Fiction Review

Yesterday, Charles Todd announced his mother’s death. Caroline Todd was the other part of the team that wrote the Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford books under the name Charles Todd. Here was Charles Todd’s Facebook announcement.

“It is with a heavy heart that I along with my sister Linda and Caroline’s sister Martha must tell you we lost Caroline this morning 8-27-21 at 10 am. She passed peacefully and was with Linda at the end. Caroline left the world a better place and was immensely happy to have met and gotten to know so many readers, authors and booksellers. She was to the very end a class act. More information will follow. I am delighted we have completed A Game of Fear featuring Ian Rutledge and the next in the Bess Crawford. Caroline will always be alive in the hearts of all she touched. Everyone’s notes have been greatly appreciated. Charles”

Caroline and Charles Todd were friends of The Poisoned Pen. There are several videos you can find on YouTube that feature the authors at the bookstore. Here are links to their most recent events with their books.

A year ago, Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore had a conversation with Caroline Todd.

I only met Caroline Todd once at a tea for librarians at Bouchercon in Raleigh. She was so kind, and interested in everyone. She asked questions of everyone at the table. She was a mentor to Deborah Crombie, who appeared at that tea with the Todds. Caroline Todd’s death is a great loss to her family. It’s also a loss to the mystery community. May she rest in peace.

Richard Chizmar’s new horror novel, Chasing the Boogeyman, is a current New York Times bestseller. Michael Koryta was guest host when The Poisoned Pen welcomed Chizmar for a virtual event. You can find copies of Chasing the Boogeyman in the Web Store, and they will come with a signed book plate. https://bit.ly/3kv81w9

Here’s the summary of Chasing the Boogeyman.

The New York Times bestselling coauthor of Gwendy’s Button Box brings his signature “thrilling, page-turning” (Michael Koryta, author of How It Happened) prose to this story of small-town evil that combines the storytelling of Stephen King with the true-crime suspense of Michelle McNamara.

In the summer of 1988, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls begin to turn up in a small Maryland town. The grisly evidence leads police to the terrifying assumption that a serial killer is on the loose in the quiet suburb. But soon a rumor begins to spread that the evil stalking local teens is not entirely human. Law enforcement, as well as members of the FBI are certain that the killer is a living, breathing madman—and he’s playing games with them. For a once peaceful community trapped in the depths of paranoia and suspicion, it feels like a nightmare that will never end.

Recent college graduate Richard Chizmar returns to his hometown just as a curfew is enacted and a neighborhood watch is formed. In the midst of preparing for his wedding and embarking on a writing career, he soon finds himself thrust into the real-life horror story. Inspired by the terrifying events, Richard writes a personal account of the serial killer’s reign of terror, unaware that these events will continue to haunt him for years to come.

A clever, terrifying, and heartrending work of metafiction, Chasing the Boogeyman is the ultimate marriage between horror fiction and true crime. Chizmar’s “brilliant…absolutely fascinating, totally compelling, and immediately poignant” (C.J. Tudor, New York Times bestselling author) writing is on full display in this truly unique novel that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.

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Richard Chizmar is the coauthor (with Stephen King) of the New York Times bestselling novella, Gwendy’s Button Box. Recent books include The Girl on the Porch; The Long Way Home, his fourth short story collection; and Widow’s Point, a chilling tale about a haunted lighthouse written with his son, Billy Chizmar, which was recently made into a feature film. His short fiction has appeared in dozens of publications, including Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. He has won two World Fantasy awards, four International Horror Guild awards, and the HWA’s Board of Trustee’s award. Chizmar’s work has been translated into more than fifteen languages throughout the world, and he has appeared at numerous conferences as a writing instructor, guest speaker, panelist, and guest of honor. Follow him on Twitter @RichardChizmar or visit his website at: RichardChizmar.com.

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If you like horror stories or true crime, you’ll want to check out this virtual event.

You may have read rave reviews of Ash Davidson’s debut novel, Damnation Spring. Davidson is an Arizona author, so she appeared in person to film the recent virtual event, hosted by Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen. And, for those of you who were frustrated by the virtual event with T.J. Newman, debut author of Falling, Newman appears for a short time as well. You can find signed copies of Damnation Spring in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2UPcYqO

Here’s the description of Damnation Spring.

