The final awards presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention are the Anthony Awards, named for Anthony Boucher, well-known writer and critic. Check the Web Store for the winning books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Congratulations to the 2022 Anthony Award winners.
Patrick Millikin recently welcomed Mike Lupica for a virtual event to discuss the latest Jesse Stone novel, Robert B. Parker’s Fallout. Millikin provides all the background for the writers who picked up Parker’s various series. You can find signed copies of Robert B. Parker’s Fallout in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3B6CJEf
Here’s the summary of Fallout.
When two seemingly unconnected mysterious deaths occur on his watch, police chief Jesse Stone must pull out all the stops to unravel the truth and stop a killer from striking again.
The small town of Paradise is devastated when a star high-school baseball player is found dead at the bottom of a bluff just a day after winning the team’s biggest game. For Jesse, the loss is doubly difficult—the teen was the nephew of his colleague, Suitcase Simpson, and Jesse had been coaching the young shortstop. As he searches for answers about how the boy died and why, he is stonewalled at every turn, and it seems that someone is determined to keep him from digging further.
Jesse suddenly must divide his attention between two cases after the shocking murder of former Paradise police chief, Charlie Farrell. Before his death, Farrell had been looking into a series of scam calls that preyed upon the elderly. But how do these “ghost calls” connect to his murder? When threats—and gunshots—appear on Jesse’s own doorstep, the race to find answers is on. Both old and new enemies come into play, and in the end, Jesse and his team must discover the common factor between the two deaths in order to prevent a third.
Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring Chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010. Mike Lupica is a prominent sports journalist and the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty works of fiction and nonfiction, including cowritten novels with James Patterson. A longtime friend to Robert B. Parker, he was selected by the Parker estate to continue the Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone series.
Enjoy the event as Mike Lupica talks about the world of Robert B. Parker.
It’s that time of years when various crime fiction awards are announced. The Barry Awards, voted on by the readers of Deadly Pleasures magazine, were announced this week at the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention. Check the Web Store for the books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
The Macavity Awards were presented at Bouchercon on Thursday, Sept. 22. Congratulations to all of the winners! Check for the books in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Clive Cussler’s Hellburner is the most recent Oregon Files novel. Mike Maden, author of that book, recently appeared at The Poisoned Pen, and he signed copies of the book. You can order signed copies of Clive Cussler’s Hellburner through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3qjY0p6
Here’s the description of Clive Cussler’s Hellburner.
Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon must track down a nuclear torpedo before it unleashes World War III in this electrifying new installment of the #1 New York Times bestselling series.
When Juan Cabrillo fails to capture the leader of Mexico’s most dangerous drug cartel and loses an Oregon crew member in the process, he’s determined to get revenge. Little does he know that the explosion he just narrowly escaped was merely the latest flash of violence from a machine of war that has existed for decades, dating from the bloodiest episode in Armenia’s history.
Cabrillo’s Corporation of mercenaries may have finally met its match in The Pipeline—a criminal syndicate passed down from father to son across generations. A group that sits with its finger on the trigger of a torpedo so deadly it could level entire cities. With millions of innocent civilians hanging in the balance, the Oregon‘s crew must unravel a tangle of drug-smuggling routes and international conspiracies spanning from the Aegean Sea to the Indian Ocean, putting their lives on the line to find the weapon before its countdown hits zero.
Clive Cussler was the author of more than eighty books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt®, NUMA Files®, Oregon Files®, Isaac Bell®, and Sam and Remi Fargo®. His life nearly paralleled that of his hero Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, he and his NUMA crew of volunteers discovered and surveyed more than seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Civil War submarine Hunley, which was raised in 2000 with much publicity. Like Pitt, Cussler collected classic automobiles. His collection featured more than one hundred examples of custom coachwork. Cussler passed away in February 2020.
Mike Maden is the author of the critically acclaimed Drone series and four novels in Tom Clancy’s #1 New York Times bestselling Jack Ryan Jr. series. He holds both a master’s and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Davis, specializing in international relations and comparative politics. He has lectured and consulted on the topics of war and the Middle East, among others. Maden has served as a political consultant and campaign manager in state and national elections, and hosted his own local weekly radio show for a year.
