Dennis Palumbo, author of the Daniel Rinaldi thrillers, is a writer. But, he is also a licensed psychotherapist whose clients are in the creative fields. Because authors have been writing “Distraction” pieces here for two months, and Dennis will have an upcoming one, he thought readers might be interested in this piece. He gave permission to use the piece, “When Your Only Weapon is Inaction”. It’s an interview that appeared in “Connect” for Writers Guild of America West.

When Your Only Weapon Is Inaction

Writer Dennis Palumbo gives quarantined writers permission and perspective amid COVID-19.

With the COVID-19 pandemic in its third month in the US, Connect spoke to psychotherapist Dennis Palumbo about recurring themes in his therapy practice with writers who are under extended stay-at-home orders and grappling with an entertainment industry on indefinite pause.

For three decades, Palumbo has been a licensed psychotherapist for working writers and others in creative fields. To the therapy setting Palumbo brings his own experience as a sitcom writer, screenwriter, and, more recently, crime novelist (2018’s Head Wounds is the fifth installment in his Daniel Rinaldi series). Palumbo’s non-fiction book Writing from the Inside Out (2000) was an adaptation and expansion of his regular columns for Written By.

You’re both a therapist for other writers and a writer yourself. So how is your writing going?

Dennis Palumbo: I’m a little more desultory because, like anyone else, I feel some of the stress of the uncertainty of this. Plus, you know, dealing with deliveries and putting on my mask and gloves when I go to get the mail. It’s certainly having an effect on my patients. My own writing is going ok. I have patients who are writing up a storm and I have patients who can’t focus for more than ten minutes. Because they’re thinking about the pandemic, and especially if they have young children they’re doing home schooling or trying to keep them entertained. Plus, there’s the omnipresent media. I have patients who just cannot stop watching CNN. As this thing has gone on and on, one of the first things I’m recommending to people is to very much curtail their watching of the news.

It’s a slippery slope between staying informed and getting lost in it all.“One of the problems that is endemic to this situation is, we have an enemy, this virus, and the weapon we use against the enemy is inaction, just sitting in your house. I think that’s very hard on the psyche.”

Palumbo: Check it in the morning and then check it in the evening to make sure there hasn’t been an alien invasion or something. Other than that, I think one of the problems that is endemic to this situation is, we have an enemy, this virus, and the weapon we use against the enemy is inaction, just sitting in your house. I think that’s very hard on the psyche. We have a fight-or-flight mechanism. When someone throws a rock at you, you pick up a rock and throw it back, or else you run away. And we can’t run away, we have to stay in the house, and we can’t fight it. So I think our cortisol levels are always being elevated because we’re in a state where there’s no tool we can use against the virus, other than staying put. I think the body doesn’t like that. The psyche certainly doesn’t like it. So no matter how busy you are, either with your children or with your writing, this sense of impotence contributes to depression and anxiety. And then you add to that, there’s no end date. Most people don’t like uncertainty. One of the real problems with the quarantine is the uncertainty.

So much of anxiety is typically about what you invent in your mind, but COVID-19 is a very real external crisis. How does this affect the tenor and substance of your practice?

Palumbo: It’s sort of like a background hum that’s always there even if you’re not talking about it. The way most therapy sessions go, the first ten minutes the person talks about how they’re dealing with the pandemic, they had a good week, a bad week. But even if we then go into other issues after that, this is always there. People say, “Oh, well, if your patients are writers they’re all used to being alone in a house.” Well, 60% of them write for television, so they’re used to going to rooms, number one. And number two, they still want to be able to go out and have coffee or lunch with a friend. So it’s a palpable thing that invades everyone’s consciousness all the time.

And writers are like antenna. The raw materials of a writer’s life is their feelings and their ideas, and the meanings they give to their feelings and ideas. If it’s permeated by something from the outside, then you’re really going to be sensitive to it. The uncertainty around when the quarantine will end, as well as what life will look like in the future, exacerbates a person’s inclination toward either depression or anxiety. One of the hallmarks of depression is the belief that nothing you do will make you feel any better, and how you’re feeling now is how you’re always going to feel. Because there’s no end in sight, it reinforces those two aspects of depression.

So it’s ok to spend the entire session talking about the pandemic?

Palumbo: That 50 minutes belongs to you. A lot of people worry that their careers are going to get sputtered out and maybe not come back again. It’s the same fears that writers always have in a strike, particularly people who had something that was going. Look at the people whose pilots didn’t get made. You go from the elation of getting a pilot script greenlit to production, to a pandemic hits and no one’s making a pilot.

You mentioned that some of your patients are writing up a storm, and some aren’t. What about the added stress and guilt of, “Oh, I should be writing more right now.”

