which…
I launched not one but two new series during lockdown, the aforementioned Vintage Cookbook Mysteries and the Catering Hall Mysteries (as Maria DiRico). I’m thrilled to share they’re both available for preorder right here at Poisoned Pen.
Wined and Died in New Orleans, Vintage Cookbook Mystery #2, release date February 7, 2023. No, this book wasn’t inspired by my own copious wine consumption during lockdown. The plot comes from a story I read on the Internet about how a couple remodeling their country home discovered a vast amount of whiskey dating back to the 1920s hidden in the crawl space. I substituted 150-year-old Madeira wine for whiskey in my book and added the threat of a hurricane, based on several bouts of threats and actual storms I experienced myself.
Four Parties and a Funeral, Catering Hall Mystery #4, release date March 28, 2023. Remember how I mentioned I’m a native New Yorker? I channeled my own experience of growing up in Queens with cousins who ran two catering halls into this series. I even use my late nonna’s maiden name, Maria DiRico, as my pen name and my protagonist Mia Carina actually lives in Nonna’s real-life two-family house in Astoria. InFour Parties and a Funeral, the filming of a ridiculous reality series, The Dons of Ditmars Boulevard, sparks both humor and murder. This series has received a seal of approval from various DiRico, DiNardo, DiVirgilio, Tenaglia, Testa, and Caniglia family members.
A toast —whiskey or wine, your call —to the indefatigable bookshop owners who soldiered on through the pandemic and improvised creative ways to provide us with the literary escape we so desperately needed. Now that the world has opened up again, I hope you’ll visit your local independent bookstore to thank them and shop with them in person.
Clare Mackintosh & The Last Party
Clare Mackintosh’s The Last Party is The Poisoned Pen’s British Crime Club Selection of the Month. It’s also the first in a new series. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, recently welcomed Mackintosh for a virtual event and discussion of her new book. You can order copies of The Last Party through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3V5Tqbp
Here’s the description of The Last Party.
“Wicked fun, devilishly clever, with echoes of Agatha Christie.” —Patricia Cornwell, #1 New York Times bestselling author
At midnight, one of them is dead. By morning, all of them are suspects.
It’s the party to end all parties….but not everyone is here to celebrate.
On New Year’s Eve, Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests. His vacation homes on Mirror Lake are a success, and he’s generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbors.
But by midnight, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake.
On New Year’s Day, Ffion Morgan has a village full of suspects. The tiny community is her home, so the suspects are her neighbors, friends and family—and Ffion has her own secrets to protect.
With a lie uncovered at every turn, soon the question isn’t who wanted Rhys dead…but who finally killed him.
In a village with this many secrets, murder is just the beginning.
“Brilliant, so atmospheric….I fell in love with the courageous, complicated detective Ffion Morgan and I think readers will too.” —Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author of The It Girl
CLARE MACKINTOSH is the multi-award-winning author of four Sunday Times bestselling novels. Translated into forty languages, her books have sold more than two million copies worldwide, have been New York Times and international bestsellers, and have spent a combined total of 50 weeks on the Sunday Times bestseller chart. Her most recent novel is Hostage. Mackintosh lives in North Wales with her husband and their three children. She can be found at claremackintosh.com, facebook.com/ClareMackWrites, or on Twitter @ClareMackint0sh.
Enjoy Clare Mackintosh’s conversation with Barbara Peters.
Mary Robinette Kowal in Conversation with Diana Gabaldon
Diana Gabaldon was recently guest host for The Poisoned Pen, welcoming author Mary Robinette Kowal for a virtual event. Kowal is the author of The Spare Man. There are signed copies of it in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3A38App
Here’s the summary of The Spare Man.
Hugo, Locus, and Nebula-Award winner Mary Robinette Kowal blends her no-nonsense approach to life in space with her talent for creating glittering high-society in this stylish SF mystery, The Spare Man.
Tesla Crane, a brilliant inventor and an heiress, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between the Moon and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and the festering chowderheads who run security have the audacity to arrest her spouse. Armed with banter, martinis and her small service dog, Tesla is determined to solve the crime so that the newlyweds can get back to canoodling—and keep the real killer from striking again.
Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning alternate history novel, The Calculating Stars, the first book in the Lady Astronaut series. She is also the author of The Glamourist Histories series and Ghost Talkers and has received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, four Hugo Awards, the Nebula, and Locus Awards. Her stories appear in Asimov’s, Uncanny, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Mary Robinette has also worked as a professional puppeteer, is a member of the Award-winning podcast Writing Excuses, and performs as a voice actor (SAG/AFTRA), recording fiction for authors including Seanan McGuire, Cory Doctorow, and Neal Stephenson. She lives in Tennessee with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters.
Enjoy the casual conversation with Mary Robinette Kowal and Diana Gabaldon.