An epic, immersive debut, Damnation Spring is the deeply human story of a Pacific Northwest logging town wrenched in two by a mystery that threatens to derail its way of life.

For generations, Rich Gundersen’s family has chopped a livelihood out of the redwood forest along California’s rugged coast. Now Rich and his wife, Colleen, are raising their own young son near Damnation Grove, a swath of ancient redwoods on which Rich’s employer, Sanderson Timber Co., plans to make a killing. In 1977, with most of the forest cleared or protected, a grove like Damnation—and beyond it 24-7 Ridge—is a logger’s dream.

It’s dangerous work. Rich has already lived decades longer than his father, killed on the job. Rich wants better for his son, Chub, so when the opportunity arises to buy 24-7 Ridge—costing them all the savings they’ve squirreled away for their growing family—he grabs it, unbeknownst to Colleen. Because the reality is their family isn’t growing; Colleen has lost several pregnancies. And she isn’t alone. As a midwife, Colleen has seen it with her own eyes.

For decades, the herbicides the logging company uses were considered harmless. But Colleen is no longer so sure. What if these miscarriages aren’t isolated strokes of bad luck? As mudslides take out clear-cut hillsides and salmon vanish from creeks, her search for answers threatens to unravel not just Rich’s plans for the 24-7, but their marriage too, dividing a town that lives and dies on timber along the way.

Told from the perspectives of Rich, Colleen, and Chub, in prose as clear as a spring-fed creek, this intimate, compassionate portrait of a community clinging to a vanishing way of life amid the perils of environmental degradation makes Damnation Spring an essential novel for our time.

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Ash Davidson was born in Arcata, California, and attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work has been supported by the Arizona Commission on the Arts and MacDowell. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.

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Enjoy the virtual event with Ash Davidson, and later T.J. Newman, two debut authors from Arizona.

William Kent Krueger’s new book, Lightning Strike, is the current Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. And, Krueger himself is hot right now. He was the recent subject of a “By the Book” interview in The New York Times. There are signed copies of Lightning Strike available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2ksjS2X

Here’s the summary of Lightning Strike, a prequel to the Cork O’Connor series.

The author of the instant New York Times bestseller This Tender Land returns with a powerful prequel to his acclaimed Cork O’Connor series—a book about fathers and sons, long-simmering conflicts in a small Minnesota town, and the events that echo through youth and shape our lives forever.

Aurora is a small town nestled in the ancient forest alongside the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. In the summer of 1963, it is the whole world to twelve-year-old Cork O’Connor, its rhythms as familiar as his own heartbeat. But when Cork stumbles upon the body of a man he revered hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp, it is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything he took for granted about his hometown, his family, and himself.

Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is Aurora’s sheriff and it is his job to confirm that the man’s death was the result of suicide, as all the evidence suggests. In the shadow of his father’s official investigation, Cork begins to look for answers on his own. Together, father and son face the ultimate test of choosing between what their heads tell them is true and what their hearts know is right.

In this masterful story of a young man and a town on the cusp of change, beloved novelist William Kent Krueger shows that some mysteries can be solved even as others surpass our understanding.

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William Kent Krueger is the New York Times bestselling author of This Tender Land, Ordinary Grace (winner of the Edgar Award for best novel), as well as eighteen acclaimed books in the Cork O’Connor mystery series, including Desolation Mountain and Sulfur Springs. He lives in the Twin Cities with his family. Learn more at WilliamKentKrueger.com.

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There was no live audience, but Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, was able to talk with William Kent Krueger in person. This event feels so much different than the virtual events since the two were together. Enjoy!

While Patrick Millikin from The Poisoned Pen had some questions for James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane was the host for the recent event celebrating Burke’s new Holland family novel, Another Kind of Eden. You can still snatch up a signed copy of Another Kind of Eden. https://bit.ly/2SJ8gVl

Here’s the summary of Another Kind of Eden.

New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke brings readers a captivating tale of justice, love, brutality, and mysticism set in the turbulent 1960s.