Palumbo: For many, many years in my practice, almost to a person, every writer says, “Boy if I had the time, I would write my personal novel, or that spec screenplay about Elizabeth the First.” Now they have the time, and nobody’s writing it. It just runs the gamut. There are people, like I said, who are writing up a storm. Some of them have to because they’re working in animation, and animation is rolling right along. But for other people, they’re having a hard time focusing.

I’m a therapist, not a writing coach. Whenever someone has an issue with their writing, whether it’s blocks or procrastination or a story point, to me it’s inexorably bound up in whatever their personal issues are. It’s much more important to look at the underlying issues, the meaning you give it.

What about practical advice in terms of creative work right now?

Palumbo: I do think you should have a structure. You should create a fake structure. The other thing is, and it’s really hard, but to stay in the present. Just do what you need to do on a Wednesday. I think if you start saying, “But I wonder, are we going to be able to leave our homes in September, I wonder if my kid’s school is going to open in September, I wonder when production’s going to start, what if it doesn’t start till January?” All that catastrophizing the future does is create anxiety. And I often suggest to my patients that, your feelings don’t predict the future. You can feel like, oh my god this is never going to end, but that doesn’t mean it’s never going to end. You can feel like, oh this is going to just put a nail in the coffin of my career. That’s a feeling. It predicts nothing. And in my 30 years of practice, I’ve had so many people sit on that couch and tell me, “Well, my career is over.” And two years later they have a show on the air.

None of our feelings predict anything. They’re just data on what it feels like to be us in that moment.

*****

Dennis Palumbo’s books are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2C4TMvz

If you recognize Francesca Serritella’s name, and think, “I know I’ve read something by her,” you’re right. Serritella has written collections of essays with her mother, Lisa Scottoline. Those are titles such as Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat? and I Need a Lifeguard Everywhere but the Pool. Now, Serritella has launched her first novel, Ghosts of Harvard.Copies have sold quickly, so check with the Web Store about signed copies. https://bit.ly/30C2YBS

Here’s the description of Ghosts of Harvard.

A Harvard freshman becomes obsessed with her schizophrenic brother’s suicide. Then she starts hearing voices.

“A rich, intricately plotted thriller . . . Serritella, who is a Harvard grad herself, writes about the campus with an insider’s savvy.”—Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post

“Every time I thought I knew where Ghosts of Harvard was heading, I turned out to be wrong. Part mystery, part ghost story, part psychological thriller, this novel is all entertainment.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult

Cadence Archer arrives on Harvard’s campus desperate to understand why her brother, Eric, a genius who developed paranoid schizophrenia took his own life there the year before. Losing Eric has left a black hole in Cady’s life, and while her decision to follow in her brother’s footsteps threatens to break her family apart, she is haunted by questions of what she might have missed. And there’s only one place to find answers.

As Cady struggles under the enormous pressure at Harvard, she investigates her brother’s final year, armed only with a blue notebook of Eric’s cryptic scribblings. She knew he had been struggling with paranoia, delusions, and illusory enemies—but what tipped him over the edge? Voices fill her head, seemingly belonging to three ghosts who passed through the university in life, or death, and whose voices, dreams, and terrors still echo the halls. Among them is a person whose name has been buried for centuries, and another whose name mankind will never forget.

Does she share Eric’s illness, or is she tapping into something else? Cady doesn’t know how or why these ghosts are contacting her, but as she is drawn deeper into their worlds, she believes they’re moving her closer to the truth about Eric, even as keeping them secret isolates her further. Will listening to these voices lead her to the one voice she craves—her brother’s—or will she follow them down a path to her own destruction?

*****

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, talks with Francesca Serritella about Ghosts of Harvard. In the course of the interview, they talk about mental illness and suicide, and other aspects of the book. Check it out.

Some of us will be grateful that 2020 is picking up speed. Martin Edwards is already looking forward to September, and he’s discussing upcoming releases. You can find Edwards’ books in the Web Store, and pre-order the September releases. https://bit.ly/2w0viRd

Here’s Edwards’ short biography as it appears on his blog, https://doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.com/.

Martin Edwards is the 2020 recipient of the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in UK crime writing. His latest novel is Mortmain Hall, a crime novel set in 1930. He has received the CWA Dagger in the Library, awarded by UK librarians for his body of work. He is President of the Detection Club, consultant to the British Library’s Crime Classics, and former Chair of the CWA. His contemporary whodunits include The Coffin Trail, first of seven Lake District Mysteries and shortlisted for the Theakston’s Prize for best crime novel of the year. The Arsenic Labyrinth was shortlisted for Lakeland Book of the Year. The Golden Age of Murder won the Edgar, Agatha, H.R.F. Keating and Macavity awards, while The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books also won the Macavity and was nominated for four other awards. He has also received the CWA Short Story Dagger, the CWA Margery Allingham Prize, a CWA Red Herring, and the Poirot award “for his outstanding contribution to the crime genre”.

