Fiction Review

Tom Straw has an interesting background as a writer for television, and he wrote the Castle novels. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, asked Straw to talk about that before he talked about his new book, The Accidental Joe. You can order his book through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3wMuGyh

Here’s the description of The Accidental Joe.

A maverick celebrity chef reluctantly agrees to let the CIA use his hugely popular international food, culture, and travel TV series as cover for a dangerous espionage mission.

When the CIA approaches celebrity chef Sebastian Pike about using his award-winning food and culture travel show as cover for espionage, the outspoken bad-boy host says no. When they point out how roaming the globe interviewing foodies, heads of state, rock stars, journalists-in-exile, poets, subversives, supermodels—even the pope—gives him perfect cover, Pike smiles and says, “F@#! no.”

They push. Promising it’s only one mission. Vowing he won’t be in danger. Calling him the MVB: Most Valuable Bystander. They’d embed their top agent in his crew to do the spy work.

It’s still no. But when they hit him with the patriotism card, he weakens. And when romantic sparks crackle between him and the female agent, Pike’s all in, kicking off a romantic spy thriller in which the globetrotting celebrity chef uses his TV series to help sneak Putin’s accountant out of Russia before he’s exposed as a mole for US intelligence.

The high-stakes mission quickly puts Pike in harm’s way. So much for MVB. There’s danger, there’s double dealing, there’s torture, there’s shooting with real bullets. Plus, a minefield of complications from the hot romance that grows between Pike and his gutsy CIA handler-producer, Cammie Nova.

From Paris to Provence, this chef is no bystander. Beyond their attraction, Pike and Nova become an operational team, not only to survive the perils they face but to pull off an operation fraught with one twist after another, capped by a shocking, emotional climax.

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Tom Straw is an Emmy and Writers Guild of America–nominated writer-producer, New York Times bestselling author, and former Mystery Writers of America board member.

Writing as Richard Castle, Tom originated the hit Nikki Heat series, writing its first seven novels, all New York Times bestsellers, including Heat Rises, which reached number one. Later, he published Buzz Killer under his own name, because Stephen King was already taken.

Tom dropped out of UCLA to become a DJ, and soon after, a TV weathercaster. Subsequently, he began a television writing career on comedies including Night Court, for which he earned two WGA “Best Comedy Writer” nominations and a Primetime Emmy nomination. Tom served as head writer and executive producer of Dave’s World, Grace Under Fire, Whoopi, and Nurse Jackie. He also wrote for CBS’s Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Seems like Tom Straw can’t keep a job.

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Enjoy the conversation with Tom Straw.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson to the bookstore for the first time in person. The two authors are taking over the “Clancyverse” with Jack Ryan, after Marc Cameron moved on to write his own books. And, of course, it’s the fortieth anniversary of Hunt for Red October. Their first book in the Jack Ryan series is Tom Clancy Act of Defiance. There are signed copies available through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4bv0Ptn

Here’s the description of Tom Clancy Act of Defiance.

A rogue nuclear Russian submarine is steaming toward the East Coast of the United States. For President Jack Ryan, memories of past events may seem stunningly vivid, but the dangers are terrifyingly real in the latest entry in this #1 New York Times bestselling series.

US intelligence is reporting turmoil in the Russian navy. Their deadliest submarine, the Belgorod, has unexpectedly launched, and taken along with it a long list of questions. Who authorized the departure? What mission is it on? And, most disturbing of all, what weapons do the giant doors on the sub’s bow hide?

It’s been four decades since a similar incident with the Soviet sub, Red October, ended happily, thanks to a young CIA analyst named Jack Ryan.

Now, President Jack Ryan finds himself with fleets of ships, squadrons of jets, and teams of SEALs at his command, but what he doesn’t have is insight into the plans of the Belgorod’s commander. It falls to a younger generation of Ryans to do the dangerous work that will reveal that information.

But there’s always a price to be paid. When the final moments tick away, will Jack Ryan have to choose between the safety of his country and the safety of his child?

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Thirty-five years ago, Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore’s Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October, sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it “the perfect yarn.” From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense. He passed away in October 2013.

Brian Andrews is a U.S. Navy veteran, Park Leadership Fellow, and former submarine officer with a psychology degree from Vanderbilt and a masters in business from Cornell University.

