Fiction Review

I know Patrick Millikin means it when he says it’s an honor for him and The Poisoned Pen to host Walter Mosley. And, this time, it was on release day for Mosley’s latest Easy Rawlins book, Blood Grove. There are still signed copies of the latest book available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2NXhTQU

Here’s the summary of Blood Grove.

“Master of craft and narrative” Walter Mosley returns with this crowning achievement in the Easy Rawlins saga, in which the iconic detective’s loyalties are tested on the sun-soaked streets of Southern California (National Book Foundation) 

It is 1969, and flames can be seen on the horizon, protest wafts like smoke though the thick air, and Easy Rawlins, the Black private detective whose small agency finally has its own office, gets a visit from a white Vietnam veteran. The young man comes to Easy with a story that makes little sense. He and his lover, a beautiful young woman, were attacked in a citrus grove at the city’s outskirts. He may have killed a man, and the woman and his dog are now missing. Inclined to turn down what sounds like nothing but trouble, Easy takes the case when he realizes how damaged the young vet is from his war experiences—the bond between veterans superseding all other considerations.

The veteran is not Easy’s only unlooked-for trouble. Easy’s adopted daughter Feather’s white uncle shows up uninvited, raising questions and unsettling the life Easy has long forged for the now young woman. Where Feather sees a family reunion, Easy suspects something else, something that will break his heart.

Blood Grove is a crackling, moody, and thrilling race through a California of hippies and tycoons, radicals and sociopaths, cops and grifters, both men and women. Easy will need the help of his friends—from the genius Jackson Blue to the dangerous Mouse Alexander, Fearless Jones, and Christmas Black—to make sense of a case that reveals the darkest impulses humans harbor. 

Blood Grove is a novel of vast scope and intimate insight, and a soulful call for justice by any means necessary.

Here’s the best part. You can watch Walter Mosley talk about his book and his life in LA.

It’s tonight, but this piece is up early enough that you can still catch it. The Poisoned Pen hosts Jane Harper, author of The Survivors, Thursday, Feb. 4 at 6 PM (8 PM ET) on the store’s Facebook page. There are copies of all of her books, from The Dry to The Survivors, in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2HGHSdO

For a little background before the event, or before reading Harper’s books, check out Daneet Steffens piece for https://CrimeReads.com. It can be found here. https://bit.ly/3oMGmH2

Jane Harper. The Survivors (Flatiron Books, $27.99 Unsigned). Coming home dredges up deeply buried secrets in The Survivors, a thrilling mystery by New York Times bestselling author Jane Harper

Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.

The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.

Kieran’s parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.

When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away…

Jane Harper is the author of international bestsellers The Dry, Force of Nature and The Lost Man. Her books are published in 40 territories worldwide.

Jane has won numerous top awards including the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel, the British Book Awards Crime and Thriller Book of the Year, the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year and the Australian Indie Awards Book of the Year.

The major motion picture adaptation of The Dry, starring Eric Bana as Aaron Falk, is set for release in Australian cinemas on New Year’s Day.

Are you ready for the fifth Liam Campbell novel, Spoils of the Dead? Dana Stabenow will be discussing her latest Hot Book of the Week on The Poisoned Pen’s Facebook page Saturday, Feb. 6 at 2 PM (4 PM ET). Signed copies will have to be ordered through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2F9m0Bq

Here’s the story of Spoils of the Dead.

Dana Stabenow. Spoils of the Dead (Head of Zeus, $29.99 Signed). Newenham is an ice-bound bush town with a six-bed jail, a busted ATM and a saloon that does double-duty as a courtroom. It’s a wide-enough patch to warrant a state police presence, though, and Trooper Liam Campbell is it.

Campbell has been exiled from Anchorage to Newenham in disgrace, busted down from sergeant to trooper in the aftermath of a mistake that cost a family of five their lives, to spend some time in the wilderness.

Campbell didn’t expect the job to be simple and it hasn’t. From the (literally) cutthroat business of commercial fishing, to the paranoid misanthropy of the back-country prospector, to drug dealers, serial killers, and caches of forgotten war gold, he has had his hands full. Now he has a dead archaeologist, murdered at their own dig site, who claimed to be on the verge of a momentous discovery.