*****

Mortmain Hall, my latest novel, will be published by Poisoned Pen Press in September. The book has just come out in Britain, and I was thrilled by the reaction, with great reviews in The Times and other national newspapers and magazines. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that American readers will be equally enthusiastic!

The book features Rachel Savernake and Jacob Flint, who previously appeared in Gallows Court, but Mortmain Hall definitely stands on its own. It’s a different novel in some ways, with more humour, and it’s very much a love letter to Golden Age detective fiction. I was attracted to the idea of blending thriller elements with a classic whodunit puzzle. I set out to write a country house mystery with a difference, but certainly boasting a denouement in the library, where suspects are gathered together in traditional manner and all is finally revealed.

Authors of Golden Age mysteries should play fair with their readers. The puzzle has to be one that the reader can solve, because all the clues are there in the text. But it’s desirable for the clues to be planted subtly, so that readers aren’t quite sure which elements of the story point the way to the solution. Some of the best Golden Age writers (including John Dickson Carr, Edmund Crispin, and Freeman Wills Crofts) took this idea to its logical conclusion by including “˜Cluefinders’ in their books. These took various forms, but the basic idea was that at the end of the story, there would be references to the earlier pages where the clues were set out in the text.

Most Cluefinders appeared in the late Twenties and early Thirties and as far as I know no whodunit with a Cluefinder has been published for more than half a century. I decided that I would try to write a story that was sufficiently ingenious for a Cluefinder to be worthy of inclusion.

As it turned out, the Cluefinder in Mortmain Hall includes no fewer than thirty-four clues. See how many of them you can spot!

September will be an exciting month, because it also sees the publication by HarperCollins of Howdunit, a masterclass in the art and craft of crime writing by members of the Detection Club. I devoted a good deal of last year to putting this book together and it’s one I’m very excited about.

The book offers invaluable advice to people interested in writing crime fiction, but it also provides a fascinating picture of the way that the best crime writers have honed their skills over the years. Its unique construction and content mean that it will appeal not only to would-be writers but also to a very wide readership of crime fans.

The principal contributors are current members of the legendary Detection Club, of which I have the honour to be President. They include Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Peter James, Peter Robinson, Ann Cleeves, Andrew Taylor, Elly Griffiths, Sophie Hannah, Stella Duffy, Alexander McCall Smith, John Le Carré and many more.

Interwoven with their contributions are shorter pieces by past Detection Club members ranging from G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr to Desmond Bagley and H.R.F. Keating. The book is dedicated to Len Deighton, who is celebrating 50 years as a Detection Club member and has also penned an essay for the book. The contributions are linked by short sections which I’ve written. Certainly, it’s a book that, biased as I am, I think is rather special.

Congratulations to all of the 2020 Anthony Award nominees. They were announced by Bouchercon this week. A special hat tip goes to Poisoned Pen Press author Wendall Thomas whose Drowned Under is a nominee for Best Paperback Original.

Look for the nominees in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

ANTHONY AWARDS

June 8, 2020

SACRAMENTO—Bouchercon, the world mystery convention, is pleased to announce the nominees for its prestigious Anthony Award. Awards voting will take place during Virtual Bouchercon, October 16″“7, 2020, and the awards will be presented as part of an online ceremony on October 17.

2020 ANTHONY AWARD NOMINEES

BEST NOVEL

Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha (Ecco)

They All Fall Down, by Rachel Howzell Hall (Forge)

Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman (William Morrow)

The Murder List, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge)

Miami Midnight, by Alex Segura (Polis Books)

BEST FIRST NOVEL

The Ninja Daughter, by Tori Eldridge (Agora Books)

Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (Sarah Crichton Books)

One Night Gone, by Tara Laskowski (Graydon House)

Three-Fifths, by John Vercher (Agora Books)

American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson (Random House)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL**

The Unrepentant, by E.A. Aymar (Down & Out Books)

Murder Knocks Twice, by Susanna Calkins (Minotaur)

The Pearl Dagger, by L.A. Chandlar (Kensington)

Scot & Soda, by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink)

The Alchemist’s Illusion, by Gigi Pandian (Midnight Ink)

Drowned Under, by Wendall Thomas (Poisoned Pen Press)

The Naming Game, by Gabriel Valjan (Winter Goose Press)

BEST CRITICAL NON-FICTION WORK

Hitchcock and the Censors, by John Billheimer (University Press of Kentucky)

The Hooded Gunman: An Illustrated History of the Collins Crime Club, by John Curran (Collins Crime Club)

The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women, by Mo Moulton (Basic Books)

The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story, by Cara Robertson (Simon & Schuster)

The Five: The Untold Stories of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, by Hallie Rubenhold (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