The American West in the early 1960s appears to be a pastoral paradise: golden wheat fields, mist-filled canyons, frolicking animals. Aspiring novelist Aaron Holland Broussard has observed it from the open door of a boxcar, riding the rails for both inspiration and odd jobs.

Jumping off in Denver, he finds work on a farm and meets Joanne McDuffy, an articulate and fierce college student and gifted painter. Their soul connection is immediate, but their romance is complicated by Joanne’s involvement with a shady professor who is mixed up with a drug-addled cult. When a sinister businessman and his son who wield their influence through vicious cruelty set their sights on Aaron, drawing him into an investigation of grotesque murders, it is clear that this idyllic landscape harbors tremendous power—and evil. Followed by a mysterious shrouded figure who might not be human, Aaron will have to face down all these foes to save the life of the woman he loves and his own.

The latest installment in James Lee Burke’s masterful Holland family saga, Another Kind of Eden is both riveting and one of Burke’s most ambitious works to date. It dismantles the myths of both the twentieth-century American West and the peace-and-love decade, excavating the beauty and idealism of the era to show the menace and chaos that lay simmering just beneath the surface.

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James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time winner of the Edgar Award, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction. He’s authored thirty-nine novels and two short story collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana.

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It’s not often that there are two legends in the same virtual event. Enjoy the video featuring James Lee Burke and Dennis Lehane.

Bloodless marks the 20th Agent Pendergast novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen welcomed the authors for a virtual event to celebrate the new book. The books went quickly, but you can order a copy through the Web Store, and it will be sent when they’re back in stock. https://bit.ly/2us95e9

Here’s the summary of Bloodless.

Agent Pendergast faces his most unexpected challenge yet when bloodless bodies begin to appear in Savannah, GA, in this next installment of the #1 NYT bestselling series.A legendary heist:
On the evening of November 24, 1971, D. B. Cooper hijacked Flight 305 — Portland to Seattle — with a fake bomb, collected a ransom of $200,000, and parachuted into the night, never to be seen again… Perhaps.

A brutal crime steeped in malevolence:

Fifty years later, Agent Pendergast takes on a bizarre and gruesome case: in the ghost-haunted city of Savannah, Georgia, bodies are found completely drained of blood–sowing panic and reviving the infamous legend of the Savannah Vampire.

A case like no other in Pendergast’s career:

Through twists and turns, Pendergast and his partner, Agent Coldmoon, race to understand how these murders are connected to the most mystifying hijacking in American history. Together, they discover not just the killer-but an unearthly evil beyond all reckoning.

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The thrillers of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child “stand head and shoulders above their rivals” (Publishers Weekly). Preston and Child’s Relic and The Cabinet of Curiosities were chosen by readers in a National Public Radio poll as being among the one hundred greatest thrillers ever written, and Relic was made into a number-one box office hit movie. They are coauthors of the famed Pendergast series and their recent novels include Crooked River, Verses for the Dead, City of Endless Night, and The Obsidian Chamber. In addition to his novels, Douglas Preston writes about archaeology for The New Yorker and National Geographic magazines. Lincoln Child is a Florida resident and former book editor who has published seven novels of his own, including bestsellers such as Full Wolf Moon and Deep Storm.

Readers can sign up for The Pendergast File, a monthly “strangely entertaining” newsletter from the authors, at their website, PrestonChild.com. The authors welcome visitors to their Facebook page, where they post regularly.

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Enjoy the conversation between the authors and Barbara Peters.

John Charles from The Poisoned Pen recently interviewed Liz Johnson, a local author. Her latest book is Beyond the Tides, the first Prince Edward Island Shores novel. You can order a copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3j9YfQO

Here’s the summary of Beyond the Tides.

Oliver isn’t proud of what he did back then. Angry and broken by his father walking out on his family, he lashed out at Meg–an innocent bystander. But owning a respected fishing fleet on Prince Edward Island is the opportunity of a lifetime, and he’s not about to walk away just because Meg wants him to.

Meg’s father has the perfect solution: Oliver and Meg must work the business together, and at the end of the season, he’ll decide who gets it. Along the way, they may discover that their stories are more similar than they thought . . . and their dreams aren’t what they expected.