Dana Stabenow was born in Anchorage and raised on a 75-foot fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska. She knew there was a warmer, drier job out there somewhere and found it in writing.

Her first science fiction novel, Second Star, sank without a trace (but has since been resurrected as an e-book), her first crime fiction novel, A Cold Day for Murder, won an Edgar award, her first thriller, Blindfold Game, hit the New York Times bestseller list. The Land Beyond, the final third of her historical trilogy about Marco Polo’s granddaughter, Silk and Song, was published in October 2015. She is the author of the popular Kate Shugak mystery series, the most recent of which, No Fixed Line, was released in January, 2020.

Alyssa Maxwell’s recent piece for https://CrimeReads.com attracted my attention. Whether you’re interested in tea, collectible porcelain, or Maxwell’s A Lady and Lady’s Maid Mysteries, you might want to read “The Delicate Art of the English Tea Set: A Historical Mystery Writer’s Appreciation”. You can find it here. https://bit.ly/3j9N2OA

You can find Maxwell’s books, including the latest in her A Lady and Lady’s Maid Mystery series, A Sinister Service, in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2Y0vOcV

In the Alyssa Maxwell’s sixth delightful A Lady and Lady’s Maid Mystery set after World War I, a trip to Staffordshire for Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady’s maid, Eva Huntford, leads to murder in a famed pottery works…

Following the devastation of the Great War, England’s noble class takes comfort in honoring tradition. To celebrate their grandparents’ wedding anniversary, Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her siblings travel to Staffordshire to commission a china service bearing the Wroxly coat of arms from the venerated Crown Lily Potteries, a favorite of Queen Mary.

The two leading designers at the illustrious china manufacturer offer competing patterns. But when one of them is found dead–his body crushed in a grinding pan and his design pattern book missing–his rival is immediately suspected. The police are also suspicious of the dead designer’s resentful young son, a schoolmate of Phoebe’s fifteen-year-old brother Fox. When Fox gets involved to help his friend, Phoebe begins to investigate the rival artist.

At the same time, Eva is enlisted to go undercover at the works so she can gain the confidence of the female employees, who are only allowed to paint, not design, which may have led to a grudge against the victim. Pursuing a killer who has no compunction about using a kiln as a coffin, Phoebe and Eva take their lives into their hands to discover the shattering truth…

Alyssa Maxwell knew from an early age that she wanted to be a novelist. Growing up in New England and traveling to Great Britain fueled a passion for history, while a love of puzzles of all kinds drew her to the mystery genre. She and her husband reside in Florida, where she loves to watch BBC productions, sip tea in the afternoons, and delve into the past. You can learn more about Alyssa and her books at www.alyssamaxwell.com.

It’s not too early to talk about Abigail Dean’s hot debut novel, Girl A. Caz Frear will host Dean on Tuesday, February 9 at 1 PM (3 PM ET) on The Poisoned Pen’s Facebook page, but you’ll be able to catch it later if that doesn’t work for you. Girl A can be ordered through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/36vJFfz

If you’re interested in the backstory, and Dean’s own story, check out Alison Flood’s interview with the author in The Guardian. https://bit.ly/3j5CCzl

Here’s Girl A.

Abigail Dean. Girl A (Viking, $27.00 Unsigned). For readers of Room and Sharp Objects, a propulsive and psychologically immersive novel about a young girl who escapes captivity”“but not the secrets that shadow the rest of her life.

“”˜Girl A,’ she said. “˜The girl who escaped. If anyone was going to make it, it was going to be you.'”

Lex Gracie doesn’t want to think about her family. She doesn’t want to think about growing up in her parents’ House of Horrors. And she doesn’t want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It’s been easy enough to avoid her parents”“her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can’t run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the House of Horrors into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her siblings”“and with the childhood they shared.