BEST SHORT STORY

“Turistas,” by Hector Acosta (appearing in ¡Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas!: Stories to Benefit the People of Puerto Rico)

“Unforgiven,” by Hilary Davidson (appearing in Murder a-Go-Gos: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of the Go-Gos)

“The Red Zone,” by Alex Segura (appearing in ¡Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas!: Stories to Benefit the People of Puerto Rico)

“Better Days,” by Art Taylor (appearing in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, May/June 2019)

“Hard Return,” by Art Taylor (appearing in Crime Travel)

BEST ANTHOLOGY OR COLLECTION

The Eyes of Texas: Private Eyes from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods, edited by Michael Bracken (Down & Out Books)

¡Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas!: Stories to Benefit the People of Puerto Rico, edited by Angel Luis Colón (Down & Out Books)

Crime Travel, edited by Barb Goffman (Wildside Press)

Malice Domestic 14: Mystery Most Edible, edited by Verena Rose, Rita Owen, and Shawn Reilly Simmons (Wildside Press)

Murder A-Go-Go’s: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of the Go-Gos, edited by Holly West (Down & Out Books)

BEST YOUNG ADULT**

Seven Ways to Get Rid of Harry, by Jen Conley (Down & Out Books)

Catfishing on CatNet, by Naomi Kritzer (Tor Teen)

Killing November, by Adriana Mather (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

Patron Saints of Nothing, by Randy Ribay (Kokila)

The Deceivers, by Kristen Simmons (Tor Teen)

Wild and Crooked, by Leah Thomas (Bloomsbury YA)

** This year, there are two categories with more than five nominees. This is the result of a tie for fifth place. When this occurs, according to Bouchercon standing rules, all of the authors who have tied become nominees. 
Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, is a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization that holds an annual convention attended by readers, writers, publishers, editors, agents, booksellers, and other lovers of crime fiction. Its annual Anthony Awards are named for writer and book critic Anthony Boucher and are one of crime fiction’s most prestigious and coveted awards.

Have you “met” Leslie Budewitz, the author of the Spice Shop mysteries? You can order her books through the Web Store, as well as the books Leslie used as “Distractions”. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Leslie Budewitz blends her passion for food, great mysteries, and the Northwest in two light-hearted mystery series: the Spice Shop Mysteries, set in Seattle, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in northwest Montana. Her books focus on strong women who share her passions, and have a talent for finding trouble!

Leslie was the first author to win Agatha Awards for both fiction and nonfiction. Death al Dente, first in the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, won the 2013 Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Her guide for writers, Books, Crooks & Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure, won the 2011 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction.

A Montana native, Leslie graduated from Seattle University and Notre Dame Law School. After practicing in Seattle for several years—and shopping and eating her way through the Pike Place Market regularly—she returned to Montana, where she still practices law part-time. Killing people—on the page—is more fun.

A true believer in the power of writers helping other writers, Leslie served as president of Sisters in Crime (SinC) in 2015-16, and a founding member of the Guppies, the SinC chapter for new and unpublished writers. She is the Montana representative to the board of the Rocky Mountain chapter of Mystery Writers of America, and is also a member of the Authors of the Flathead and Montana Women Writers.

Leslie loves to cook, eat, hike, travel, garden, and paint—not necessarily in that order. She lives in northwest Montana with her husband, Don Beans, a singer-songwriter and doctor of natural medicine, and their gray Tuxedo, named Squirt but usually called Mr. Kitten. Because what else would you call a 13-year-old, 17-pound killer and cuddler who always dresses in formal attire?

*****

Leslie Budewitz kicks off her piece with the three questions I asked authors.

Are you reading right now? Has your reading changed? What are you reading?

I am always reading, just like I am always writing. Sometimes, that’s simply a description of who I am and how of I navigate our chaotic world; most of the time, it’s specific. Like a lot of writers, I had a WIP (“work in progress”) and a deadline when the pandemic hit. Writing became both battleground, because focus turned tail in the face of outrageous uncertainty, and once I got the balky storyline in hand, comfort. Both cave of terrors, and refuge.

That same dichotomy struck my reading. Focus? What’s that? Ah, a book. I’ll admit, not every title I picked up in March and April got the attention it deserved; some deserve a second go, and they’ll get it—later. Now I can see that the books I stuck with and loved, highly varied as they are, share a common thread: Times are difficult, they seem to say; they always are, but strong people find a way. In difficult times and in good, books help us find the way.

Good first novels are like a tiny box of truffles, a sweet, satisfying promise. My first recommendation is A Dream of Death by Connie Berry, a 2019 Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel.

Kate Hamilton is a widowed American who travels to Scotland at the request of her late husband’s estranged sister, to visit the family home, now a hotel. Historical crimes mingle with modern, leading to investigation, resolution, and a promise of a brighter future. Kate is a mature sleuth, a smart, kind-hearted woman you’d trust with just about anything and happily walk with along the riverbanks. The sequel is out, and I’m looking forward to it.

