Fabian Nicieza’s The Self-Made Widow is the current Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, welcomed him for an in-person event. Fabian’s first mystery, Suburban Dicks, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel and a Shamus for Best First PI Novel. There are signed copies of both books available through the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/2p9hnaec
Here’s the description of The Self-Made Widow.
From the cocreator of Deadpool and author of Suburban Dicks comes a diabolically funny murder mystery that features two unlikely sleuths investigating a murder that reveals the dark underbelly of suburban marriage.
After mother of five and former FBI profiler Andie Stern solved a murder—and unraveled a decades-old conspiracy—in her New Jersey town, both her husband and the West Windsor police hoped that she would set aside crime-fighting and go back to carpools, changing diapers, and lunches with her group of mom-friends, who she secretly calls The Cellulitists. Even so, Andie can’t help but get involved when the husband of Queen Bee Molly Goode is found dead. Though all signs point to natural causes, Andie begins to dig into the case and soon risks more than just the clique’s wrath, because what she discovers might hit shockingly close to home.
Meanwhile, journalist Kenny Lee is enjoying a rehabilitated image after his success as Andie’s sidekick. But when an anonymous phone call tips him off that Molly Goode killed her husband, he’s soon drawn back into the thicket of suburban scandals, uncovering secrets, affairs, and a huge sum of money. Hellbent on justice and hoping not to kill each other in the process, Andie and Kenny dust off their suburban sleuthing caps once again.
Fabian Nicieza is a comic book writer and editor who is best known as the co-creator of Marvel’s Deadpool and for his work on titles such as X-Men, X-Force, New Warriors, Cable, and Thunderbolts. He is the author of Suburban Dicks, a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author.
Fabian Nicieza has a fascinating background. Enjoy the discussion.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently hosted a virtual event featuring Rosalie Knecht, author of Vera Kelly Lost and Found. There are signed bookplates available if you order a book through the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/mtf3bmer
Here’s the description of Vera Kelly Lost and Found.
Vera Kelly Series
It’s spring 1971 and Vera Kelly and her girlfriend, Max, leave their cozy Brooklyn apartment for an emergency visit to Max’s estranged family in Los Angeles. Max’s parents are divorcing—her father is already engaged to a much younger woman and under the sway of an occultist charlatan; her mother has left their estate in a hurry with no indication of return. Max, who hasn’t seen her family since they threw her out at the age of twenty-one, prepares for the trip with equal parts dread and anger.
Upon arriving, Vera is shocked by the size and extravagance of the Comstock estate—the sprawling, manicured landscape; expansive and ornate buildings; and garages full of luxury cars reveal a privileged upbringing that, up until this point, Max had only hinted at—while Max attempts to navigate her father, who is hostile and controlling, and the occultist, St. James, who is charming but appears to be siphoning family money. Tensions boil over at dinner when Max threatens to alert her mother—and her mother’s lawyers—to St. James and her father’s plans using marital assets. The next morning, when Vera wakes up, Max is gone.
In Vera Kelly Lost and Found, Rosalie Knecht gives Vera her highest-stake case yet, as Vera quickly puts her private detective skills to good use and tracks a trail of breadcrumbs across southern California to find her missing girlfriend. She travels first to a film set in Santa Ynez and, ultimately, to a most unlikely destination where Vera has to decide how much she is willing to commit to save the woman she loves.
Rosalie Knecht is the author of Who is Vera Kelly?, Vera Kelly is not a Mystery, winner of the Edgar Award, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, as well as a Relief Map, and a translation of Aira’s The Seamstress and the Wind. She lives in Jersey City, NJ.
Riley Sager’s latest novel, The House Across the Lake, is one of the hottest books this week. He appeared at The Poisoned Pen on publication day. He and Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, talked about his background and his new book. Signed copies of The House Across the Lake are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3Nf3QRv
Here’s the description of The House Across the Lake.
Named a most anticipated summer book by USA Today, People, E! News, Cosmopolitan, PureWow, CNN.com, CrimeReads, POPSUGAR, The Nerd Daily, BookTrib, Mystery Writers of America, Bookish, and Distractify
The New York Times bestselling author of Final Girls and Survive the Night is back with his “best plot twist yet.” (People, “Best Summer Books”)
Be careful what you watch for . . .
Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of bourbon, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple living in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing—a tech innovator, Tom is powerful; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous.
One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and the longer Casey watches—it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage isn’t as perfect as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey immediately suspects Tom of foul play. What she doesn’t realize is that there’s more to the story than meets the eye—and that shocking secrets can lurk beneath the most placid of surfaces.
Packed with sharp characters, psychological suspense, and gasp-worthy plot twists, Riley Sager’s The House Across the Lake is the ultimate escapist read . . . no lake house required.
Riley Sager is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels, most recently Home Before Dark and Survive the Night. A native of Pennsylvania, he now lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, and a Stanford graduate, has a great deal of interest in Professor Richard White’s nonfiction book, Who Killed Jane Stanford? She hosted him for a recent event, along with some guests, including author and professor Paul Goldstein, along with authors Angie Kim and Francine Mathews. There are signed copies of Who Killed Jane Stanford? available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3Na6YOy
Here’s the description of Who Killed Jane Stanford?
A premier historian penetrates the fog of corruption and cover-up still surrounding the murder of a Stanford University founder to establish who did it, how, and why.
In 1885 Jane and Leland Stanford cofounded a university to honor their recently deceased young son. After her husband’s death in 1893, Jane Stanford, a devoted spiritualist who expected the university to inculcate her values, steered Stanford into eccentricity and public controversy for more than a decade. In 1905 she was murdered in Hawaii, a victim, according to the Honolulu coroner’s jury, of strychnine poisoning. With her vast fortune the university’s lifeline, the Stanford president and his allies quickly sought to foreclose challenges to her bequests by constructing a story of death by natural causes. The cover-up gained traction in the murky labyrinths of power, wealth, and corruption of Gilded Age San Francisco. The murderer walked.
Deftly sifting the scattered evidence and conflicting stories of suspects and witnesses, Richard White gives us the first full account of Jane Stanford’s murder and its cover-up. Against a backdrop of the city’s machine politics, rogue policing, tong wars, and heated newspaper rivalries, White’s search for the murderer draws us into Jane Stanford’s imperious household and the academic enmities of the university. Although Stanford officials claimed that no one could have wanted to murder Jane, we meet several people who had the motives and the opportunity to do so. One of these, we discover, also had the means.
Richard White is the author of many acclaimed histories, including the groundbreaking study of the transcontinentals, Railroaded, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Emeritus, at Stanford University, and lives near Palo Alto, California.
Here’s the fascinating story of Jane Stanford’s murder.
It doesn’t hurt to share the upcoming slate of authors at The Poisoned Pen. It sometimes changes, so check out the current schedule. Then, check for the books by your favorite authors, available in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Riley SagerRosalie KnechtBell/ MoehlingFabian NiciezaDoiron/ TaylorIsabella MaldonadoK. Davis / D. Gerber
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed three authors who are published by Crooked Lane Books. Two of the authors, Mindy Carlson and Kate Khavari are debut authors. You can find the books by those authors, and Evie Hawtrey, through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here are the descriptions of all three books, beginning with Mindy Carlson’s Her Dying Day.
Perfect for fans of Shari Lapena and Hannah Mary McKinnon, a mystery writer’s sudden disappearance leads a budding filmmaker down a dark road to treachery, murder, and long-buried sins.
Aspiring filmmaker June Masterson has high hopes for her first documentary, the true story of the disappearance of famed mystery author Greer Larkin. June learned about the vanishing at age fourteen, locked down on her family’s isolated commune. Now, the deeper she digs into the project, the darker the story gets.
In desperation, Rachel gives June a suitcase full of Greer’s most personal writings in hopes of finding proof against Jonathan. Then Rachel turns up dead. As June pores over Greer’s writings, she makes a devastating discovery that could finally reveal the truth about the author’s fate. But now, June finds herself in the sights of a killer who’ll stop at nothing to keep their darkest secret.
