Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, said it had been three years since Linda Castillo, author of the Kate Burkholder mysteries, appeared at the bookstore. Peters welcomed her for a live event to talk about the series and the latest book, The Hidden One. There are signed copies available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3aG5izc

Here’s the summary of The Hidden One.

The discovery of an Amish bishop’s remains leads chief of police Kate Burkholder to unearth a chilling secret in The Hidden One, a new thriller from bestselling author Linda Castillo.

Over a decade ago, beloved Amish bishop Ananias Stoltzfus disappeared without a trace. When skeletal remains showing evidence of foul play are unearthed, his disappearance becomes even more sinister.

The town’s elders arrive in Painters Mill to ask chief of police Kate Burkholder for help, but she quickly realizes she has a personal connection to the crime. The handsome Amish man who stands accused of the murder, Jonas Bowman, was Kate’s first love. Forced to confront a painful episode from her past, Kate travels to Pennsylvania’s Kishacoquillas Valley, where the Amish culture differs dramatically from the traditions she knows. Though Bishop Stoltzfus was highly respected, she soon hears about a dark side to this complex man. What was he hiding that resulted in his own brutal death?

Someone doesn’t want Kate asking questions. But even after being accosted and threatened in the dead of night, she refuses to back down. Is she too close to the case—and to Jonas—to see clearly? There’s a killer in the Valley who will stop at nothing to keep the past buried. Will they get to Kate before she can expose the truth? Or will the bishop’s secrets remain hidden forever?

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Linda Castillo is the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Kate Burkholder series, set in the world of the Amish. The first book, Sworn to Silence, was adapted into a Lifetime original movie titled An Amish Murder starring Neve Campbell as Kate Burkholder. Castillo is the recipient of numerous industry awards including a nomination by the International Thriller Writers for Best Hardcover, the Mystery Writers of America’s Sue Grafton Memorial Award, and an appearance on the Boston Globe’s shortlist for best crime novel. In addition to writing, Castillo’s other passion is horses. She lives in Texas with her husband and is currently at work on her next book.

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Enjoy the conversation about the Amish, the series, and The Hidden One.

Dan Fesperman recently appeared for a virtual event for The Poisoned Pen. His current book, Winter Work, is the Hot Book of the Week at the bookstore. There are signed copies of that book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3o0Esoh Joseph Kanon also appeared because Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, thought his recent book, The Berlin Exchange, has common elements with Winter Work. You can also order copies of that book. https://bit.ly/3yAj5ix

Here’s the description of Winter Work.

An exhilarating spy thriller inspired by a true story about the precious secrets up for grabs just after the fall of the Berlin Wall—from the acclaimed author of The Cover Wife

On a chilly early morning walk on the wooded outskirts of Berlin, Emil Grimm finds the body of his neighbor, a fellow Stasi officer named Lothar, with a gunshot wound to the temple and a pistol in his right hand. Despite appearances, Emil suspects murder. A few months earlier he would have known just what to do, but now, as East Germany disintegrates, being a Stasi colonel is more of a liability than an asset. More troubling still is that Emil and Lothar were involved in a final clandestine mission, one that has clearly turned deadly. Now Emil must finish the job alone, on uncertain ground where old alliances seem to be shifting by the day.

Meanwhile, CIA agent Claire Saylor, sent to Berlin to assist an Agency mop-up action against their collapsing East German adversaries, has just received an upgrade to her assignment. She’ll be the designated contact for a high-ranking foreign intelligence officer of the Stasi, although details are suspiciously sketchy. When her first rendezvous goes dangerously awry, she realizes the mission is far more delicate than she was led to believe.

With the rules of the game changing fast, and as their missions intersect, Emil and Claire find themselves on unlikely common ground, fighting for their lives against a powerful enemy hiding in the shadows. 

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DAN FESPERMAN served as a foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, based in Berlin. His coverage of the siege of Sarajevo led to his debut novel, Lie in the Dark, which won Britain’s John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first crime novel. Subsequent books have won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller, the Dashiell Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers, the Barry Award for best thriller, and selection by USA Today as the year’s best mystery/thriller novel. He lives in Baltimore.

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Here’s the summary of The Berlin Exchange.

From “the most accomplished spy novelist working today” (The Sunday Times, London), a “heart-poundingly suspenseful” (The Washington Post) espionage thriller set at the height of the Cold War, when a captured American who has spied for the KGB is returned to East Berlin, needing to know who arranged for his release and what they now want from him.

