Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Ann Cleeves for her virtual book launch in the United States. The Dark Wives is the eleventh Vera mystery. There are signed copies available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3Xp4wfw.

Here’s the summary of The Dark Wives.

As New York Times bestseller Ann Cleeves’s beloved Vera series explodes in popularity in print and on TV, this stunning eleventh book explores the web of secrets surrounding a young man’s death.

The man’s body is found in the early morning light by a local dog walker in the park outside Rosebank, a home for troubled teens in the coastal village of Longwater. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who was due to work the previous night but never showed up.

DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate the death, with her only clue being the disappearance of one of the home’s residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spence. Vera can’t bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can’t dismiss the possibility.

Vera, Joe and new team member Rosie Bell, are soon embroiled in the case, and when a second connected body is found near the Three Dark Wives monument in the wilds of the Northumberland countryside, superstition and folklore begin to collide with fact. Vera knows she has to find Chloe to get to the truth, and the dark secrets in their community that may be far more dangerous than she could have ever believed possible.

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ANN CLEEVES is the multi-million copy bestselling author behind three hit television series—Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall, Vera, starring Academy Award Nominee Brenda Blethyn, and The Long Call, starring Ben Aldridge—all of which are watched and loved in the United States. All three are available on BritBox.

The first Shetland novel, Raven Black, won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for best crime novel, and Ann was awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger in 2017. She was awarded the OBE in 2022 for services to reading and libraries. Ann lives in the United Kingdom.

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Enjoy the conversation with Ann Cleeves.

The Anthony Awards were announced at Bouchercon in Nashville on August 31. Congratulations to all the winners! Check out the list, and then check the Webstore for copies. https://store.poisonedpen.com/.

Best Novel: All the Sinners Bleed by SA Cosby

Best First Novel: Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon

Best Paperback/Ebook/Audiobook: Hide by Tracy Clark

Best Children’s/Young Adult: Enola Holmes and the Mark of the Mongoose by Nancy Springer

Best Critical/Nonfiction: A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan

Best Anthology/Collection: Killin’ Time in San Diego edited by Holly West

Best Short Story: “Ticket to Ride” by Dru Ann Love & Kristopher Zgorski

Patrick Millikin from The Poisoned Pen recently welcomed two authors for a virtual conversation, Eli Cranor and Scott Phillips. There are signed copies available at the Webstore of the newest books from both authors. https://store.poisonedpen.com/. Cranor’s new book is Broiler, and Phillips’ is The Devil Raises His Own.

Millikin asks Eli Cranor about the personal connection to Broiler. Here’s the description of the book.

The troubles of two desperate families—one white, one Mexican American—converge in the ruthless underworld of an Arkansas chicken processing plant in this new thriller from the award-winning author of Don’t Know Tough.

Gabriela Menchaca and Edwin Saucedo are hardworking, undocumented employees at the Detmer Foods chicken plant in Springdale, Arkansas, just a stone’s throw from the trailer park where they’ve lived together for seven years. While dealing with personal tragedies of their own, the young couple endures the brutal, dehumanizing conditions at the plant in exchange for barebones pay.

When the plant manager, Luke Jackson, fires Edwin to set an example for the rest of the workers—and to show the higherups that he’s ready for a major promotion—Edwin is determined to get revenge on Luke and his wife, Mimi, a new mother who stays at home with her six-month-old son. Edwin’s impulsive action sets in motion a devastating chain of events that illuminates the deeply entrenched power dynamics between those who revel at the top and those who toil at the bottom.

From the nationally bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author of Don’t Know Tough and Ozark Dogs comes another edge-of-your-seat noir thriller that exposes the dark, bloody heart of life on the margins in the American South and the bleak underside of a bygone American Dream.

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he lives with his wife and kids. His critically acclaimed debut novel, Don’t Know Tough, won the Edgar Award and was named one of the Best Books of the Year by USA Today and one of the Best Crime Novels of the Year by The New York Times. Eli also pens a weekly column, “Where I’m Writing From,” for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and his craft column, “Shop Talk,” appears monthly at CrimeReads. His second novel, Ozark Dogs, was a national bestseller. Eli currently serves as the Writer in Residence at Arkansas Tech University. For more information, visit elicranor.com.

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Here’s the summary of Scott Phillips’ The Devil Raises His Own.

From the master of Western noir comes a provocatively entertaining crime saga set in the early days of the film industry.

This dark historical adventure captures the beginnings of the Hollywood studio system and the “blue movie” industry that grows up alongside it.