I absolutely adored Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout’s collection of linked short stories about a difficult woman; I read it several times, made my book club read it—not everyone was as enamored as I—and loved the HBO series starring Frances McDormand. So I picked up Olive, Again, the second volume (2019), with some trepidation—actually, I popped the CDs into my car stereo—and loved it at least as much.

We all have our inner Olive, a generous, cranky, unfiltered woman who spends her adult life in a small, coastal Maine town, raises one son, buries two husbands, and pops in and out of others’ lives when they least expect, and most need, it. Happily, Olive doesn’t dominate every story, but when she does, it’s so interesting, and so much fun.

My dear friend Sheila Connolly, who died in April, published 40-some books, and had a special fondness for Ireland. I was behind on her County Cork series, her most popular, so I caught up, starting with the fifth, Cruel Winter (2017), one of those books you hate to finish because it’s so stinking good.

Connolly neatly twists the conventions of the locked-room mystery. Instead of a killing occurring in a closed setting, a group of locals and visitors stranded in Sullivan’s Pub during an unexpected snowstorm finds that one of their number is a woman long suspected of a local murder. Never charged, she’s never gotten a full hearing, until Maura, the young American pub owner, asks the woman to tell her story. The other patrons prove the adage that a jury as a whole is smarter than its individual members; they ask questions, test the evidence, poke holes, analyze motives, and identify the likely killer, who is arrested after the weather clears. Maura takes charge as a strong leading character should in this terrific eight-book series.

*****

Leslie Budewitz’ website is www.lesliebudewitz.com. You can find more about her books, their settings, and recipes at that site. Her next book in the Spice Shop series, The Solace of Bay Leaves, is scheduled for release in October. It’s not too early to pre-order a copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2UpAXt6

Pepper Reece never expected to find solace in bay leaves.

But when her life fell apart at forty and she bought the venerable-but-rundown Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, her days took a tasty turn. Now she’s savoring the prospect of a flavorful fall and a busy holiday cooking season, until danger bubbles to the surface . . .

Between managing her shop, worrying about her staff, and navigating a delicious new relationship, Pepper’s firing on all burners. But when her childhood friend Maddie is shot and gravely wounded, the incident is quickly tied to an unsolved murder that left another close friend a widow.

Convinced that the secret to both crimes lies in the history of a once-beloved building, Pepper uses her local-girl contacts and her talent for asking questions to unearth startling links between the past and present—links that suggest her childhood friend may not have been the Golden Girl she appeared to be. Pepper is forced to face her own regrets and unsavory emotions, if she wants to save Maddie’s life—and her own.

As Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen says, there are a few benefits as authors shelter in place. The Pen is able to hold virtual events with authors who infrequently get to Arizona, such as David Baldacci. And, authors seem to be able to write better, maybe with fewer distractions. Baldacci says he finished one book, and turned it in two weeks early to his publisher, and he’s working on the next one.

Walk the Wire is David Baldacci’s most recent book in the Memory Man series. There are copies available through the Web Store, and, possibly, some signed copies still available. https://bit.ly/3eXaQl7

Amos Decker — the FBI consultant with a perfect memory — returns to solve a gruesome murder in a booming North Dakota oil town in the newest thriller in David Baldacci’s #1 New York Times bestselling Memory Man series.

When Amos Decker and his FBI colleague Alex Jamison are called to London, North Dakota, they instantly sense that the thriving fracking town is ripe for trouble. The promise of a second gold rush has attracted an onslaught of newcomers all hoping for a windfall, and the community is growing faster than houses can be built. The sudden boom has also brought a slew of problems with it, including drugs, property crimes, prostitution — and now murder.

Decker and Jamison are ordered to investigate the death of a young woman named Irene Cramer, whose body was expertly autopsied and then dumped in the open — which is only the beginning of the oddities surrounding the case. As Decker and Jamison dig into Irene’s life, they are shocked to discover that the woman who walked the streets by night as a prostitute was a teacher for a local religious sect by day — a sect operating on land once owned by a mysterious government facility that looms over the entire community.

London is a town replete with ruthless business owners, shady government officials, and religious outsiders, all determined to keep their secrets from coming out. When other murders occur, Decker will need all of his extraordinary memory and detective skills, and the assistance of a surprising ally, to root out a killer and the forces behind Cramer’s death. . . before the boom town explodes.

*****

You can listen to David Baldacci and Barbara Peters discuss his work in the virtual event.

Does it age us if I say I’ve known Mary Anna Evans for sixteen years? Her first Faye Longchamp mystery, Artifacts, had been released the year before. She and Faye Longchamp both lived in Florida, and Mary Anna was kind enough to appear at the Lee County Reading Festival in Ft. Myers. Now, she’s been kind again, and she agreed to write about book “Distractions”.