Berlin, 1963. An early morning spy swap, not at the familiar setting for such exchanges, nor at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and an aging MI6 operative. On the other side of the trade: Martin Keller, a physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller’s most critical possession: his American passport. Keller’s most ardent desire: to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son.

The exchange is made with the formality characteristic of these swaps. But Martin has other questions: Who asked for him? Who negotiated the deal? The KGB? He knows that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics—his expertise is out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot.

Intriguing and atmospheric, with action rising to a dangerous climax, The Berlin Exchange “expertly describes what happens when a disillusioned former agent tries to come in from the cold” (The New York Times Book Review), confirming Kanon as “the greatest writer ever of historical espionage fiction” (Spybrary).

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Joseph Kanon is the Edgar Award”“winning author of The Accomplice, Defectors, Leaving Berlin, Istanbul Passage, Los Alamos, The Prodigal Spy, Alibi, Stardust, and The Good German, which was made into a major motion picture starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. He lives in New York City.

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If you like spy novels or even history, you’ll want to listen to this conversation.

Ian Hamilton, author of the Ava Lee spin-off series, The Last Decades of Uncle Chow Tung, ends the series with the fourth book, Finale. You can order a copy of the book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3yVQlSF

Here’s the description of Finale.

The fourth and final installment in Ian Hamilton’s exhilarating Ava Lee spin-off series The Lost Decades of Uncle Chow Tung.

Following a diagnosis of terminal cancer, Uncle begins preparing for his inevitable death. As he sets his affairs in order, he recalls the moments in his life that meant the most to him — including his first encounter with the talented forensic accountant Ava Lee and the origins of their life-changing partnership.

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IAN HAMILTON is the acclaimed author of fifteen books in the Ava Lee series, four in the Lost Decades of Uncle Chow Tung series, and the standalone novel Bonnie Jack. National bestsellers, his books have been shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award, the Barry Award, and the Lambda Literary Prize. BBC Culture named him one of the ten mystery/crime writers who should be on your bookshelf. The Ava Lee series is being adapted for television.

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Enjoy Ian Hamilton’s conversation with Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed James Byrne for a virtual event. Byrne has a new thriller, The Gatekeeper, and signed copies of the book are available in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3aseI1d

Here’s the summary of The Gatekeeper.

James Byrne’s The Gatekeeper introduces Dez Limerick in the most anticipated new thriller in years.

A highly trained team of mercenaries launches a well-planned, coordinated attack on a well-guarded military contractor – but they didn’t count on one thing, the right man being in the wrong place at the right time.

Desmond Aloysius Limerick (“Dez” to all) is a retired mercenary, and enthusiastic amateur musician, currently in Southern California, enjoying the sun and sitting in on the occasional gig, when the hotel he’s at falls under attack. A skilled team attempts to kidnap the Chief legal counsel of Triton Expeditors, a major military contractor ““ in fact, Petra Alexandris is the daughter of the CEO ““ but their meticulously-planned, seamlessly executed scheme runs into the figurative ‘spanner-in-the-works,’ Dez himself.

After foiling the attack, and with nothing better to do, Dez agrees to help Alexandris with another problem she’s having ““ someone has embezzled more than a billion dollars from her company and left very few tracks behind. But Dez is a gatekeeper ““ one who opens doors and keeps them open ““ and this is just a door of another kind. And the door he opens leads to a dangerous conspiracy involving media manipulation, militias, an armed coup, and an attempt to fracture the United States themselves. There’s only one obstacle between the conspirators and success ““ and that is Dez, The Gatekeeper.

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JAMES BYRNE is the pseudonym for an author who has worked for more than twenty years as a journalist and in politics. A native of the Pacific Northwest, he lives in Portland, Oregon.

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Enjoy the conversation about this thriller.

Mark Greaney recently appeared at The Poisoned Pen to talk about his new book, Armored. There are signed copies of the book available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3uWf6ft

Here’s the description of Armored.

A novel inspired by #1 New York Times best-selling author Mark Greaney’s Audible Original drama, Armored.

Joshua Duffy is a Close Protection Agent—a professional bodyguard—and he’s one of the world’s elite operatives. That is, he was until his last mission in Lebanon. Against all odds, Josh got his primary out alive, but the cost was high. Josh lost his lower left leg. 

There’s not much call for an elite bodyguard with such an injury. So, Josh has to support his family working as a mall cop in New Jersey. For a man like Josh, this is purgatory on earth, but miracles can occur even in Paramus. 