Los Angeles, 1916: Photographer Bill Ogden has opened a portrait studio in the seedy noir world of early Hollywood, where he is joined by his granddaughter, Flavia—a woman in need of a fresh start after bludgeoning her drunken, abusive husband to death in Wichita. Though his business is mainly legit, Bill finds himself brushing up against the “blue movie” porn industry growing in the shadows of the motion picture mainstream.

When a series of grisly murders take place across the city, Bill and his capable granddaughter are pulled into events as tricky and tangled as anything this side of The Big Sleep. We meet dreamers, opportunists, washed-up former stars and starry-eyed newcomers, a cast of unforgettable characters living on the margins looking to make a quick buck, launch a career, or just keep their family together. The Devil Raises His Own is at once a stripped-down noir thriller and a panoramic look at Los Angeles at the beginning of motion pictures—a Boogie Nights set in the era of D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin from one of the best crime novelists working today.

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Scott Phillips is a screenwriter, photographer and the author of seven novels and numerous short stories. His bestselling debut novel, The Ice Harvest, was a New York Times Notable Book and was adapted as a major motion picture starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton. He is the winner of the California Book Award, as well as being a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Hammett Prize and the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Scott was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, and lived for many years in France. He now lives with his wife and daughters in St. Louis, Missouri.

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Enjoy Millikin’s conversation with Eli Cranor and Scott Phillips.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Anna Downes who was appearing for the virtual event from Australia. Downes’ most recent thriller is Red River Road. There are copies available to order through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3T6xuy2.

Here’s the summary of Red River Road.

Anna Downes’s extraordinary next thriller Red River Road follows a woman desperate to discover what happened to her sister on a solo road trip through the Australian outback.

Katy Sweeney is looking for her sister. A year earlier, just three weeks into a solo vanlife trip, her free-spirited younger sister, Phoebe, vanished without a trace on the remote, achingly beautiful coastal highway in Western Australia. With no witnesses, no leads, and no DNAevidence, the case has gone cold. But Katy refuses to give up on her.

Using Phoebe’s social media accounts as a map, Katy retraces her sister’s steps, searching for any clues the police may have missed. Was Phoebe being followed? Who had she met along the way, and how dangerous were they?

And then Katy’s path collides with that of Beth, who is on the run from her own dark past. Katy realizes that Beth might be her best—and only—chance of finding the truth, and the two women form an uneasy alliance to find out what really happened to Phoebe in this wild, beautiful, and perilous place.

Anna Downes takes us on a twist-filled journey into the dark side of solo female travel, in this gripping novel that explores what drives us to keep searching for those we have lost, the family bonds that can make or break us, and the deception of memory.

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ANNA DOWNES (she/her) was born and raised in Sheffield, United Kingdom, but now lives just north of Sydney, Australia, with her husband and two children. She worked as an actress before turning her attention to writing. She has degrees from both Manchester University (drama) and RADA (acting). Her previous novels include The Safe Place and The Shadow House.

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Enjoy the conversation with Anna Downes.

Spencer Quinn, author of the Chet and Bernie mysteries, recently appeared at The Poisoned Pen for National Dog Day. Perfect day to talk about his new book, A Farewell to Arfs. There are signed copies of the book available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4dYuQCB.

Here’s the description of A Farewell to Arfs.

Chet the dog, “the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction” (Boston Globe) and his human partner PI Bernie Little are on to a new case, and this time they’re entangled in a web of crime unlike anything they’ve ever seen before.

Their elderly next door neighbor, Mr. Parsons, thought he was doing the right thing by loaning his ne’er do well son, Billy, some money to help get himself settled. But soon, Mr. Parsons discovers that his entire life savings is gone. A run-of-the-mill scam? Bernie isn’t so sure that the case is that simple, but it’s Chet who senses what they’re really up against.

Only Billy knows the truth, but he’s disappeared. Can Chet and Bernie track him down before it’s too late? Someone else is also in the hunt, an enemy with a mysterious, cutting-edge power who will test Chet and Bernie to their limit—or maybe beyond. Even poker, not the kind of game they’re good at, plays a role.

Spencer Quinn’s A Farewell to Arfs ups the ante in the action-packed and witty New York Times and USA Today bestselling series that Stephen King calls “without a doubt the most original mystery series currently available.”

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Spencer Quinn is the pen name of Peter Abrahams, the Edgar-award winning author of many novels, including the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Chet and Bernie mystery series, Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge, The Right Side, and Oblivion, as well as the New York Times bestselling Bowser and Birdie series for younger readers. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife Diana—and Dottie, a loyal and energetic member of the four-pawed nation within.

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Enjoy the conversation with Spencer Quinn and Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen.