Mary Anna Evans is the author of the Faye Longchamp archaeological mysteries, which have received recognition including the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Mississippi Author Award, and three Florida Book Awards bronze medals. She is an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma, where she teaches fiction and nonfiction writing. Winner of the 2018 Sisters in Crime (SinC) Academic Research Grant. Her website is www.maryannaevans.com. You can find her books, and her “Distractions” in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

*****

The events in the news these days are too big to ignore, but there comes a time at the end of the day when we need to be distracted. We’re all human and our minds need to rest.

Lifelong readers almost always have comfort reads. We return to them time and again, and they feel different every time because we’re different every time. However, it is my hope that after we’ve worked through this difficult period in our history, we will find that it was a time of renewal. Right now, I’m thinking that if we want renewal, we probably should try doing something new, and that includes looking for something new to read.

With this in mind, I’m going to suggest three books, representing the past, present, and future. The first, And Then There Were None, is a comfort read for many, many people, as it is the bestselling mystery novel of all time and one of the bestselling books of all time. As a crime novelist, I never fail to be amazed by the craftmanship of this book. I will not spoil the ending for those few who do not know it, but And Then There Were None is a case of an author setting out to do something that should have been impossible and somehow wasn’t, at least not for her. The setting is a masterpiece of foreboding. The sense of dread permeates. The cast of characters is large, and yet they are deftly characterized and their destinies are laid out so efficiently that the book is quite short by today’s standards. Most importantly for me, the question of justice is thoroughly explored through the central plot device, which asks, “When the legal system fails, can justice ever be done or must murderers be free to walk among us?” For eighty years, people have been reading Agatha Christie’s answer to this question.

The down side to eighty-year-old comfort reads is that they’re eighty years old. And Then There Were None has never been published in the United States with its original title, which included an unequivocally unacceptable racist term. Even with its current title, and with the unacceptable word deleted from the text and replaced with the word “Soldier,” this story of unremitting evil on Soldier Island shows its age. The characters are all white and all roughly middle-class. (Except, of course, for the servants, who are, in an egalitarian approach to class, as odious as everybody else.)

Christie does offer some forward-thinking moments. A woman who treated an unmarried pregnant woman unforgivably is portrayed as purely evil. A man who is quite cavalier about having caused the death of a large group of Africans is also portrayed as utterly evil. Nevertheless, this book is firmly rooted in the mores of 1940 and the modern reader cannot help but notice.

Fortunately Rachel Howzell Hall has revisited the idea of a cast of irredeemable characters trapped on an island, terrified, as they watch each other die, one by one. Her novel They All Fall Down is an admirable variation on this theme that is made for the present moment.

Her characters come from a variety of backgrounds—Black, Latino, gay, white, Asian. Hall’s choice to stick with a single viewpoint character, instead of dipping in and out of the doomed characters’ heads as Christie did, gives the reader the chance to feel empathy for that character…until she reveals what she did to get lured to this island of death. This requires the reader to decide how far that empathy can go.

They All Fall Down works as homage to a master, but it also works in its own right. In my mystery writing class, I asked my students to read it back-to-back with And Then There Were None, and the juxtaposition triggered some fascinating conversations. Try reading them back-to-back yourself and see if you agree.

If And Then There Were None represents the past, and They All Fall Down represents the present, I’d like to suggest Kellye Garrett’s Hollywood Homicide as the future. Or, rather, as my future, since it came out in 2017 but I am only now reading it. One of my personal responses to the Black Lives Matter movement is to seek out and promote Black authors and their books. Hollywood Homicide won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, and the Lefty Award for Best Debut Mystery Novel, among many other awards and honors. Kellye herself serves as a national director for Sisters in Crime and was a co-founder of Crime Writers of Color. It seems to me that it will be worth my time to check out her work, and I think it will be worth yours, too.

Enjoy your summer and I’ll look forward to seeing you all at future mystery conferences far and wide!

*****

You can find Mary Anna Evans’ books in the Web Store, including signed copies of the twelfth in the Faye Longchamp series, Catacombs. https://bit.ly/2IrcqLo On her webpage, it says, in some ways, Catacombs is a love letter to her new home, Oklahoma.

What secrets lie deep beneath the surface?

A deafening explosion rocks a historic Oklahoma City hotel, sending archaeologist Faye Longchamp-Mantooth crashing to the marble floor of the lobby. She’s unhurt but shaken—after all, any time something blows up in Oklahoma City, the first word on everyone’s lips is the same: bomb.