What begins as a propulsive tale of escape and survival becomes a gripping psychological family story about the shifting alliances and betrayals of sibling relationships”“about the secrets our siblings keep, from themselves and each other. Who have each of these siblings become? How do their memories defy or galvanize Lex’s own? As Lex pins each sibling down to agree to her family’s final act, she discovers how potent the spell of their shared family mythology is, and who among them remains in its thrall and who has truly broken free.

Abigail Dean works as a lawyer for Google, and before that was a bookseller. She lives in London, and is working on her second novel.

The new Easy Rawlins novel, Blood Grove, is released on Tuesday, and The Poisoned Pen is celebrating by hosting Walter Mosley for a virtual event. The program will be live on Facebook at 7 PM (9 PM ET), on February 2. While you wait, you can order a signed copy of the book at the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2NXhTQU

Walter Mosley. Blood Grove (Mulholland Books, $27.00 Signed). “Master of craft and narrative” Walter Mosley returns with this crowning achievement in the Easy Rawlins saga, in which the iconic detective’s loyalties are tested on the sun-soaked streets of Southern California (National Book Foundation) 

It is 1969, and flames can be seen on the horizon, protest wafts like smoke though the thick air, and Easy Rawlins, the Black private detective whose small agency finally has its own office, gets a visit from a white Vietnam veteran. The young man comes to Easy with a story that makes little sense. He and his lover, a beautiful young woman, were attacked in a citrus grove at the city’s outskirts. He may have killed a man, and the woman and his dog are now missing. Inclined to turn down what sounds like nothing but trouble, Easy takes the case when he realizes how damaged the young vet is from his war experiences—the bond between veterans superseding all other considerations.

The veteran is not Easy’s only unlooked-for trouble. Easy’s adopted daughter Feather’s white uncle shows up uninvited, raising questions and unsettling the life Easy has long forged for the now young woman. Where Feather sees a family reunion, Easy suspects something else, something that will break his heart.

Blood Grove is a crackling, moody, and thrilling race through a California of hippies and tycoons, radicals and sociopaths, cops and grifters, both men and women. Easy will need the help of his friends—from the genius Jackson Blue to the dangerous Mouse Alexander, Fearless Jones, and Christmas Black—to make sense of a case that reveals the darkest impulses humans harbor.

Blood Grove is a novel of vast scope and intimate insight, and a soulful call for justice by any means necessary.

Walter Mosley is one of the most versatile and admired writers in America. He is the author of more than sixty critically acclaimed books that cover a wide range of ideas, genres, and forms including fiction (literary, mystery, and science fiction), political monographs, writing guides including Elements of Fiction, a memoir in paintings, and a young adult novel called 47. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages,

From a forthcoming collection of short stories, The Awkward Black Man, to his daring novel John Woman, which explored deconstructionist history, and his standalone crime novel Down the River and Unto the Sea, which won an Edgar Award for Best Novel, the rich storylines that Mosley has created deepen the understanding and appreciation of Black life in the United States. He has introduced an indelible cast of characters into the American canon starting with his first novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, which brought Easy Rawlins, his private detective in postwar Los Angeles and his friends Jackson Blue and Raymond “Mouse” Alexander into reader’s lives. Mosley has explored both large issues and intimate realities through the lens of characters like the Black philosopher Socrates Fortlow; the elder suffering from Alzheimer’s, Ptolemy Grey; the bluesman R L; the boxer and New York private investigator Leonid McGill; Debbie Dare, the porn star of Debbie Doesn’t Do It Anymore; and Tempest Landry and his struggling angel, among many others.

Mosley has also written and staged several plays including The Fall of Heaven, based on his Tempest Landry stories and directed by the acclaimed director Marion McClinton. Several of his books have been adapted for film and television including Devil in a Blue Dress (starring Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle and Jennifer Beals) and the HBO production of Always Outnumbered (starring Laurence Fishburne and Natalie Cole). His short fiction has been widely published, and his nonfiction—long-form essays and op-eds—have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Nation among other publications. He is also a writer and an executive producer on the John Singleton FX drama series, “Snowfall.”