A lucky run-in with an old comrade promises to get Josh back in the field for one last job. The UN is sending a peace mission into the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico, an area so dangerous it’s known as Espinazo del Diablo—the Devil’s Spine. Only a fool would think they could broker peace between the homicidal drug cartels in the region, and only a madman would sign on to keep those fools alive.

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Mark Greaney has a degree in international relations and political science. In his research for the Gray Man novels, including Relentless, One Minute Out, Mission Critical, Agent in Place, Gunmetal Gray, Back Blast, Dead Eye, Ballistic, On Target, and The Gray Man, he traveled to more than thirty-five countries and trained alongside military and law enforcement in the use of firearms, battlefield medicine, and close-range combative tactics. With Marine LtCol Rip Rawlings, he wrote the New York Times bestseller Red Metal. He is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers Tom Clancy Support and Defend, Tom Clancy Full Force and Effect, Tom Clancy Commander in Chief, and Tom Clancy True Faith and Allegiance. With Tom Clancy, he coauthored Locked On, Threat Vector, and Command Authority.

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Enjoy the conversation between Mark Greaney and Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen.

It’s been twenty years since Brad Thor’s first Scot Harvath thriller. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Thor for the national book launch of his new book, Rising Tiger. And, if you order a copy of Rising Tiger, only through The Poisoned Pen, you not only get a signed copy, you get a special commemorative decal. Here’s the link to the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3nJuZl5

Here’s the description of Rising Tiger.

Deadly operative Scot Harvath faces down the country’s most powerful enemy in #1 New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author Brad Thor’s new white-knuckle thriller.

An unprecedented, potentially nation-ending threat has materialized on the world stage. Fearful of the global consequences of engaging this enemy, administration after administration has passed the buck. The clock, however, has run out and doing nothing is no longer an option. It is time to unleash Scot Harvath.

As America’s top spy, Harvath has the unparalleled skills and experience necessary to handle any situation, but this assignment feels different.

Thrust into a completely unfamiliar culture, with few he can trust, the danger begins mounting the moment he arrives. Amidst multiple competing forces and a host of deadly agendas, it becomes nearly impossible to tell predator from prey.

With democracy itself hanging in the balance, Harvath will risk everything to untangle the explosive plot and bring every bad actor to justice.

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Brad Thor is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-two thrillers, including Black Ice, Near Dark (one of Suspense Magazine‘s Best Books of the Year), Backlash (nominated for the Barry Award for Best Thriller of the Year), Spymaster (“One of the all-time best thriller novels” —The Washington Times), The Last Patriot (nominated Best Thriller of the Year by the International Thriller Writers association), and Blowback (one of the “Top 100 Killer Thrillers of All Time” —NPR). Visit his website at BradThor.com and follow him on Facebook at Facebook.com/BradThorOfficial and on Twitter @BradThor.

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This was the only event that Brad Thor did for Rising Tiger, so, if you’re interested, this is the event you want to watch.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Tess Gerritsen for the national book launch of Listen to Me. Listen to Me is not only the Hot Book of the Week at the bookstore, but it’s the latest Rizzoli & Isles story. And, Gerritsen said she didn’t have plans to write to write another Rizzoli & Isles, but Jane Rizzoli’s mother, Angela, said “Listen to Me”. I can’t guarantee there are still signed copies of the book available, but you can check the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3bYLKpN

Here’s the description of Listen to Me.

Rizzoli & Isles are back! From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen, this “shocking and fast-paced” (Karin Slaughter) thriller has Jane and Maura investigating a brutal murder with dire implications, and this time, with Jane’s intrepid mother, Angela, looking into a mystery of her own.

“Absolutely first rate—readers will be thrilled and delighted by this new Rizzoli & Isles outing!”—Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door

Mothers know best . . . But who will listen?

Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles are newly plagued by what seems like a completely senseless murder. Sofia Suarez, a widow and nurse who was universally liked by her neighbors, lies bludgeoned to death in her own home. But anything can happen behind closed doors, and Sofia seemed to have plenty of secrets in her last days, making covert phone calls to traceless burner phones. When Jane finally makes a connection between Sofia and the victim of a hit-and-run from months earlier, the case only grows more blurry. What exactly was Sofia involved in? One thing is clear: The killer will do anything it takes to keep their secret safe.