We all missed the Calabrian food before the recent Poisoned Pen event, but Juliet Grames talks about the background of the event. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, welcomed both Juliet Grames and Stuart Neville for a recent food and book event. Grames’ latest book is The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia. Nevill’s new book is Blood Like Mine. There are signed copies of both books in the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/.

Here’s the description of The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia.

One unidentified skeleton. Three missing men. A village full of secrets. The best-selling author of The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna brings us a sparkling—by turns funny and moving—novel about a young American woman turned amateur detective in a small village in Southern Italy (“Terrific” –Boston Globe).

Calabria, 1960. Francesca Loftfield, a twenty-seven-year-old, starry-eyed American, arrives in the isolated mountain village of Santa Chionia tasked with opening a nursery school. There is no road, no doctor, no running water or electricity. And thanks to a recent flood that swept away the post office, there’s no mail, either.

Most troubling, though, is the human skeleton that surfaced after the flood waters receded. Who is it? And why don’t the police come and investigate? When the local priest’s housekeeper begs Francesca to help determine if the remains are those of her long-missing son, Francesca begins to ask a lot of inconvenient questions. As an outsider, she might be the only person who can uncover the truth. Or she might be getting in over her head. As she attempts to juggle a nosy landlady, a suspiciously dashing shepherd, and a network of local families bound together by a code of silence, Francesca finds herself forced to choose between the charitable mission that brought her to Santa Chionia, and her future happiness, between truth and survival.

Set in the wild heart of Calabria, a land of sheer cliff faces, ancient tradition, dazzling sunlight—and one of the world’s most ruthless criminal syndicates—The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia is a suspenseful puzzle mystery, a captivating romance, and an affecting portrait of a young woman in search of a meaningful life.

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JULIET GRAMES is the best-selling author of The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in Real Simple, Parade, and The Boston Globe, and she is the recipient of an Ellery Queen Award from the Mystery Writers of America. She is editorial director at Soho Press in New York.

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Stuart Nevill’s new book is Blood Like Mine.

STAY ON THE MOVE. STAY OUT OF SIGHT.

In LA Times Book Prizewinner Stuart Neville’s daring foray into horror fiction, a mother takes desperate measures to protect her daughter in a sinister, blood-chilling highway pursuit across the Southwest.

On a snowy December night, single mother Rebecca Carter drives her van into a snowbank to avoid hitting an elk on a desolate mountain highway. She is at the end of her rope, out of money and food. Still, she refuses help from a man in a pickup truck—Rebecca’s adolescent daughter, Moonflower, is on the run from a grisly secret, and the last thing they can afford is to be remembered by anyone they meet.

Meanwhile, Special Agent Marc Donner of the FBI has spent the better part of two years hunting down a gruesome serial killer who drains victims of blood before severing their spinal cords, leaving a trail of bodies throughout the country. As Agent Donner’s investigation brings him closer and closer to where Rebecca and Moonflower are hiding out, in the foothills of Colorado, the life that Rebecca has fought so hard to hold together for her daughter becomes increasingly imperiled.

In this deadly, high-stakes game of cat and mouse, nobody is safe and nothing is certain—not even the line between predator and prey.

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Stuart Neville, the “king of Belfast noir” (The Guardian), is the author of nine novels, including The Ghosts of Belfast, The House of Ashes, and Ratlines, as well as numerous short stories. He has won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and been shortlisted for the Edgar, Macavity, Dilys, Barry, and Anthony Awards and the CWA Steel Dagger. He lives near Belfast.

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Enjoy the discussion about food and books. (They go together, don’t they?)

It was a full house for Karin Slaughter’s recent appearance at The Poisoned Pen. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, welcomed Slaughter to discuss the twelfth Will Trent book, This is Why We Lied. They reminisced about their first meeting, and talked about TV. There are signed copies of the book available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4cHUA5c.

Here’s the summary of This is Why We Lied.

WATCH WILL TRENT ON ABC!

“Expect from a Karin Slaughter crime thriller . . . just the right amount of twists, turns, shocks, surprises and domestic thrill and shrill.” — Parade

The next thrilling suspense featuring Will Trent and Sara Linton from Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Girls and After That Night! 

One toxic family.

Eight suspicious guests.

Everyone is guilty.

But who is a killer?

For GBI investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton, McAlpine Lodge seems like the ideal getaway to celebrate their honeymoon. Set on a gorgeous, off-the-grid mountaintop property, it’s the perfect place to unplug and reconnect. Until a bone-chilling scream cuts through the night.

 A murderer in their midst

Mercy McAlpine, the manager of the Lodge, is dead. With a vicious storm raging and the one access road to the property washed out, the murderer must be someone on the mountain. But as Will and Sara investigate the McAlpine family and the other guests, they realize that everyone here is lying….Lying about their past. Lying to their family. Lying to themselves.

