Fiction Review

Paul Doiron Goes to the Cats

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Well, really, you need to watch the virtual event to understand why I said Paul Doiron, author of the Mike Bowditch mysteries, has gone to the cats. His latest book is Dead by Dawn. Watch for the cats at his place, and with guest host Luanne Rice. Then, pick a signed copy of his book from the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2KqPe53

Here’s the summary of Dead by Dawn.

Maine game warden Mike Bowditch finds himself in a life-or-death chase in this next thriller in the bestselling mystery series by Edgar Award nominee Paul Doiron, Dead by Dawn.

Mike Bowditch is fighting for his life. After being ambushed on a dark winter road, his Jeep crashes into a frozen river. Trapped beneath the ice in the middle of nowhere, having lost his gun and any way to signal for help, Mike fights his way to the surface. But surviving the crash is only the first challenge. Whoever set the trap that ran him off the road is still out there, and they’re coming for him.

Hours earlier, Mike was called to investigate the suspicious drowning of a wealthy professor. Despite the death being ruled an accident, his elegant, eccentric daughter-in-law insists the man was murdered. She suspects his companion that day, a reclusive survivalist and conspiracy theorist who accompanied the professor on his fateful duck-hunting trip—but what exactly was the nature of their relationship? And was her own sharp-tongued daughter, who inherited the dead man’s fortune, as close to her grandfather as she claims? The accusations lead Mike to a sinister local family who claim to have information on the crime. But when his Jeep flies into the river and unknown armed assailants on snowmobiles chase him through the wilderness, the investigation turns into a fight for survival.

As Mike faces a nightlong battle to stay alive, he must dissect the hours leading up to the ambush and solve two riddles: which one of these people desperately want him dead, and what has he done to incur their wrath?

A native of Maine, bestselling author PAUL DOIRON attended Yale University, where he graduated with a degree in English. The Poacher’s Son, the first book in the Mike Bowditch series, won the Barry award, the Strand award for best first novel, and has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity awards in the same category. He is a Registered Maine Guide specializing in fly fishing and lives on a trout stream in coastal Maine with his wife, Kristen Lindquist.

Enjoy the conversation between Paul Doiron and Luanne Rice. And, watch for cats!

Jake Tapper in Conversation with David Baldacci

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July 4th is the perfect day to do an encore performance because there were technical difficulties the first time. David Baldacci is the guest host at The Poisoned Pen’s virtual event featuring Jake Tapper, author of The Devil May Dance. There may be a few signed copies of Tapper’s book still available in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3tJf9HL

Charlie and Margaret discover the dark side of Hollywood in Jake Tapper’s follow-up to New York Times bestseller The Hellfire Club—an “excellent”cocktail of corruption and ambition (Publishers Weekly). Charlie and Margaret Marder, political stars in 1960s Washington DC, know all too well how the tangled web of power in the nation’s capital can operate. But while they long to settle into the comforts of home, Attorney General Robert Kennedy has other plans. He needs them to look into a potential threat not only to the presidency, but to the security of the United States itself.

Charlie and Margaret quickly find themselves on a flight to sunny Los Angeles, where they’ll face off against a dazzling world of stars and studios. At the center of their investigation is Frank Sinatra, a close friend of President John F. Kennedy and a rumored mob crony, whom Charlie and Margaret must befriend to get the inside scoop. But in a town built on illusions, where friends and foes all look alike, nothing is easy, and drinks by the pool at the Sands and late-night adventures with the Rat Pack soon lead to a body in the trunk of their car. Before they know it, Charlie and Margaret are being pursued by sinister forces from Hollywood’s stages to the newly founded Church of Scientology, facing off against the darkest and most secret side of Hollywood’s power.

As the Academy Awards loom, and someone near and dear to Margaret goes missing, Charlie and Margaret find the clock is not only ticking but running out. Someone out there knows what they’ve uncovered and can’t let them leave alive. Corruption and ambition form a deadly mix in this fast-paced sequel to The Hellfire Club.


Jake Tapper is the author of The Hellfire Club, which is being turned into a TV series by HBO Max, and The Outpost, which became a celebrated film released in 2020. An award-winning anchor for CNN, he joined the network in January 2013. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, daughter, and son.

Enjoy the conversation between Jake Tapper and David Baldacci.

CWA’s Dagger Awards

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Congratulations to all the winners and nominees of the British Crime Writers’ Association’s 2021 Dagger Awards. After you see the winners and nominees, check for them in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/ Several awards aren’t covered here, but you can find the complete listing at https://therapsheet.blogspot.com/.