Concerned by the lack of diversity in all levels of publishing, Mosley established The Publishing Certificate Program with the City University of New York to bring together book professionals and students hailing from a wide range of racial, ethnic and economic communities for courses, internships, and job opportunities. In 2013, Mosley was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame, and he is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, The Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, a Grammy®, several NAACP Image awards, and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2020, he was named the recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement from Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Mosley now lives in Brooklyn and Los Angeles.

Join The Poisoned Pen on Facebook on Saturday, Jan. 30 at 4 PM (6 PM ET) for the virtual book launch of Donis Casey’s latest book, Valentino Will Die. Signed copies of Valentino Will Die, the second Bianca Dangereuse Hollywood Mystery, are available through the Web Store, along with copies of The Wrong Girl, the first in the series. Casey’s Alafair Tucker mysteries are also available. https://bit.ly/2F9BIwo

Here’s the summary of Valentino Will Die.

Donis Casey. Valentino Will Die (The Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, $15.99 Signed). WHO IS TRYING TO KILL THE WORLD’S GREATEST LOVER?

Though Bianca LaBelle, star of the wildly popular silent movie serial “The Adventures of Bianca Dangereuse”, and Rudolph Valentino, the greatest screen idol of all time, have been friends for years, in the summer of 1926 they are making their first picture together, a steamy romance called Grand Obsession. One evening after dinner at Bianca’s fabulous Beverly Hills estate, a troubled Rudy confesses that he has received anonymous death threats. In a matter of days, filming comes to an abrupt halt when Rudy falls deathly ill. Could it be poison?

As Rudy lies dying, Bianca promises him that she will find out who is responsible. Was it one of his many lovers? A delusional fan? Or perhaps Rudy had run afoul of a mobster whose name Bianca knows all too well? She calls on P.I. Ted Oliver to help her investigate the end of what had seemed to be the charmed life of Valentino.

DONIS CASEY was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A third generation Oklahoman, she and her siblings grew up among their aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents and great-grandparents on farms and in small towns, where they learned the love of family and independent spirit that characterizes the population of that pioneering state. Donis graduated from the University of Tulsa with a degree in English, and earned a Master’s degree in Library Science from Oklahoma University. After teaching school for a short time, she enjoyed a career as an academic librarian, working for many years at the University of Oklahoma and at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.

Donis left academia in 1988 to start a Scottish import gift shop in downtown Tempe. After more than a decade as an entrepreneur, she decided to devote herself full-time to writing. The Old Buzzard Had It Coming is her first book. For the past twenty years, Donis has lived in Tempe, AZ, with her husband.

Kate Mosse, author of The Burning Chambers, continues her historical fiction series that covers 300 years, with the second book, The City of Tears. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, introduced Mosse to the audience for her virtual event, along with Brad Meltzer, who then hosted the rest of the event. Both books are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3aaDyye

Because the series begins with The Burning Chambers, let’s start with the summary of that book.

“For fans of juicy historical fiction, this one might just develop into their next obsession.”—EW.com

From Kate Mosse, the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of Labyrinth, comes The Burning Chambers, the first in an epic new series.

Power and Prejudice: France, 1562. War sparks between the Catholics and Huguenots, dividing neighbors, friends, and family—meanwhile, nineteen-year-old Minou Joubert receives an anonymous letter at her father’s bookshop. Sealed with a distinctive family crest, it contains just five words: She knows that you live.

Love and Betrayal: Before Minou can decipher the mysterious message, she meets a young Huguenot convert, Piet Reydon. Piet has a dangerous task of his own, and he will need Minou’s help if he is to stay alive. Soon, they find themselves on opposing sides, as forces beyond their control threaten to tear them apart.

Honor and Treachery: As the religious divide deepens, Minou and Piet find themselves trapped in Toulouse, facing new dangers as tensions ignite across the city—and a feud that will burn across generations begins to blaze. . .

“A masterly tour of history . . . a breathless thriller, alive with treachery, danger, atmosphere, and beauty.”—A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

Here is The City of Tears, the current book in a proposed quartet of books.