 Who killed Mercy McAlpine?

It soon becomes clear that normal rules don’t apply at McAlpine Lodge, and Will and Sara are going to have to watch their step at every turn. Trapped on the resort, they must untangle a decades-old web of secrets to discover what happened to Mercy. And with the killer poised to strike again, the trip of a lifetime becomes a race against the clock…

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Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular storytellers. She is the author of more than twenty instant New York Times bestselling novels, including the Edgar-nominated Cop Town and standalone novels The Good Daughter and Pretty Girls. An international bestseller, Slaughter is published in 120 countries with more than 40 million copies sold across the globe. Pieces of Her is a #1 Netflix original series, Will Trent is a hit television series starring Ramón Rodríguez on ABC, and it was just announced that Jessica Biel will star in the adaptation of THE GOOD DAUGHTER, which Karin adapted herself. Karin Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project — a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. 

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Check out the event and all of Karin Slaughter’s news.

While Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed all three authors to the bookstore, Meg Gardiner (Shadowheart) was the special guest host. Reef Farrel Coleman is the author of Blind to Midnight. Steve Hamilton’s new book is An Honorable Assassin. There are signed copies of the books by all three authors available in the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/.

Here’s the description of Coleman’s Blind to Midnight.

When you’re in trouble, you call 911.

When cops are in trouble, they call Nick Ryan.

Every cop in the city knows his name, but no one says it out loud.

He doesn’t wear a uniform, but he is the most powerful cop in New York.

Nick Ryan can find a criminal who’s vanished. Or make a key witness disappear.

He has cars, safe houses, money, and weapons hidden all over the city.

Nearly three thousand New Yorkers died on 9/11. But in the entire city on that tragic day, only one murder actually took place. Now, over two decades later, Detective Nick Ryan must dig beneath the official report—and into his own past—to find the truth.

Working again for the mysterious power broker “Joe,” Nick finds a link between an airman, a billionaire, a trove of Nazi gold, and a crew of killers, but gets sidetracked when his dear “uncle” Tony and Tony’s wife are murdered in a professional hit.

Nick’s investigations uncover a tangled web of corruption and blood money, and as the horrifying truth emerges, he finds himself outgunned, on the run, and trusting no one.

With professional killers on his trail, will Nick Ryan be able to end the violence before he loses everything that matters to him—including his own life?

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Reed Farrel Coleman is a New York Times bestselling author whose works have won Macavity, Barry, Anthony, and Shamus awards.

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Here’s the summary of An Honorable Assassin.

From two-time Edgar Award–winning author Steve Hamilton, An Honorable Assassin is another terrifying thriller featuring the unstoppable Nick Mason.

He was released from federal prison to a second life as an unwilling assassin, serving a major Chicago crime lord until the day he finally won his freedom.

But that freedom was a lie.

Now Mason finds himself on a plane to Jakarta, promoted to lead assassin for a vast shadow organization that reaches every corner of the globe. This time, there’s only one name on his list: Hashim Baya—otherwise known as the Crocodile—international fugitive and #1 most wanted on Interpol’s “Red Notice” list. Baya is the most dangerous and elusive criminal Mason has ever faced.

And for the first time in his career … Mason fails his mission. Baya gets away alive.

There’s only one thing he can do now: to save himself, his ex-wife, and his daughter, he must make this mission his life, hunting down the target on his own. But Mason isn’t alone in his search, because for Interpol agent Martin Sauvage, apprehending Baya has become a personal vendetta. Sauvage is a man just as haunted as Mason. And just as determined.

Never have the stakes been so high, the forces surrounding him so great. Sauvage wants Baya in prison. Mason needs him in a body bag. Assassin and cop are on a five-thousand-mile collision course, leading to a brutal final showdown—and the one man in the world who can finally show Nick Mason the way to freedom.

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Steve Hamilton is the two-time Edgar Award–winning, New York Times bestselling author of the Alex McKnight series (with over a million copies sold), the Nick Mason series, and the stand-alone novel The Lock Artist. Two of his novels have been named New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and he’s one of only three authors in history to win Edgar Awards for both Best First Novel and Best Novel. Other major awards include the Shamus, the Barry, the AMA Alex Award, and the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller. He was born and raised in the Detroit area and attended the University of Michigan, where he received the prestigious Hopwood Award for Fiction.

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Meg Gardiner’s Shadowheart, the fourth UNSUB thriller, is described below.

What happens when two serial killers begin to compete with each other?