Michael Connelly Discusses Desert Star
Robert Anglen from The Arizona Republic, joined Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, to host Michael Connelly. Connelly’s latest book is Desert Star, and he talks about Harry Bosch, Bosch’s career, and the books. There are signed copies of Desert Star available in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3A4AKAm
Here’s the description of Desert Star.
LAPD detective Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch team up to hunt the brutal killer who is Bosch’s “white whale”—a man responsible for the murder of an entire family.
A year has passed since LAPD detective Renée Ballard quit the force in the face of misogyny, demoralization, and endless red tape. But after the chief of police himself tells her she can write her own ticket within the department, Ballard takes back her badge, leaving “the Late Show” to rebuild and lead the cold case unit at the elite Robbery-Homicide Division.
For years, Harry Bosch has been working a case that haunts him—the murder of an entire family by a psychopath who still walks free. Ballard makes Bosch an offer: come volunteer as an investigator in her new Open-Unsolved Unit, and he can pursue his “white whale” with the resources of the LAPD behind him.
First priority for Ballard is to clear the unsolved rape and murder of a sixteen-year-old girl. The decades-old case is essential to the councilman who supported re-forming the unit, and who could shutter it again—the victim was his sister. When Ballard gets a “cold hit” connecting the killing to a similar crime, proving that a serial predator has been at work in the city for years, the political pressure has never been higher. To keep momentum going, she has to pull Bosch off his own investigation, the case that is the consummation of his lifelong mission.
The two must put aside old resentments and new tensions to run to ground not one but two dangerous killers who have operated with brash impunity. In what may be his most gripping and profoundly moving book yet, Michael Connelly shows once again why he has been dubbed “one of the greatest crime writers of all time” (Ryan Steck, Crimereads).
Michael Connelly is the author of thirty-six previous novels, including #1 New York Times bestsellers The Dark Hours andThe Law of Innocence. His books, which include the Harry Bosch series, the Lincoln Lawyer series, and the Renée Ballard series, have sold more than eighty million copies worldwide. Connelly is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels. He is the executive producer of three television series: Bosch, Bosch: Legacy, and The Lincoln Lawyer. He spends his time in California and Florida.
You’ll learn so much about Michael Connelly’s characters if you watch this event.
Lisa Unger, Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
If you were caught up in election returns on Tuesday night, you can now catch Lisa Unger’s appearance at The Poisoned Pen via the video. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, welcomed Unger to talk about Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six. Unger’s latest novel is the Hot Book of the Week at the store. Signed copies are available in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3hvSxdl
Here’s the summary of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six.
“A deliciously tense ride.” —Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author of One By One
Three couples rent a luxury cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway to die for in this chilling locked-room thriller by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger.
What could be more restful than a weekend getaway with family and friends? An isolated luxury cabin in the woods, spectacular views, a hot tub and a personal chef. Hannah’s generous brother found the listing online. The reviews are stellar. It’ll be three couples on this trip with good food, good company and lots of R & R.
But the dreamy weekend is about to turn into a nightmare.
A deadly storm is brewing. The rental host seems just a little too present. The personal chef reveals that their beautiful house has a spine-tingling history. And the friends have their own complicated past, with secrets that run blood deep.
How well does Hannah know her brother, her own husband? Can she trust her best friend? Meanwhile, someone is determined to ruin the weekend, looking to exact a payback for deeds long buried. Who is the stranger among them?
Lisa Unger is a NYT and internationally bestselling author. Her books are published in 31 languages, with millions of copies sold worldwide. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award nominations, an honor held by only a few writers including Agatha Christie. Her work has been named on “Best Book” lists from Today, People, GMA, EW, Amazon, IndieBound and many others. She has written for the NYT, WSJ, NPR, and Travel+Leisure. She lives in Florida with her family.
Enjoy the discussion of writing and Lisa Unger’s new book.
Janet Evanovich, Going Rogue
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently hosted Janet Evanovich who is best known for her Stephanie Plum books. Going Rogue is the 29th in the series, and there are signed copies of it in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3fP0Alb
Here’s the summary of Going Rogue.
Stephanie Plum breaks the rules, flirts with disaster, and shows who’s boss in this “fast and fun” (Publishers Weekly) thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich.
Monday mornings aren’t supposed to be fun, but they should be predictable. However, on this particular Monday, Stephanie Plum knows that something is amiss when she turns up for work at Vinnie’s Bail Bonds to find that longtime office manager Connie Rosolli, who is as reliable as the tides in Atlantic City, hasn’t shown up.
Stephanie’s worst fears are confirmed when she gets a call from Connie’s abductor. He says he will only release her in exchange for a mysterious coin that a recently murdered man left as collateral for his bail. Unfortunately, this coin, which should be in the office—just like Connie—is nowhere to be found.