Mike Maden talks about Juan Cabrillo, drones, adventure, and future warfare in this latest event.
Craig Johnson is such a storyteller that you can listen to him talk about all kinds of subjects, including “Longmire” as well as his new book Hell and Back. He appeared at The Poisoned Pen, so there are signed copies of Hell and Back available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3cOlJue
Here’s the description of Hell and Back.
A new novel in the beloved New York Times bestselling Longmire series.
In Hell and Back, the eighteenth installment of the Longmire series, author Craig Johnson takes the beloved sheriff to the very limits of his sanity to do battle with the most dangerous adversary he’s ever faced: himself.
Craig Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Longmire mysteries, the basis for the hit Netflix original series Longmire. He is the recipient of the Western Writers of America Spur Award for fiction and the Mountain & Plains Independent Booksellers Association’s Reading the West Book Award for fiction. His novella Spirit of Steamboat was the first One Book Wyoming selection. He lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population 25.
Craig Johnson talks about television, books, history, actually, anything that comes to mind.
Congratulations to the winners of the Hugo Awards.The Hugo Awards are annual awards for the best science fiction and fantasy works of the previous year. Here’s a short list of some of the winners. Check for the books in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Best Novel
***A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine (Tor)
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager / Hodder & Stoughton)
Light From Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki (Tor)
A Master of Djinn, by P. Djèlà Clark (Tordotcom / Orbit UK)
Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir (Ballantine / Del Rey)
She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan (Tor / Mantle)
Best Novella
Across the Green Grass Fields, by Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom)
Elder Race, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tordotcom)
Fireheart Tiger, by Aliette de Bodard (Tordotcom)
The Past Is Red, by Catherynne M. Valente (Tordotcom)
****A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers (Tordotcom)
A Spindle Splintered, by Alix E. Harrow (Tordotcom)
Best Series
The Green Bone Saga, by Fonda Lee (Orbit)
The Kingston Cycle, by C. L. Polk (Tordotcom)
Merchant Princes, by Charles Stross (Tor UK / Tor)
Terra Ignota, by Ada Palmer (Tor Books)
***Wayward Children, by Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom)
The World of the White Rat, by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) (Argyll Productions)
Best Graphic Story or Comic
DIE, vol. 4: Bleed, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Stephanie Hans, lettering by Clayton Cowles (Image)
***Far Sector, written by N.K. Jemisin, art by Jamal Campbell (DC)
Lore Olympus, vol. 1, by Rachel Smythe (Del Rey)
Monstress, vol. 6: The Vow, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda (Image)
Once & Future, vol. 3: The Parliament of Magpies, written by Kieron Gillen, illustrated by Dan Mora, colored by Tamra Bonvillain (BOOM!)
Strange Adventures, written by Tom King, art by Mitch Gerads and Evan “Doc” Shaner (DC)
Best Related Work
Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism, by Elsa Sjunneson (Tiller Press)
The Complete Debarkle: Saga of a Culture War, by Camestros Felapton (Camestros Felapton)
Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre (PM Press)
“How Twitter can ruin a life”, by Emily St. James (Vox, Jun 2021)
***Never Say You Can’t Survive, by Charlie Jane Anders (Tordotcom)
True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, by Abraham Riesman (Crown)
Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book (not a Hugo)
Chaos on CatNet, by Naomi Kritzer (Tor Teen)
Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao (Penguin Teen / Rock the Boat)
***The Last Graduate, by Naomi Novik (Del Rey Books)
Redemptor, by Jordan Ifueko (Amulet Books / Hot Key Books)
A Snake Falls to Earth, by Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido)
Victories Greater Than Death, by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor Teen / Titan)
Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Laurie R. King recently introduced her new novel and new character at The Poisoned Pen. You can order a signed copy of Back to the Garden through the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/2s3rajt7
Here’s the description of Back to the Garden.
A fifty-year-old cold case involving California royalty comes back to life—with potentially fatal consequences—in this gripping standalone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series.
A magnificent house, vast formal gardens, a golden family that shaped California, and a colorful past filled with now-famous artists: the Gardener Estate was a twentieth-century Eden.