Following #1 Sunday Times bestseller The Burning Chambers, New York Times bestseller Kate Mosse returns with The City of Tears, a sweeping historical epic about love in a time of war.

Alliances and Romance

August 1572: Minou Joubert and her husband Piet travel to Paris to attend a royal wedding which, after a decade of religious wars, is intended to finally bring peace between the Catholics and the Huguenots.

Loyalty and Deception

Also in Paris is their oldest enemy, Vidal, in pursuit of an ancient relic that will change the course of history.

Revenge and Persecution

Within days of the marriage, thousands will lie dead in the street, and Minou’s family will be scattered to the four winds . . .

If you’re a fan of history or historical fiction, you’ll enjoy the conversation about history and Kate Mosse’s books, the conversation between Kate Mosse and Brad Meltzer.

While Kwei Quartey’s latest Emma Djan Investigation, Sleep Well My Lady, is the Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen, Quartey himself is hot right now. On Monday, the first book in the series, The Missing American, was named a finalist for the 2021 Edgar Award for Best Novel. You can order signed copies of both books through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3pfRc9H

Here’s Sleep Well My Lady.

In the follow-up to the acclaimed series debut The Missing American, PI Emma Djan investigates the death of a Ghanaian fashion icon and social media celebrity, Lady Araba.

Hard-hitting talk show host Augustus Seeza has become a household name in Ghana, though notorious for his lavish overspending, alcoholism, and womanizing. He’s dating the imposing, beautiful Lady Araba, who leads a selfmade fashion empire. Fearing Augustus is only after her money, Araba’s religious family intervenes to break them up. A few days later, just before a major runway show, Araba is found murdered in her bed. Her driver is arrested after a hasty investigation, but Araba’s favorite aunt, Dele, suspects Augustus Seeza was the real killer.

Almost a year later, Dele approaches Emma Djan, who has finally started to settle in as the only female PI at her agency. To solve Lady Araba’s murder, Emma must not only go on an undercover mission that dredges up trauma from her past, but navigate a long list of suspects with strong motives. Emma quickly discovers that they are all willing to lie for each other—and that one may still be willing to kill.

Here’s the Edgar nominee, The Missing American.

Finalist for the 2021 Edgar Award for Best Novel

Accra private investigator Emma Djan’s first missing persons case will lead her to the darkest depths of the email scams and fetish priests in Ghana, the world’s Internet capital.

When her dreams of rising through the Accra police ranks like her late father crash around her, 26-year-old Emma Djan is unsure what will become of her career. Through a sympathetic former colleague, Emma gets an interview with a private detective agency that takes on cases of missing persons, theft, and infidelity. It’s not the future she imagined, but it’s her best option.

Meanwhile, Gordon Tilson, a middle-aged widower in Washington, DC, has found solace in an online community after his wife’s passing. Through the support group, he’s even met a young Ghanaian widow he’s come to care about. When her sister gets into a car accident, he sends her thousands of dollars to cover the hospital bill—to the horror of his only son, Derek. Then Gordon decides to surprise his new love by paying her a visit—and disappears. Fearing for his father’s life, Derek follows him across the world to Ghana, Internet capital of the world, where he and Emma will find themselves deep in a world of sakawa scams, fetish priests, and those willing to kill to protect their secrets.

Curious about the author?

Based in Pasadena, California, Kwei Jones Quartey, M.D. is a writer of African crime fiction. He practiced medicine for more than 20 years while simultaneously working as a writer, balancing the two careers by writing early mornings before clinic. However, in 2018, he made the decision to retire from medicine to write full time.

The son of a Black American mother and Ghanaian father, Dr. Quartey is a Ghanaian-American writer who grew up in both Ghana and the United States. His passion is to promote African American writers, African literature, African bestseller fiction, and African mystery writers.

Dr. Quartey feels that African mysteries (sometimes called “Sunshine Noir”) deserve a seat at the table of international thrillers and mysteries. His novels are the only contemporary West African mystery series issued by major international publishers such as Penguin-Random House and Soho Press in the United States, and Allison & Busby in the United Kingdom.