Chris Whitaker won the CWA Gold Dagger for the crime novel of the year. Congratulations!

Highly commended: Blacktop Wasteland, by S.A. Cosby (Headline); House of Correction, by Nicci French (Simon & Schuster)

Also nominated: City of Ghosts, by Ben Creed (Welbeck); Troubled Blood, by Robert Galbraith (Sphere); The Postscript Murders, by Elly Griffiths (Quercus); and Midnight Atlanta, by Thomas Mullen
(Little, Brown)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger:When She Was Good, by Michael
Robotham (Sphere)

Also nominated: Troubled Blood, by Robert Galbraith (Sphere); The Nothing Man, by Catherine Ryan Howard (Atlantic); The Devil and the Dark Water, by Stuart Turton (Raven); One by One, by Ruth Ware (Harvill Secker); and We Begin at the End, by Chris Whitaker (Zaffre)

John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger:The Creak on the Stairs,
by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir (Orenda)

Also nominated: City of Ghosts, by Ben Creed (Welbeck); The One That Got Away, by Egan Hughes (Sphere); The Bone Jar, by S.W. Kane (Thomas & Mercer); Fortune Favours the Dead, by Stephen Spotswood (Wildfire); and Three Fifths, by John Vercher (Pushkin Press)

Sapere Books Historical Dagger:Midnight at Malabar House,
by Vaseem Khan (Hodder & Stoughton)

Also nominated: Snow, by John Banville (Faber and Faber); The Unwanted Dead, by Chris Lloyd (Orion Fiction); The City Under Siege, by Michael Russell (Constable); Skelton’s Guide to Domestic Poisons, by David S. Stafford (Allison & Busby); and The Mimosa Tree Mystery, by Ovidia Yu (Constable)

ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-fiction:Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind, by Sue Black (Doubleday)

Also nominated: We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence, by Becky Cooper (Heinemann); These Are Not Gentle People, by Andrew Harding (MacLehose Press); Dancing with the Octopus: The Telling of a True Crime, by Debora Harding (Profile); The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us, by Nick Hayes (Bloomsbury Circus); and Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy, by Ben MacIntyre (Viking)

Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger:The Disaster Tourist, by Yun Ko-eun, translated by Lizzie Buehler (Serpent’s Tail)

Also nominated: Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman, translated by Neil Smith (Michael Joseph); The Coral Bride, by Roxanne Bouchard, translated by David Warriner (Orenda); Three, by D.A. Mishani, translated by Jessica Cohen (Riverrun); To Cook a Bear, by Mikael Niemi, translated by Deborah Bragan-Turner (MacLehose Press); and The Seven Doors, by Agnes Ravatn, translated by Rosie Hedger (Orenda)

Dagger in the Library (“for a body of work by an established crime writer that has long been popular with borrowers from
libraries”): Peter May

Also nominated: C.L. Taylor, Lisa Jewell, James Oswald, Denise Mina, and L.J. Ross

Martina Cole received the 2021 Diamond Dagger award for lifetime achievement.

T.J. Newman, “Falling” into The New York Times

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T.J. Newman, debut and local author, is the subject of a recent New York Times article by Elizabeth Egan, “A Flight Attendant Drafted Her Novel on Cocktail Napkins. It Took Off.” Here’s the article, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/books/tj-newman-falling.html?smid=url-share. Newman will be appearing both live and virtually for The Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, July 6 at 7 PM PDT, 10 PM EDT. You can order a copy of her novel, Falling, through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3ydTsm2

Here’s the summary of Falling.

“Stunning and relentless. This is Jaws at 35,000 feet.” —Don Winslow
“Falling is the best kind of thriller…Nonstop, totally authentic suspense.” —James Patterson
“Amazing…Intense suspense, shocks and scares…Chilling.” —Lee Child
“The perfect summer thriller. Relentlessly paced and unforgettable.” —Janet Evanovich

You just boarded a flight to New York.

There are one hundred and forty-three other passengers onboard.

What you don’t know is that thirty minutes before the flight your pilot’s family was kidnapped.

For his family to live, everyone on your plane must die.

The only way the family will survive is if the pilot follows his orders and crashes the plane.

Enjoy the flight.

T. J. Newman,a former bookseller turned flight attendant, worked for Virgin America and Alaska Airlines from 2011 to 2021. She wrote much of Falling on cross-country red-eye flights while her passengers were asleep. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Falling is her first novel.

Here’s the information about The Poisoned Pen’s event.

T.J. Newman discusses Falling.

click here to order a signed first edition! 