And now, just as the Estate is preparing to move into a new future, restoration work on some of its art digs up a grim relic of the home’s past: a human skull, hidden away for decades.
Inspector Raquel Laing has her work cut out for her. Fifty years ago, the Estate’s young heir, Rob Gardener, turned his palatial home into a counterculture commune of peace, love, and equality. But that was also a time when serial killers preyed on innocents—monsters like The Highwayman, whose case has just surged back into the public eye.
Could the skull belong to one of his victims?
To Raquel—a woman who knows all about colorful pasts—the bones clearly seem linked to The Highwayman. But as she dives into the Estate’s archives to look for signs of his presence, what she unearths begins to take on a dark reality all of its own.
Everything she finds keeps bringing her back to Rob Gardener himself. While he might be a gray-haired recluse now, back then he was a troubled young Vietnam vet whose girlfriend vanished after a midsummer festival at the Estate.
But a lot of people seem to have disappeared from the Gardener Estate that summer when the commune mysteriously fell apart: a young woman, her child, and Rob’s brother, Fort.
The pressure is on, and Raquel needs to solve this case—before The Highwayman slips away, or another Gardener vanishes.
Laurie R. King is the award-winning, bestselling author of seventeen Mary Russell mysteries, five contemporary novels featuring Kate Marinelli, and many acclaimed standalone novels such as Folly, Touchstone, The Bones of Paris, and Lockdown. King is an Edgar Award winner and was also named the 2022 Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America. She lives in Northern California, where she is at work on her next Mary Russell mystery.
Enjoy the recent event as Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomes Laurie R. King back to the bookstore.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, and Patrick Millikin from the bookstore, both welcomed authors Gabino Iglesias and Amina Akhtar for a live event at the bookstore. Iglesias is the author of The Devil Takes You Home, and Akhtar is the author of Kismet. You can find signed copies of both books in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Millikin discussed Gabino Iglesias The Devil Takes You Home with him. Here’s the description of the book.
From an award-winning author comes a genre-defying thriller about a father desperate to salvage what’s left of his family—even if it means a descent into violence.Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won’t return the same.
The Devil Takes You Home is a panoramic odyssey for fans of S.A. Cosby’s southern noir, Blacktop Wasteland, by way of the boundary-defying storytelling of Stephen Graham Jones and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist, professor, and literary critic living in Austin, TX. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning novels Zero Saints and Coyote Songs. Iglesias’ nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Electric Literature, and LitReactor, and his reviews appear regularly in places like NPR, Publishers Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, Criminal Element, Mystery Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He’s been a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards twice and the Millions Tournament of Books, and is a member of the Horror Writers Association, the Mystery Writers of America, and the National Book Critics Circle.
Here’s the description of Amina Akhtar’s Kismet.
From Amina Akhtar comes a viciously funny thriller about wellness—the smoothies, the secrets, and the deliciously deadly impulses.
Lifelong New Yorker Ronnie Khan never thought she’d leave Queens. She’s not an “aim high, dream big” person—until she meets socialite wellness guru Marley Dewhurst.
Marley isn’t just a visionary; she’s a revelation. Seduced by the fever dream of finding her best self, Ronnie makes for the desert mountains of Sedona, Arizona.
Healing yoga, transcendent hikes, epic juice cleanses…Ronnie consumes her new bougie existence like a fine wine. But is it, really? Or is this whole self-care business a little sour?
When the glam gurus around town start turning up gruesomely murdered, Ronnie has her answer: all is not well in wellness town. As Marley’s blind ambition veers into madness, Ronnie fears for her life.
Amina Akhtar is a former fashion writer and editor. Her satirical first novel, #FashionVictim, drew critical acclaim and was covered in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Martha Stewart Living, Entertainment Weekly, Fashionista, Book Riot, CrimeReads, and more.
Akhtar has worked at Vogue, Elle, the New York Times, and New York Magazine, where she was the founding editor of the women’s blog The Cut. She’s written for numerous publications, including Yahoo Style, Fashionista, xoJane, Refinery29, Billboard, and more. She currently lives not too far from the Sedona vortexes.
Enjoy The Poisoned Pen event with Gabino Iglesias and Amina Akhtar.