Jeffrey Wilson has worked as an actor, firefighter, paramedic, jet pilot, and diving instructor, as well as a vascular and trauma surgeon. He served in the U.S. Navy for fourteen years and made multiple deployments as a combat surgeon with an East Coast-based SEAL Team. He and his wife, Wendy, live in Southwest Florida with their four children.

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Enjoy the conversation about the book, and how Andrews and Wilson write together.

Patrick Millikin is right in his wheelhouse hosting Daniel Weizmann for The Poisoned Pen. This is the Pacific Coast Highway series featuring a failed songwriter and accidental crime solver. The first book was The Last Songbird. You can order the new book, Cinnamon Girl, through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4bTo6Vl

Here’s the description of Cinnamon Girl.

“Evocative, nostalgic, haunting, twisty, and true, Weizmann’s fast paced and smartly written CINNAMON GIRL is everything there is to love about a classic PI novel and more … much more.” — Reed Farrel Coleman, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of SLEEPLESS CITY

From the author of the acclaimed The Last Songbird, Lyft driver-turned-sleuth Adam Zantz returns in a neo-noir dive into the dark side of LA’s rock scene . . .

Adam Zantz is still driving for Lyft, struggling to make ends meet, when his beloved former piano teacher makes a deathbed request: He wants Zantz to prove his son’s innocence in a decades-earlier murder case.  

There doesn’t seem to be much hope of solving such a cold case—until Zantz stumbles onto a test pressing of a never-released vinyl LP. The recording is of a high school garage band lost to the tides of the Paisley Underground, the acid-fueled early ’80s music scene that spawned the Bangles and the Three O’Clock. 

Down the psychedelic rabbit hole Adam falls, tracing the band’s journey from the middle class garage to the precipice of fame—a twisted tale marked by crooked DJs, elder-scammers, wellness hucksters, a teen cult, and the woman who held the key to the band’s triumph and ruin.

One part Raymond Chandler, one part Ziggy Stardust, Cinnamon Girlis both an indelible, moving portrait of Los .Angeles, and a suspenseful tale of greed, lust, betrayal, and the hidden price of teenage yearning.

EXTRA! A QR code will be added for the liner notes of the album by The Daily Telegraph. These feature importantly in the novel.

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Daniel Weizmann is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Billboard, the Guardian, AP Newswire, and more. Under the nom de plume, Shredder, Weizmann also wrote for the long running Flipside fanzine, as well as LA Weekly, which once called him “an incomparable punk stylist.” Most recently, Weizmann co-authored Game Changer by Michael Solomon and Rishon Blumberg (Harper Leadership, 2020). He lives in Los Angeles, California.

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Enjoy Millikin’s conversation with Daniel Weizmann.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Matt Goldman to the bookstore. Goldman’s standalone is Still Waters, and there are signed copies of it in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3WM4iiC

Here’s the summary of Still Waters.

If you’re reading this email, I am dead. I know this will sound strange, but someone has been trying to kill me.

Liv and Gabe Ahlstrom are estranged siblings who haven’t seen each other in years, but that’s about to change when they receive a rare call from their older brother’s wife. “Mack is dead,” she says. “He died of a seizure.” Five minutes after they hang up, Liv and Gabe each receive a scheduled email from their dead brother, claiming that he was murdered.

The siblings return to their family-run resort in the Northwoods of Minnesota to investigate Mack’s claims, but Leech Lake has more in store for them than either could imagine. Drawn into a tangled web of lies and betrayal that spans decades, they put their lives on the line to unravel the truth about their brother, their parents, themselves, and the small town in which they grew up. After all, no one can keep a secret in a small town, but someone in Leech Lake is willing to kill for the truth to stay buried.

New York Times bestselling and Emmy award-winning author Matt Goldman returns with a gripping, emotional thrill ride in this compelling story on grief and uncovering the past before it’s too late.

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Matt Goldman is a playwright and Emmy Award-winning television writer for Seinfeld, Ellen, and other shows. He brings his signature storytelling abilities and light touch to his Nils Shapiro series, which begins with Gone to Dust. He lives in Minnesota with his wife, pets, and whichever children happen to be around.

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Enjoy the discussion of Goldman’s background and his books.

After Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, introduced Graham Moore and his new thriller, The Wealth of Shadows by mentioning Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations, Moore joked he was going to have a hard time overcoming that. But, Moore does manage to talk about his thriller and history. You can find signed copies of The Wealth of Shadows in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3wKhWYV

Here’s the description of The Wealth of Shadows.