Mindy Carlson grew up as an animal- and mystery-loving girl in Iowa before heading to California to see what she could make of her life. Now she lives in Maryland and is a successful parenting author, with pieces appearing in The Washington Post, Big Life Journal, and AFineParent.com. Her Dying Day is her debut novel.
Here’s Evie Hawtrey’s And By Fire.
Tempered by fire and separated by centuries, two extraordinary female detectives track a pair of murderous geniuses who will burn the world for their art in this mystery perfect for fans of Sarah Penner and Dan Brown.
Nigella Parker, Detective Inspector with the City Police, has a deeply rooted fear of fire and a talent for solving deadly arson cases. When a charred figure is found curled beside Sir Christopher Wren’s Monument to the Great Fire of London, Nigella is dragged into a case pitting her against a murderous artist creating sculptures using burnt flesh.
Nigella partners with Colm O’Leary of Scotland Yard to track the arsonist across greater London. The pair are more than colleagues—they were lovers until O’Leary made the mistake of uttering three little words. Their past isn’t the only buried history as they race to connect the dots between an antique nail pulled from a dead man’s hands and a long-forgotten architect dwarfed by the life’s work of Sir Christopher Wren.
Wren, one of London’s most famous architects, is everywhere the pair turn. Digging into his legacy leads the DCIs into the coldest of cold cases: a search for a bookseller gone missing during the Great Fire of London. More than 350 years earlier, while looking for their friend, a second pair of detectives—a lady-in-waiting to the Queen and a royal fireworks maker—discovered foul play in the supposedly accidental destruction of St. Paul’s Cathedral…but did that same devilry lead to murder? And can these centuries-old crimes help catch a modern-day murderer?
As Nigella and O’Leary rush to decode clues, past and present, London’s killer-artist sets his sights on a member of the investigative team as the subject of his next fiery masterpiece.
Evie Hawtrey is a Yank by birth but a sister-in-spirit to her fierce and feminist London detective, DI Nigella Barker. Evie splits her time between Washington DC, where she lives with her husband, and York, UK, where she enjoys living in history, lingering over teas, and knocking around in pubs.
Here’s Kate Khavari and her debut mystery, A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons.
Debut author Kate Khavari deftly entwines a pulse-pounding mystery with the struggles of a woman in a male-dominated field in 1923 London.
Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh is determined to blaze a new trail at the University College London, but with her colleagues’ beliefs about women’s academic inabilities and not so subtle hints that her deceased father’s reputation paved her way into the botany department, she feels stymied at every turn.
When she attends a dinner party for the school, she expects to engage in conversations about the university’s large expedition to the Amazon. What she doesn’t expect is for Mrs. Henry, one of the professors’ wives, to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin.
Dr. Maxwell, Saffron’s mentor, is the main suspect and evidence quickly mounts. Joined by fellow researcher–and potential romantic interest–Alexander Ashton, Saffron uses her knowledge of botany as she explores steamy greenhouses, dark gardens, and deadly poisons to clear Maxwell’s name.
Will she be able to uncover the truth or will her investigation land her on the murderer’s list, in this entertaining examination of society’s expectations.
Kate Khavari is the author of fiction ranging from historical mysteries to high fantasy epics. She has her parents to thank for her fascination for historical mysteries, as she spent the majority of her childhood memorizing Sherlock Holmes’s and Poirot’s greatest quips. A former teacher, Kate has a deep appreciation for research and creativity, not to mention the multitasking ability she now relies on as an author and stay at home mother to her toddler son. She lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas with her husband, son, and a lovely garden that contains absolutely no poisonous plants.
Enjoy Barbara Peters’ conversation with the three authors.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, had the opportunity to introduce Joey Hartstone, author of the debut legal thriller, The Local. In fact, The Local was the Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. There are signed copies of the debut available in the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/mr493f9v
Here’s the description of The Local.
A freewheeling, small-town attorney takes on a national murder trial when an out-of-town client is accused of killing a federal judge in Texas.
“A spectacular courtroom thriller that kept me turning pages like the best of Grisham or Turow.” —Michelle King, co-creator of The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and Evil
In the town of Marshall sits the Federal courthouse of the Eastern District of Texas, a place revered by patent lawyers for its speedy jury trails and massive punitive payouts. Marshall is flooded with patent lawyers, all of whom find work being the local voice for the big-city legal teams that need to sway a small-town jury. One of the best is James Euchre.