The first 25 to purchase a (signed) copy of Falling and request a ticket will gain admittance to the live event. Our space is modest so we offer  limited, distanced seating. Please request a ticket when placing your order and a book and ticket (if you are within the first 25) will be saved for you

Rather than step into the controversies around vaxxing, we are making it simple: attendees must be masked. The author and I will be distanced, and unmasked. You must wear your mask in the signing line as well.

Sarah Stewart Taylor in Conversation with Carlene O’Connor

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We’re off to Ireland with Sarah Stewart Taylor, author of the Maggie D’Arcy mysteries. A Distant Grave is the second one. Taylor discussed Ireland, gravestones, and books with Carlene O’Connor, author of the Irish Village mysteries, and Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen. You can find copies of books by both authors, including signed copies of A Distant Grave, in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the description of A Distant Grave.

In the follow up to the critically acclaimed The Mountains Wild, Detective Maggie D’arcy tackles another intricate case that bridges Long Island and Ireland in A Distant Grave.

Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy and her teenage daughter, Lilly, are still recovering from the events of last fall when a strange new case demands Maggie’s attention. The body of an unidentified Irish national turns up in a wealthy Long Island beach community and with little to go on but the scars on his back, Maggie once again teams up with Garda detectives in Ireland to find out who the man was and what he was doing on Long Island. The strands of the mystery take Maggie to a quiet village in rural County Clare that’s full of secrets and introduce her to the world of humanitarian aid workers half a world away. And as she gets closer to the truth about the murder, what she learns leads her back to her home turf and into range of a dangerous and determined killer who will do anything to keep the victim’s story hidden forever.

With the lyrical prose, deeply drawn characters, and atmospheric setting that put The Mountains Wild on multiple best of the year lists, Sarah Stewart Taylor delivers another gripping mystery novel about family, survival, and the meaning of home.

SARAH STEWART TAYLOR is the author of the Sweeney St. George series and the Maggie D’arcy series. Taylor grew up on Long Island in New York and was educated at Middlebury College in Vermont and Trinity College in Dublin. She lived in Dublin, Ireland in the mid-90s and she now lives with her family on a farm in Vermont where they raise sheep and grow blueberries.

If you want to hear about Ireland or the books by Sarah Stewart Taylor and Carlene O’Connor, you’ll want to watch the video.

Fabian Nicieza & Suburban Dicks

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The recent event at the virtual event celebrated release date for Fabian Nicieza’s debut novel Suburban Dicks. It’s a fascinating discussion of comic books and Nicieza’s life. Nicieza signed a number of copies for The Poisoned Pen, and you can order them through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3dunUQW

Here’s the summary of Suburban Dicks.

From the cocreator of Deadpool comes a hilariously entertaining debut featuring two unlikely and unforgettable amateur sleuths. An engrossing and entertaining murder mystery full of skewering social commentary, Suburban Dicks examines the racial tensions exposed in a New Jersey suburb after the murder of a gas station attendant.

Andie Stern thought she’d solved her final homicide. Once a budding FBI profiler, she gave up her career to raise her four (soon to be five) children in West Windsor, New Jersey. But one day, between soccer games, recitals, and trips to the local pool, a very pregnant Andie pulls into a gas station–and stumbles across a murder scene. An attendant has been killed, and the bumbling local cops are in way over their heads. Suddenly, Andie is obsessed with the case, and back on the trail of a killer, this time with kids in tow.

She soon crosses paths with disgraced local journalist Kenneth Lee, who also has everything to prove in solving the case. A string of unusual occurrences–and, eventually, body parts–surface around town, and Andie and Kenneth uncover simmering racial tensions and a decades-old conspiracy. Hilarious, insightful, and a killer whodunit, Suburban Dicks is the one-of-a-kind mystery that readers will not be able to stop talking about.

Fabian Nicieza is an Argentine-American 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. Suburban Dicks is his debut novel.

Enjoy the conversation between Fabian Nicieza and Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen.

The 2021 Locus Awards Winners

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Congratulations to the 2021 Locus Awards winners. The Locus Science Fiction Foundation announced the winners in each category of the 2021 Locus Awards on June 26, 2021. I’ve only selected the lists of books, winners and nominees, to share here. Check the Web Store for copies of the books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/. If you’re interested in magazines, publishers, etc., you can check Locus’ website, https://locusmag.com/2021/06/2021-locus-awards-winners/.