The quest to discover the coin, learn its value, and save Connie will require the help of Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur, her best pal Lula, her boyfriend Morelli, and hunky security expert Ranger. As they get closer to unraveling the reasons behind Connie’s kidnapping, Connie’s captor grows more threatening and soon Stephanie has no choice but to throw caution to the wind, follow her instincts, and go rogue.
Full of surprises, thrills, and humor, Going Rogue reveals a new side of Stephanie Plum, and shows Janet Evanovich at her scorching, riotous best.
Over the last twenty-six years, Janet Evanovich has written a staggering forty-two New York Times bestsellers. In addition to her #1 bestselling Stephanie Plum novels and many other popular books, Janet is the author of The Recovery Agent, the start of a blockbuster new series.
Enjoy the conversation with Janet Evanovich and Barbara Peters.
November Events
We haven’t done this for a while. It’s just a reminder of all the authors, books, and events coming to The Poisoned Pen, either live or virtually during the month of November. Pull out your calendar, and don’t forget to pre-order books through the Web Store. A book always makes a great present! https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Check out the upcoming November events!
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Dana Stabenow’s Theft of an Idol
It’s always fascinating to listen to Dana Stabenow talk about Egyptian history and Cleopatra. She recently appeared at The Poisoned Pen to talk about her now book Theft of an Idol. There are signed copies of the book in the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/yt5nsapc
Here’s the summary of Theft of an Idol.
When Cleopatra’s most beloved actress disappears, her new Eye of Isis must solve a case that will lead to the darkest corners of Alexandria.
From the palaces of Alexandria reigns Cleopatra ““ seventh of her name, avatar of the goddess Isis, ruler of the Kingdom of Egypt ““ surrounded by riches untold. Through the streets of her great city bustle scholars and sailors, politicians and priests. For those with the means, it is a comfortable life.
But not all are invited to share in the wealth of Egypt’s first city. For the peasants and farmers, their lives lie in the hands of the gods and the harvest. Unless, that is, they can find other methods to feed their families. Other, less savory methods.
When Herminia, one of Alexandria’s most beloved actresses, disappears on the eve of a great performance, Cleopatra sets Tetisheri, her Eye, to investigate. In her search for the truth, Tetisheri will uncover a mystery that will take her to the city’s darkest corners…
Dana Stabenow was born in Anchorage, Alaska and raised on a 75-foot fishing tender. She knew there was a warmer, drier job out there somewhere and found it in writing. Her first Kate Shugak book, A Cold Day for Murder, received an Edgar Award from the Crime Writers of America. She lives in Homer, Alaska. Find her online at stabenow.com.
Enjoy the conversation with Dana Stabenow and Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen.
Ausma Zehanat Khan & Blackwater Falls
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently hosted Ausma Zehanat Khan for a virtual event. Khan is the author of Blackwater Falls. Copies of Blackwater Falls is available in the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/2p98cau5
Here’s the summary of Blackwater Falls.
From critically acclaimed author Ausma Zehanat Khan, Blackwater Falls is the first in a timely and powerful crime series, introducing Detective Inaya Rahman.
“A gripping and compulsive mystery, but much more than that: an exploration of faith, prejudice and fear of the unknown.” —Ann Cleeves, New York Times bestselling author of the Vera, Shetland and Two Rivers series
Girls from immigrant communities have been disappearing for months in the Colorado town of Blackwater Falls, but the local sheriff is slow to act and the fates of the missing girls largely ignored. At last, the calls for justice become too loud to ignore when the body of a star student and refugee–the Syrian teenager Razan Elkader–is positioned deliberately in a mosque.
Detective Inaya Rahman and Lieutenant Waqas Seif of the Denver Police are recruited to solve Razan’s murder, and quickly uncover a link to other missing and murdered girls. But as Inaya gets closer to the truth, Seif finds ways to obstruct the investigation. Inaya may be drawn to him, but she is wary of his motives: he may be covering up the crimes of their boss, whose connections in Blackwater run deep.
Inaya turns to her female colleagues, attorney Areesha Adams and Detective Catalina Hernandez, for help in finding the truth. The three have bonded through their experiences as members of vulnerable groups and now they must work together to expose the conspiracy behind the murders before another girl disappears.
Delving deep into racial tensions, and police corruption and violence, Blackwater Falls examines a series of crimes within the context of contemporary American politics with compassion and searing insight.
AUSMA ZEHANAT KHAN holds a Ph.D. in international human rights law with a specialization in military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans. She is the author of the award-winning Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty mystery series, which begins with The Unquiet Dead, as well as the critically acclaimed Khorasan Archives fantasy series. Her new crime series featuring Detective Inaya Rahman begins with Blackwater Falls. She is also a contributor to the anthologies Private Investigations, Sword Stone Table, and The Perfect Crime, and the former Editor-in-Chief of Muslim Girl magazine. A British-born Canadian and former adjunct law professor, Khan now lives in Colorado with her husband.
Enjoy the conversation with Ausma Zehanat Khan and Barbara Peters.