Euchre’s new client is Amir Zawar, a firebrand CEO forced to defend his life’s work against a software patent infringement. Late one night, after a heated confrontation in a preliminary hearing, Judge Gardner is found murdered in the courthouse parking lot. All signs point to Zawar—he has motive, he has opportunity, and he has no alibi. Moreover, he is an outsider, a wealthy Pakistani-American businessman, the son of immigrants, who stands accused of killing a beloved hometown hero.
Zawar claims his innocence, and demands that Euchre defend him. It’s the last thing Euchre wants—Judge Gardner was his good friend and mentor—but the only way he can get definitive answers is to take the case. With the help of a former prosecutor and a local PI, Euchre must navigate the byzantine world of criminal defense law in a town where everyone knows everyone, and bad blood has a long history. The deeper he digs, the more he fears that he’ll either send an innocent man to death row or set a murderer free.
The Local is a small-town legal thriller as big in scope as Texas. It crackles with courtroom tension and high stakes gambits on every page to the final, shocking verdict.
Joey Hartstone is a film and television writer. He has written two feature films, LBJ (2016) and Shock and Awe (2017), which were both directed by Rob Reiner. He wrote on the first two seasons of the legal drama The Good Fight. He is currently a writer on the Showtime series Your Honor. Joey lives in Los Angeles with his family.
Enjoy the conversation about the law, trials, and The Local.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Graham Brown and Matthew Quirk to the bookstore for an in-person and virtual event. Brown is the author of Clive Cussler’s Dark Vector. Quirk’s new book is Red Warning. There are signed copies of both books available in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here’s the description of Clive Cussler’s Dark Vector.
Kurt Austin must find a vanished ship and stave off a global catastrophe in the latest novel in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series created by the “grand master of adventure” Clive Cussler.
A freighter carrying top-secret computers of unparalleled capability disappears in the Western Pacific. While searching for a lost treasure that once belonged to the famous Chinese pirate queen, Ching Shih, Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala are redirected to look for the missing vessel.
Discovering that the sinking of the ship is just part of an intricate web of deception, they find themselves in the middle of a cyber-war between rival groups of hackers, both of whom want to control the flow of data around the world.
With no allies except a group of pirates who operate under their own crude laws, Kurt and Joe must rescue a colleague held hostage—while keeping the computers out of Russian or Chinese hands and the world’s digital information safe from the hackers.
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.
Graham Brown is the author of Black Rain and Black Sun, and the coauthor with Cussler of Devil’s Gate, The Storm, Zero Hour, Ghost Ship, The Pharaoh’s Secret, Nighthawk, The Rising Sea, Sea of Greed, Journey of the Pharoes, and Fast Ice. He is a pilot and an attorney.
Check out Matthew Quirk’s Red Warning.
“Intricately plotted with extraordinary characters and riveting action.” ““Jack Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author of In the Blood
CIA officer Sam Hudson races to find a deep cover operative loose in the U.S. and a mole in the Agency before they can launch a devastating attack on Washington, D.C., in this adrenaline-fueled thriller from the author of The Night Agent and Hour of the Assassin.
For years CIA officer Sam Hudson has been hunting Konstantin, a Russian deep cover operative responsible for a string of assassinations in the West—and he believes a well-placed source in Geneva can finally get him close to the killer. But when their meeting is ambushed, Sam’s partner is murdered and he barely makes it out alive himself.
Back in the States, the bosses put him on leave and want him to drop his obsession with Konstantin, but Sam can’t let a man who’s taken so many lives slip away again. When he gets a mysterious call at the Lincoln Memorial just before a bomb goes off, he realizes Konstantin has followed him to the U.S.—and is targeting him and everyone close to him. Teaming up with fellow CIA officer Emily Pierce, he sets out to redeem himself and uncover a plot that has been lying in wait since the end of the Cold War, its elements hidden among the most iconic buildings in the capital.
With enemies lurking both inside and outside the Agency and the Russian threat looming ever larger, Sam must use all his training and nerve to stop Konstantin before he can trigger the plot to devastate Washington and bring the US to its knees.