Meanwhile, Angela Rizzoli hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in all the years since her daughter became a homicide detective. Maybe the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree: Nothing in Angela’s neighborhood gets by her—not the gossip about a runaway teenager down the block and definitely not the strange neighbors who have just moved in across the street. Angela’s sure there’s no such thing as coincidence in her sleepy suburb. If only Jane would listen—instead she writes off Angela’s concerns as the result of an overactive imagination. But Angela’s convinced there’s a real wolf in her vicinity, and her cries might now fall on deaf ears.

With so much happening on the Sofia case, Jane and Maura already struggle to see the forest for the trees, but will they lose sight of something sinister happening much closer to home?

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Bestselling author Tess Gerritsen is also a physician, and she brings to her novels her first-hand knowledge of emergency and autopsy rooms. Her thrillers featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the hit TV series Rizzoli & Isles. But Gerritsen’s interests span far more than medicine and crime. As an anthropology student at Stanford University, she catalogued centuries-old human remains, and she continues to travel the world, driven by her fascination with ancient cultures and bizarre natural phenomena.

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Enjoy the conversation about writing and books.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, hosted David Ellis to talk about two books, one by himself (Look Closer), and one with James Patterson (Escape). Patterson talked about reading Look Closer, and writing with Ellis. They just mentioned James Patterson by James Patterson. You can order copies of all the books through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the description of Look Closer.

From the bestselling and award-winning author comes a wickedly clever and fast-paced novel of greed, revenge, obsession—and quite possibly the perfect murder.

Simon and Vicky couldn’t seem more normal: a wealthy Chicago couple, he a respected law professor, she an advocate for domestic violence victims. A stable, if unexciting marriage. But one thing’s for sure … absolutely nothing is what it seems. The pair are far from normal, and one of them just may be a killer. When the body of a beautiful socialite is found hanging in a mansion in a nearby suburb, Simon and Vicky’s secrets begin to unravel. A secret whirlwind affair. A twenty-million-dollar trust fund about to come due. A decades-long grudge and obsession with revenge. These are just a few of the lies that make up the complex web…and they will have devastating consequences. And while both Vicky and Simon are liars, just who exactly is conning who? Part Gone Girl, part Strangers on a Train, Look Closer is a wild rollercoaster of a read that will have you questioning everything you think you know.

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David Ellis is a judge and an Edgar-award-winning author of ten novels of crime fiction, as well as eight books co-authored with James Patterson. In December, 2014, Dave was sworn in as the youngest-serving Justice of the Illinois Appellate Court for the First District. Ellis lives outside Chicago with his wife and three children.

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Here’s the summary of Escape.

#1 New York Times bestselling detective Billy Harney of The Black Book is chasing down a billionaire crime boss and a prison escape artist while a young girl’s life hangs in the balance.As Chicago PD’s special-ops leader, Detective Billy Harney knows well that money is not the only valuable currency. The filthy rich man he’s investigating is down to his last twenty million. He’s also being held in jail.

For now.

Billy’s unit is called in when an escape plan results in officers down and inmates vanished.

In an empty lot, Billy spots two Kevlar vests. Two helmets. Two assault rifles. And a handwritten note:

Hi, Billy
Are you having fun yet?

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James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author. The creator of Alex Cross, he has produced more enduring fictional heroes than any other novelist alive. He lives in Florida with his family.

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Don’t forget about James Patterson’s memoir, James Patterson.

“It’s quite a life, Patterson’s, and this fizzing, funny, often deeply moving memoir is a perfect way to understand the dizzying world of a best-selling writer.” —Daily Mail 

“Damn near addictive. I loved it . . . that Patterson guy can write!” ““Ron Howard

THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER—How did a kid whose dad lived in the poorhouse become the most successful storyteller in the world?

• On the morning he was born, he nearly died.
• His dad grew up in the Pogey”“ the Newburgh, New York, poorhouse.
• He worked at a mental hospital in Massachusetts, where he met the singer James Taylor and the poet Robert Lowell.  
• While he toiled in advertising hell, James wrote the ad jingle line “I’m a Toys “˜R’ Us Kid.”
• He once watched James Baldwin and Norman Mailer square off to trade punches at a party.
• He’s only been in love twice.  Both times are amazing.
• Dolly Parton once sang “Happy Birthday” to James over the phone.  She calls him J.J., for Jimmy James. 

How did a boy from small-town New York become the world’s most successful writer? How does he do it? He has always wanted to write the kind of novel that would be read and reread so many times that the binding breaks and the book literally falls apart. As he says, “I’m still working on that one.” 

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Enjoy the conversation with David Ellis and James Patterson.