Faye is in town for a conference celebrating indigenous arts, but is soon distracted by the aftermath of the explosion, which cracks open the old hotel’s floor to reveal subterranean chambers that had housed Chinese immigrants a century before. Faye is fascinated by the tunnels, which are a time capsule back to the early 20th century—but when the bodies of three children are discovered deep beneath the city, her sense of discovery turns to one of dread…

*****

Wrecked, the thirteenth in the series, is scheduled for release October 20. You can always pre-order it through the Web Store. October isn’t as far away as it sounds.

Some losses cut to the bone…

The suspicious drowning death of Captain Edward Eubank breaks archaeologist Faye Longchamp’s heart. It also confuses her, because he was found in scuba gear and she’s never heard him even mention scuba diving. During their last conversation, he told her that he believed he’d found a storied shipwreck, but when Faye checks it out, she finds nothing there—not a plank, not a single gold coin, nothing. If there’s no treasure, then why is her friend dead?

Surrounded by a community struggling in the aftermath of a major hurricane that has changed the very landscape, Faye grapples not only with the loss of her friend, but with her fears for her daughter, who is being romanced by a man who may be very dangerous.

As a professional with her own consulting firm, Faye had long ago given up her “anything goes” attitude when the law stood between her and an interesting dig. Now that recklessness is back. There’s nothing she won’t do to protect her daughter.

As Maureen Corrigan recently said in The Washington Post, Poisoned Pen Press and the Library of Congress have partnered to reprint underappreciated American mysteries in a series called Library of Congress Crime Classics. One of the earliest ones is written by Sue Grafton’s father, C.W. Grafton. His book, The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope, is available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3h70p0z

You can find Corrigan’s review here. https://wapo.st/2XC3rSw

Here’s the summary of The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope.

s this lawyer digging his way to the truth, or digging his own grave?

Short, chubby, and awkward with members of the opposite sex, Gil Henry is the youngest partner in a small law firm, not a hard-boiled sleuth. So when an attractive young woman named Ruth McClure walks into his office and asks him to investigate the value of the stock she inherited from her father, he thinks nothing of it—until someone makes an attempt on his life.

Soon Gil is inadvertently embroiled in scandal, subterfuge, and murder. He’s beaten, shot, and stabbed, as his colleagues and enemies try to stop him from seeing the case through to the end. Surrounded by adversaries, he teams up with Ruth and her secretive brother to find answers to the questions someone desperately wants to keep him from asking.

In this portrait of America on the eve of America’s entry into World War II, C.W. Grafton—himself a lawyer and the father of prolific mystery writer Sue Grafton—pens an award-winning mystery that combines humor and the hard-boiled style and will keep readers guessing until its thrilling conclusion.

Election meddling. Cyber sabotage. The current Hot Book of the Week, David Pepper’s The Voter File, couldn’t be more timely. You can order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2Y7gUAO

Here’s the summary of The Voter File.

“Pepper comes through again with this clever tale of how cyber sabotage of elections, coupled with highly concentrated ownership of traditional media operations, can undermine American democracy.”–President Bill Clinton

A twisty, one-step-ahead-of-the-headlines political thriller featuring a rogue reporter who investigates election meddling of epic proportions written by the ultimate insider.

Investigative reporter Jack Sharpe is down to his last chance. Fired from his high-profile gig with a national news channel, his only lead is a phone full of messages from a grad student named Tori Justice, who swears she’s observed an impossible result in a local election. Sharpe is sure she’s mistaken…but what if she isn’t?

Sharpe learns that the most important tool in any election is the voter file: the database that keeps track of all voters in a district, and shapes a campaign’s game plan for victory. If one person were to gain control of an entire party’s voter file, they could manipulate the outcome of virtually every election in America. Sharpe discovers this has happened–and that the person behind the hack is determined to turn American politics upside down.

The more he digs, the more Sharpe is forced to question the values–and viability–of the country he loves and a president he admired. And soon it becomes clear that not just his career is in jeopardy…so is his life.

Jeffrey Siger’s photo is at the top of his piece, and we’ll talk about his Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis pieces, but it’s a treat to have him joined by his wife, Barbara. I’ve known Jeff for a number of years, and it’s so nice to have them share writing duties here.

Jeffrey Siger was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, practiced law at a major Wall Street law firm, and later established his own New York City law firm where he continued as one of its name partners until giving it all up to write full-time among the people, life, and politics of his beloved Mykonos. The Mykonos Mob is the tenth novel in his internationally best-selling and award nominated Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series, following up on An Aegean April, Santorini Caesars, Devil in Delphi, Sons of Sparta, Mykonos After Midnight, Target: Tinos, Prey on Patmos, Assassins of Athens, and Murder in Mykonos.