Matthew Quirk is the New York Times bestselling author of Hour of the Assassin, The Night Agent, The 500, The Directive, Cold Barrel Zero, and Dead Man Switch. He spent five years at The Atlantic reporting on crime, private military contractors, terrorism prosecutions, and international gangs. He lives in San Diego, California.
Enjoy the conversation with Graham Brown and Matthew Quirk.
Leonard Goldberg brings back the Daughter of Sherlock Holmes in The Blue Diamond, the sixth in the series. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, hosted Goldberg for the virtual event. You can still order a signed copy of the book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3xygEMX
Here’s the description of The Blue Diamond.
The fate of the allied forces lies in the hands of Joanna and the Watsons in the next Daughter of Sherlock Holmes mystery from USA Today bestselling author Leonard Goldberg.
During a critical stage in World War One, the Governor-General of South Africa journeys to London for a meeting of The Imperial War Conference. Days prior to the conference, the Governor-General is scheduled to have an audience at Buckingham Palace at which time a most precious blue diamond will be presented to King Edward as a symbolic gesture of the colonies’ resolute and never-ending allegiance to England.
The flawless blue diamond, with its magnificent luster, weighs nearly 3000 carats which renders it one of the world’s largest and most valuable gems. On the Governor-General’s arrival, he is ensconced at the fashionable Windsor Hotel under the tightest security, with his entire entourage and formidable security team occupying the entire penthouse floor. All entrances and exits are locked down and closely guarded, and no one is allowed entrance after 6 PM.
Despite the extreme precautions, the famous diamond is stolen from the Governor-General’s suite in the middle of the night, with no clues left behind. With Scotland Yard baffled, Joanna and the Watsons are called in to investigate the theft and it becomes clear that the crime is not simply the work of a master thief, but one that could greatly aid the Germans and turn the tide of war in their favor. Time is of the essence and the blue diamond must be recovered before it begins its travels which could cause irreparable damage to the allied war plans.
Leonard Goldberg is the USA Today bestselling author of the Joanna Blalock medical thrillers. His novels have been translated into a dozen languages and were selections of the Book of the Month Club, French and Czech book clubs, and The Mystery Guild. They were featured as People‘s “Page-Turner of the Week” and at the International Book Fair. After a long career affiliated with the UCLA Medical Center as a Clinical Professor of Medicine, he now lives on an island off the coast of Charleston, SC.
Because the book is set in 1917, during the Great War, Goldberg talks about that background as well as his book. Enjoy the virtual event.
It’s been a few years since Fiona Barton’s last book, but she’s back with Local Gone Missing. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently talked with Barton for a virtual event. You can order a copy of the book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3Hp3bf7
Here’s the description of Local Gone Missing.
Detective Elise King investigates a man’s disappearance in a seaside town where the locals and weekenders are at odds in this rich and captivating new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow.
Elise King is a successful and ambitious detective—or she was before a medical leave left her unsure if she’d ever return to work. She now spends most days watching the growing tensions in her small seaside town of Ebbing—the weekenders renovating old bungalows into luxury homes, and the locals resentful of the changes.
Elise can only guess what really happens behind closed doors. But Dee Eastwood, her house cleaner, often knows. She’s an invisible presence in many of the houses in town, but she sees and hears everything.
The conflicts boil over when a newcomer wants to put the town on the map with a weekend music festival, and two teenagers overdose on drugs. When a man disappears the first night of the festival, Elise starts digging for answers. Ebbing is a small town, but it’s full of secrets and hidden connections that run deeper and darker than Elise could have ever imagined.
“Barton presents such an embarrassment of riches. . . .Layers and layers of unlovely revelations about people who seemed perfectly nice.” —Kirkus Reviews “A captivating read. A first-grade suspense novel and highly recommended.” —MysteryTribune
Fiona Barton is the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow, The Child, and The Suspect. She has trained and worked with journalists all over the world. Previously, she was a senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at the Mail on Sunday, where she won Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards. Born in Cambridge, England, she lives in England.
Barton talks about her background as a journalist, and how her experience led to her books.