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

FANTASY NOVEL

HORROR NOVEL

YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

FIRST NOVEL

  • WINNER: Elatsoe, Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido)

ANTHOLOGY

COLLECTION

NON-FICTION

ILLUSTRATED AND ART BOOK

Upcoming Events @ The Poisoned Pen

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Have you seen the calendar of upcoming events at The Poisoned Pen? Most of them are virtual events. You can watch them on the Pen’s Facebook page live, and then many of them will be on YouTube at a later date. Check this schedule, and then the Web Store to order books from your favorite authors. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the schedule through July 7.

Elly Griffiths
Paul Doiron
Tapper / Baldacci
Steven Saylor
Hilary Davidson
Riley Sager/May Cobb
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
T.J. Newman
Charles Todd
Dan Fesperman/Francine Mathews

Donna Leon, In Depth

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Soon after the publication of Donna Leon’s Transient Desires, Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, discussed the book with the author. You can still buy a copy of the book and other Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3cxq4w8

In case you missed it then, here’s the link to watch the virtual event.

And, here’s the summary of Transient Desires, the latest in the series.


In the landmark thirtieth installment of the bestselling series theNew Yorker has called “an unusually potent cocktail of atmosphere and event,” Guido Brunetti is forced to confront an unimaginable crime

In his many years as a commissario, Guido Brunetti has seen all manner of crime and known intuitively how to navigate the various pathways in his native city, Venice, to discover the person responsible. Now, inTransient Desires, the thirtieth novel in Donna Leon’s masterful series, he faces a heinous crime committed outside his jurisdiction. He is drawn in innocently enough: two young American women have been badly injured in a boating accident, joy riding in the Laguna with two young Italians. However, Brunetti’s curiosity is aroused by the behavior of the young men, who abandoned the victims after taking them to the hospital. If the injuries were the result of an accident, why did they want to avoid association with it?

As Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, investigate the incident, they discover that one of the young men works for a man rumored to be involved in more sinister nighttime activities in the Laguna. To get to the bottom of what proves to be a gut-wrenching case, Brunetti needs to enlist the help of both the Carabinieri and the Guardia di Costiera. Determining how much trust he and Griffoni can put in these unfamiliar colleagues adds to the difficulty of solving a peculiarly horrible crime whose perpetrators are technologically brilliant and ruthlessly organized.

Donna Leon’sTransient Desires is as powerful as any novel she has written, testing Brunetti to his limits and forcing him to listen very carefully for the truth.

There’s a reason I’m recapping this event and the book. Neil Nyren just did an in-depth study of Donna Leon’s books for https://CrimeReads.com. The article is called, “Donna Leon: A Crime Reader’s Guide to the Classics”. Anyone who truly wants to know the author’s body of work should check out this article. You can find it here. https://bit.ly/35S3LA7 If you’re a fan, you’ll thank me for the link to this outstanding article. Enjoy!

Introducing Allison Montclair

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Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, introduced author Allison Montclair as actually Alan Gordon. As Montclair, he’s written the three post-World War II novels featuring Sparks and Bainbridge. He talks about the changeover after the war, and said few people write about the women in England after the war. The two women start a marriage bureau to help rebuild British society as they rebuild their own lives. You can find all three books, including the latest, A Rogue’s Company, in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/35Q1HZp

Here’s the summary of A Rogue’s Company.

*A PW Pick of the Week!*

In Allison Monclair’s A Rogue’s Company, business becomes personal for the Right Sort Marriage Bureau when a new client, a brutal murder, two kidnappings, and the recently returned from Africa Lord Bainbridge threatens everything that one of the principals holds dear.

In London, 1946, the Right Sort Marriage Bureau is getting on its feet and expanding. Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge are making a go of it. That is until Lord Bainbridge—the widowed Gwen’s father-in-law and legal guardian—returns from a business trip to Africa and threatens to undo everything important to her, even sending her six-year-old son away to a boarding school.

But there’s more going on than that. A new client shows up at the agency, one whom Sparks and Bainbridge begin to suspect really has a secret agenda, somehow involving the Bainbridge family. A murder and a subsequent kidnapping sends Sparks to seek help from a dangerous quarter—and now their very survival is at stake.


ALLISON MONTCLAIR grew up devouring hand-me-down Agatha Christie paperbacks and James Bond movies. As a result of this deplorable upbringing, Montclair became addicted to tales of crime, intrigue, and espionage. She now spends her spare time poking through the corners, nooks, and crannies of history, searching for the odd mysterious bits and transforming them into novels of her own. She is the author of the Sparks & Bainbridge historical mystery series, which begins with The Right Sort of Man.

If you enjoy writing, mysteries, and history, I think you’ll enjoy this conversation.