Bestselling author Liz Johnson invites you back to Prince Edward Island for a brand-new series about family, forgiveness, and the kind of love that heals all wounds

You can watch the conversation about Liz Johnson’s career and book here.

Let’s preview a few upcoming virtual events. I’m sure there are several you won’t want to miss. Mark them on your calendars, and then check the Web Store for the authors’ books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/ You’ll be able to join the event on The Poisoned Pen’s Facebook page.

Check out these events.

I know how much Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, likes to introduce a debut author. Ashley Winstead’s debut novel is In My Dreams I Hold a Knife. Multi-award winning author and journalist Hank Phillippi Ryan hosted the recent virtual event on behalf of the bookstore. You can order signed copies of the debut through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3D6Z6t9

Here’s the summary of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife.

“[A] mordant debut novel….examines what it means to covet the lives of others, no matter the cost.”—The New York Times

“Tense, twisty, and packed with shocks.”—Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of Survive The Night

Six friends.
One college reunion.
One unsolved murder.

Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has planned her triumphant return to her southern, elite Duquette University, down to the envious whispers that are sure to follow in her wake. Everyone is going to see the girl she wants them to see—confident, beautiful, indifferent. Not the girl she was when she left campus, back when Heather Shelby’s murder fractured everything, including the tight bond linking the six friends she’d been closest to since freshman year.

But not everyone is ready to move on. Not everyone left Duquette ten years ago, and not everyone can let Heather’s murder go unsolved. Someone is determined to trap the real killer, to make the guilty pay. When the six friends are reunited, they will be forced to confront what happened that night—and the years’ worth of secrets each of them would do anything to keep hidden.

Told in racing dual timelines, with a dark campus setting and a darker look at friendship, love, obsession, and ambition, In My Dreams I Hold A Knife is an addictive, propulsive read you won’t be able to put down.

“Beautiful writing, juicy secrets, complex female characters, and drumbeat suspense—what more could you want from a debut thriller?”—Andrea Bartz, author of Reese’s Book Club pick We Were Never Here

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Ashley Winstead directs communications for a national philanthropy. She holds a Ph.D. in contemporary American literature and a B.A. in English and Art History. She lives in Houston, TX

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Enjoy this introduction to a debut author and novel.

Paper & Blood is the second book in Kevin Hearne’s Ink & Sigil series. The Poisoned Pen was once his local bookstore. The store still hosts him for virtual events. You can find copies of Paper & Blood in the Web Store. They come with signed book plates. https://bit.ly/2Glm6Lt

Here’s the summary of Paper & Blood.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Iron Druid Chronicles comes book two of an “action-packed, enchantingly fun” (Booklist) spin-off series, as an eccentric master of rare magic solves a supernatural mystery Down Under!

There’s only one Al MacBharrais: Though other Scotsmen may have dramatic mustaches and a taste for fancy cocktails, Al also has a unique talent. He’s a master of ink and sigil magic. In his gifted hands, paper and pen can work wondrous spells. 

But Al isn’t quite alone: He is part of a global network of sigil agents who use their powers to protect the world from mischievous gods and strange monsters. So when a fellow agent disappears under sinister circumstances in Australia, Al leaves behind the cozy pubs and cafes of Glasgow and travels to the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria to solve the mystery.

The trail to his colleague begins to pile up with bodies at alarming speed, so Al is grateful his friends have come to help—especially Nadia, his accountant who moonlights as a pit fighter. Together with a whisky-loving hobgoblin known as Buck Foi and the ancient Druid Atticus O’Sullivan, along with his dogs, Oberon and Starbuck, Al and Nadia will face down the wildest wonders Australia—and the supernatural world—can throw at them, and confront a legendary monster not seen in centuries.

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Kevin Hearne hugs trees, pets doggies, and rocks out to heavy metal. He also thinks tacos are a pretty nifty idea. He is the author of The Seven Kennings series and the New York Times bestselling series The Iron Druid Chronicles, and co-author of The Tales of Pell with Delilah S. Dawson.

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Enjoy the virtual event with Kevin Hearne, hosted by Patrick King from The Poisoned Pen.