“A thriller of a different kind—with an unlikely band of economists and bureaucrats working in the shadows to save the world.”—Charles Frazier, New York Times bestselling author of Cold Mountain

An ordinary man joins a secret mission to bring down the Nazi war machine by crashing their economy in this thrilling novel based on a true story, from the Academy Award–winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and bestselling author of The Last Days of Night.

1939. Ansel Luxford has everything a person could want—a comfortable career, a brilliant spouse, a beautiful new baby. But he is obsessed by a belief that Europe is on the precipice of a war that will grow to consume the world. The United States is officially proclaiming neutrality in any foreign conflict, but when Ansel is offered an opportunity to move to Washington, D.C., to join a clandestine project within the Treasury Department that is working to undermine Nazi Germany, he uproots his family overnight and takes on the challenge of a lifetime.

How can they defeat the enemy without firing a bullet?

To thwart the Nazis, Ansel and his team invent a powerful new theater of battle: economic warfare. Money is a dangerous weapon, and Ansel’s efforts will plunge him into a world full of peril and deceit. He will crisscross the globe to broker backroom deals, undertake daring heists, and spar with titans of industry like J.P. Morgan and the century’s greatest economic mind, Britain’s John Maynard Keynes. When Ansel’s wife takes a job with the FBI to hunt for spies within the government, the need for subterfuge extends to the home front. And Ansel discovers that he might be closer to those spies than he could ever imagine.

The Wealth of Shadows is a mind-expanding historical novel about the mysterious powers of money, the lies worth telling to defeat evil, and a hidden war that shaped the modern world.

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Graham Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of The Holdout, The Last Days of Night, and The Sherlockian; and the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game, for which he also won a Writers Guild of America Award; and director and co-writer of The Outfit, which was nominated for a British Independent Film Award. Moore was born in Chicago, received a B.A. in religious history from Columbia University. He lives in Los Angeles.

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Enjoy Graham Moore’s discussion of history and his book.

According to Patrick Millikin from The Poisoned Pen, Dorothy Chan approached him to suggest they do a poetry night at the bookstore. Chan read from her new book, Return of the Chinese Femme. Richard Siken, the author of War of the Foxes, read from his 2025 forthcoming book, I Do Know Some Things. Check the Webstore for books by both poets. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the summary of Return of the Chinese Femme.

An unabashed exploration of queerness, excess, identity, and tenderness from award-winning poet Dorothy Chan.

The speaker in Dorothy Chan’s fifth collection, Return of the Chinese Femme, walks through life fearlessly, “forehead forever exposed,” the East Asian symbol of female aggression. She’s the troublemaker protagonist—the “So Chinese Girl”—the queer in a family of straights— the rambunctious ringleader of the girl band, always ready with the perfect comeback, wearing a blue fur coat, drinking a whiskey neat. They indulge on the themes of food, sex, fantasy, fetish, popular culture, and intimacy.

Chan organizes the collection in the form of a tasting menu, offering the reader a taste of each running theme. Triple sonnets, recipe poems, and other inventive plays on diction and form pepper the collection. Amidst the bravado, Return of the Chinese Femme represents all aspects of her identity—Asian heritage, queerness, kid of immigrants’ story—in the most real ways possible, conquering the world through joy and resilience.

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Dorothy Chan (she/they) is the author of multiple poetry collections, including BABE (Diode Editions, 2021), Revenge of the Asian Woman (Diode Editions, 2019), Attack of the Fifty-Foot Centerfold (Spork Press, 2018), and the chapbook Chinatown Sonnets (New Delta Review, 2017). They were a 2023 finalist for the Roethke Poetry Award for Revenge of the Asian Woman, 2022 finalist for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize from the New England Poetry Club for BABE, a 2020 and 2014 finalist for the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a 2020 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry for Revenge of the Asian Woman, and a 2019 recipient of the Philip Freund Prize in Creative Writing from Cornell University. Their work has appeared in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere.

Chan is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Book Reviews Co-Editor of Pleiades, and Co-Founder and Editor in Chief of Honey Literary Inc., a 501(c)(3) BIPOC literary arts organization, run by women, femme, and queer editors of color. Chan was the 2021 Resident Artist for Toward One Wisconsin. They were a 2022 recipient of the University of Wisconsin System’s Dr. P.B. Poorman Award for Outstanding Achievement on Behalf of LGBTQ People. Visit their website at dorothypoetry.com

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Here’s the description of War of the Foxes.