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Meg Gardiner comes a new high-octane thriller in the acclaimed UNSUB series.

FBI Special Agent Caitlin Hendrix faces a case from nightmares.

In a Tennessee prison, Efrem Judah Goode draws haunting portraits of women he claims he has killed. Around the country, desperate families of the missing seek answers in his eerie drawings. And on darkened back roads and New York City streets, a new killer poses duct-taped bodies at the sites of Goode’s murders.

Two serial killers are locked in a twisted rivalry. To stop the brutal slayings, FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix must unravel the connection between Goode and the Broken Heart Killer. Their warped competition destroys anyone in their path. Caught between a manipulative psychopath and a ruthless UNSUB, Caitlin has to dive into not one, but two dark and twisted minds. She will risk everything, plunging into the depths of their depraved clash to hunt down an unstoppable killer.

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Meg Gardiner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of sixteen novels. Her thrillers have won the Edgar Award and been summer reading picks by the Today show and O, the Oprah Magazine. In August 2022 her latest novel, Heat 2, coauthored with Michael Mann, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. A former lawyer and three-time Jeopardy! champion, Gardiner lives in Austin, Texas.

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Enjoy Gardiner’s conversation with Reed Farrel Coleman and Steve Hamilton.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/4nlpDsaRjQA?si=g47snm9Jl3faFCJb&start=18

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed two Minotaur authors, Sarah Stewart Taylor and P.J. Tracy. Taylor, the author of the Maggie D’Arcy mysteries, launched a new series with her historical mystery set in Vermont, Agony Hill. P.J. Tracy’s fourth Detective Margaret Nolan mystery, City of Secrets, is just out. But, Tracy said she just turned in a Monkeewrench book, so those of us who love the Monkeewrench mysteries will have a new one coming out. There are signed copies of the new books by both authors available in the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/.

Sarah Stewart Taylor’s Agony Hill is The Poisoned Pen’s History Mystery pick for August. Here’s the description.

Set in rural Vermont in the volatile 1960s, Agony Hill is the first novel in a new historical series full of vivid New England atmosphere and the deeply drawn characters that are Sarah Stewart Taylor’s trademark.

In the hot summer of 1965, Bostonian Franklin Warren arrives in Bethany, Vermont, to take a position as a detective with the state police. Warren’s new home is on the verge of monumental change; the interstates under construction will bring new people, new opportunities, and new problems to Vermont, and the Cold War and protests against the war in Vietnam have finally reached the dirt roads and rolling pastures of Bethany.

Warren has barely unpacked when he’s called up to a remote farm on Agony Hill. Former New Yorker and Back-to-the-Lander Hugh Weber seems to have set fire to his barn and himself, with the door barred from the inside, but things aren’t adding up for Warren. The people of Bethany—from Weber’s enigmatic wife to Warren’s neighbor, widow and amateur detective Alice Bellows — clearly have secrets they’d like to keep, but Warren can’t tell if the truth about Weber’s death is one of them. As he gets to know his new home and grapples with the tragedy that brought him there, Warren is drawn to the people and traditions of small town Vermont, even as he finds darkness amidst the beauty.

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SARAH STEWART TAYLOR is the author of the Sweeney St. George series, set in New England, the Maggie D’arcy mysteries, set in Ireland and on Long Island, and Agony Hill, the first in a new series set in rural Vermont in the 1960s. Sarah has been nominated for an Agatha Award and for the Dashiell Hammett Prize and her mysteries have appeared on numerous Best of the Year lists. A former journalist and teacher, she writes and lives with her family on a farm in Vermont where they raise sheep and grow blueberries.

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Here’s the summary of P.J. Tracy’s City of Secrets.

LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan returns in P. J. Tracy’s City of Secrets, the next book in the series praised by the New York Times Book Review: “Tracy seems to have found her literary sweet spot.”

Los Angeles Police Detective Margaret Nolan and her partner have worked a lot of different cases, ones where things aren’t always as they appear. And it’s Nolan’s job to find the truth in the darkness around her. When they’re called to the scene of what looks like a fatal car-jacking, Nolan soon realizes her victim was a founder of a company about to sell for millions, and within a day of his death, his partner’s wife is abducted. As Nolan learns more about the victim and his life, she gets pulled into a disturbing world of sex, violence, and big business; and an even darker world, where whispers of an “Angel of Death” are beginning to surface.

One of today’s finest crime writers, P. J. Tracy has created a series that is a rich and authentic portrait of LA, filled with the tragedy and optimism of her multi-layered characters and a story guaranteed to keep readers enthralled.

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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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I hope you enjoy this discussion with Sarah Stewart Taylor and P.J. Tracy.