“His territory is [where] passion and eloquence collide and fuse.’—The New York Times

“Richard Siken writes about love, desire, violence, and eroticism with a cinematic brilliance and urgency.”—Huffington Post

Richard Siken’s debut, Crush, won the Yale Younger Poets’ Prize, sold over 20,000 copies, and earned him a devoted fan-base. In this much-anticipated second book, Richard Siken seeks definite answers to indefinite questions: what it means to be called to make—whether it is a self, love, war, or art—and what it means to answer that call. In poems equal parts contradiction and clarity, logic and dream, Siken tells the modern world an unforgettable fable about itself.

The Museum

Two lovers went to the museum and wandered the rooms.
He saw a painting and stood in front of it
for too long. It was a few minutes before she
realized he had gotten stuck. He was stuck looking
at a painting. She stood next to him, looking at his
face and then the face in the painting. What do you
see? she asked. I don’t know, he said. He didn’t
know. She was disappointed, then bored. He was
looking at a face and she was looking at her watch.
This is where everything changed . . .

Richard Siken works as a social worker, dealing primarily with developmentally disabled adults. He is a poet, painter, and co-founded and currently edits the magazine spork. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

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Enjoy the conversation with the poets, and their readings.

John Charles welcomed Ashley Weaver back for a Poisoned Pen virtual event. Locked in Pursuit is the fourth book in Weaver’s Electra McDonnell series, featuring the safecracker. There are still some signed copies available to order through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3UKkFtb

Here’s the summary of Locked in Pursuit.

The fourth instalment in Ashley Weaver’sdelightfulseries, Locked in Pursuit follows safecracker Electra McDonnellfighting Nazis at every turn as World War II looms over London.

Safecracker Ellie McDonnell hasn’t seen Major Ramsey—her handsome but aloof handler in the British government—since their tumultuous mission together three months before, but when she hears about a suspicious robbery in London she feels compelled to contact him. Together they discover that a rash of burglaries leads back to a hotbed of spies in the neutral city Lisbon, Portugal, and an unknown object brought to London by a mysterious courier.

As the thieves become more desperate and their crimes escalate, it becomes imperative that Ellie and Ramsey must beat them at their own game. Fighting shadowy assailants, enemy agents, and the mutual attraction they’ve agreed not to acknowledge, Ellie and Ramsey work together to learn if it truly takes a thief to catch a thief.

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ASHLEY WEAVER is the Technical Services Coordinator at the Allen Parish Libraries in Oberlin, Louisiana. Weaver has worked in libraries since she was 14; she was a page and then a clerk before obtaining her MLIS from Louisiana State University. She is the author of Murder at the Brightwell, Death Wears a Mask, and A Most Novel Revenge. Weaver lives in Oakdale, Louisiana.

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Enjoy Ashley Weaver’s conversation with John Charles.

Nicola Solvinic’s debut mystery, The Hunter’s Daughter, is the Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. There are signed copies of this debut available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4dQQWrw

Here’s the description of The Hunter’s Daughter.

A hypnotic, sinister debut mystery about a seemingly good cop who is secretly the daughter of a notorious serial killer.

Anna Koray escaped her father’s darkness long ago. When she was a girl, her childhood memories were sealed away from her conscious mind by a controversial hypnosis treatment. She’s now a decorated sheriff’s lieutenant serving a rural county, conducting an ordinary life far from her father’s shadow. 

When Anna kills a man in the line of duty, her suppressed memories return. She dreams of her beloved father, his hands red with blood, surrounded by flower-decked corpses he had sacrificed to the god of the forest. 

To Anna’s horror, a serial killer emerges who is copying her father – and who knows who she really is. Is her father still alive, or is this the work of another? Will the killer expose her, destroying everything she has built for herself? Does she want him to?

But as she haunts the forest, using her father’s tricks to the hunt the killer, will she find what she needs most…or lose herself in the gathering darkness?

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Nicola Solvinic has a master’s degree in criminology and has worked in and around criminal justice for more than a decade. She lives in the Midwest with her husband and cats, where she is surrounded by a secret garden full of beehives.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed author and scholar Lawrence Goldstone to the bookstore. His latest book is Imperfect Union: How Errors of Omission Threaten Constitutional Democracy. Goldstone talks about the mystery of the Constitution. There are signed copies of the book available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4aiulkG

Here’s the summary of Imperfect Union.

In this new and original study of the origins of the United States Constitution, award winning scholar Lawrence Goldstone demonstrates that what was left out of the document by the Framers is of equal importance to what was included. Because of the deep divisions present in the United States at the beginning of the Republic, delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 were unwilling, and often unable, to forge a plan for government that would be both comprehensive and sufficiently acceptable to competing interests to achieve ratification. Rather than risk rejection, they chose to leave many key areas of governance vague or undefined, hoping the flaws could be dealt with after the Constitution had become the “supreme law of the land.” Although successful in the short term, that strategy left the Constitution excessively prone to subjective interpretation and, as a result, the United States was rendered vulnerable to anti-democratic initiatives and the perpetuation of minority rule, both of which plague the nation today. Thus, a constitution drafted to ensure “a more perfect union” has instead begotten dysfunction and disunion. The ossification of America’s political process is to a significant degree due not to what the Constitution says but rather from what it fails to say. The only way to address the threat these omissions engender is to identify the flaws and then complete the Constitution by fashioning legislative solutions to fill the gaps.

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Lawrence Goldstone is the author or co-author of two dozen books of both fiction and non-fiction, six with his wife Nancy. He has written extensively on Constitutional law and equal rights. His On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravishing of African American Voting Rights won the highly prestigious Lillian Smith Book Award. Other books include Inherently Unequal: The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court, 1865-1903; Dark Bargain: Slavery Profits, and the Struggle for the Constitution; and The Activist: John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, and the Myth of Judicial Review. He currently writes a weekly opinion column for The Fulcrum. Goldstone’s fiction has also been highly praised. His first novel, Rights, won a New American Writing Award, and his third, Anatomy of Deception, was a New York Times notable mystery. Goldstone has been widely interviewed on both radio and television, with appearances on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air, To the Best of Our Knowledge, and The Faith Middleton Show; The Takeaway (PRI); Make It Plain with Mark Thompson (SiriusXM); Tavis Smiley (PBS); and CSPAN’s BookTV. Goldstone’s work has been profiled in The New York Times, The Toronto Star, Salon, Slate, and numerous regional newspapers. His articles, reviews, and opinion pieces have appeared in, among other periodicals, The Atlantic, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Salon, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Hartford Courant, and Berkshire Eagle. Goldstone holds a Ph.D. in constitutional history from the New School.

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For those of us who love history, Goldstone’s discussion is fascinating. Enjoy!

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Harlan Coben to talk about his forthcoming book, Think Twice. He brings back Myron Bolitar and Win in his thirty-sixth book. You can still order one of the last signed copies of Think Twice through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3yhQtOv

Here’s the summary of Think Twice.

A man presumed dead is suddenly wanted for murder in this thriller of secrets, lies, and dangerous conspiracies that threaten to cover up the truth.

Three years ago, sports agent Myron Bolitar gave a eulogy at the funeral of his client, renowned basketball coach Greg Downing. Myron and Greg had history: initially as deeply personal rivals, and later as unexpected business associates. Myron made peace and moved on – until now, when twofederal agents walked into his office, demanding to know where Greg Downing is.

According to the agents, Greg is still alive—and has been placed at the scene of a double homicide, making him their main suspect. Shocked, Myron needs answers.

Myron and Win, longtime friends and colleagues, set out to find the truth, but the more they discover about Greg, the more dangerous their world becomes. Secrets, lies, and a murderous conspiracy that stretches back into the past churn at the heart of Harlan Coben’s blistering new novel.

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Harlan Coben is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and one of the world’s leading storytellers. His suspense novels are published in forty-six languages and have been number one bestsellers in more than a dozen countries, with eighty million books in print worldwide. His Myron Bolitar series has earned the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards, and several of his books have been developed into Netflix original series, including the #1 global hit Fool Me Once, The Stranger, The Innocent, Gone for Good, The Woods, Stay Close, and Hold Tight, as well as the Amazon Prime series adaptation of Shelter. He lives in New Jersey.

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Enjoy Harlan Coben’s discussion of his books.