The New York Times described Jeffrey Siger’s novels as “thoughtful police procedurals set in picturesque but not untroubled Greek locales,” and named him as Greece’s thriller writer of record. The Greek Press called his work “prophetic,” Eurocrime described him as a “very gifted American author…on a par with other American authors such as Joseph Wambaugh or Ed McBain,” and the City of San Francisco awarded him its Certificate of Honor citing that his “acclaimed books have not only explored modern Greek society and its ancient roots but have inspired political change in Greece.” He now lives in Greece and the U.S. You can find Siger’s books in the Web Store, https://bit.ly/2jC3gpp

You can also find the books that both Barbara and Jeffrey suggest as “Distractions”. Check in the Web Store for those as well. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

*****

Ahh, distractions. How I love them.  Truth be told, prior to Barbara and I squirreling ourselves away on our farm on the edge of the pandemic’s worldwide epicenter, I was reading at the pace of one or two new mystery/thrillers a week. But then came the plague, and I fell into a very different, but comfortable routine.

I’ve been banging away on the keyboard every day, immersed in a standalone I’d been meaning to write for a half-dozen years, chasing new characters in whatever directions they decided to go. In other words, I’ve been living in a different world, returning to this one only long enough to repair a leaky roof, remove the occasional unwelcome snake from the front porch, or perform otherwise necessary farm chores—like eating and sleeping.

Yes, I know reading provides the same form of escape for many—thank God—but this time writing did the job for me.  I’m happy to say I just finished the first draft of my standalone obsession and look forward to returning to my normal reading routine. In a moment, I’ll tell you the books at the very top of my TBR list.

But first, I think it may be of more interest to you to hear a few insights from my wife on the books she’s been reading over these past months while I’ve been goofing off at the keyboard. So, here they are, in her words:

Friends and family have told me that reading during the Covid crisis has become too difficult for them. They simply cannot stay focused.  But I’m reading the same as always. Perhaps it’s my choice of books, for I’ve been happily accompanying strong female characters through the slower-paced, elegant, and structured settings of Jane Austen novels. I love their modern, often humorous take on human nature, filled with subtle jabs at the pretensions of the wealthy, and silly small-minded behaviors of family members and so-called friends, all still so very relevant today. My return-to-Austen-novels-binge began with her unfinished, eleven-chapter Sanditon, and has taken me (thus far) back through Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion.

Coincidentally, just before the crisis, I’d binged on Charles Todd’s Bess Crawford series (starting with #1, A Duty to the Dead), featuring a devoted, tireless nurse struggling through the illnesses and death of World War I and the 1918 influenza pandemic. These days I often think about Bess, and how her human instincts, pathos, and heroism are reflected in today’s hero nurses. 

What attracts me to Austen’s and Charles Todd’s work is that each is written from the perspective of sharp, intelligent, strong-minded women; women who could be my friends.

Thanks, Barbara. Now on to my picks of two works I cannot wait to read.  I’m sure my choices won’t surprise you, as they’re the newest releases of great authors.

We all know and love Zoë Sharp for her iconic Charlie Fox series, but I cannot wait to read her just released Bones in the River.  It’s the second gripping police procedural in her CSI Grace McColl and Detective Nick Weston thriller series based in England’s Cumbria Lakes region. “Dark, shocking, and exciting, but imbued with intuitive empathy and dry wit throughout” is how one reader described it. 

The novel opens with the death of a local child, and though an accident, the killer makes a panicked decision to hide the evidence. The child’s body is found as a small Lakes town is in the midst of hosting its Appleby Horse Fair, a traditional event drawing the largest gathering of Gypsies and Travellers in Europe.  The discovery quickly turns longstanding prejudices and distrust of Roma into accusations and much more. As one relentless dramatic discovery after another unfolds, Sharp draws us into better understanding what drives the Gypsy stigma, through her vivid characters, engrossing and balanced exploration of complex family issues, and gifted prose.

What more could one ask for in seeking distraction?

For fans of Michael Stanley’s award-winning Detective Kubu series, a treat is in store for us with their latest book, Facets of Death. Actually, it could be labeled first in the series, because it’s the prequel to all that we’ve come to love about these Botswana-based novels featuring David Bengu, whose girth has him nicknamed Kubu (Setswana for “hippopotamus”).  It’s the story of how Kubu applied his keen mind and famous persistence (along with his namesake’s gift for masking one of the deadliest creatures in Africa behind a docile appearance) to overcome the jealousies of his colleagues when he entered the Botswana CID straight from university as a detective, skipping the usual beat cop phase.

When the richest diamond mine in the world is robbed of 100,000 carats in a deadly hijacking, police suspect an inside job, but have no evidence of who it might be. After the robbers are killed execution-style and the diamonds are still missing, suspicion switches to a witch doctor and his son, and the case lands in Kubu’s prodigious lap for him to show the skill and integrity needed to catch those responsible—or find his career at an end.  I’m pretty sure I know how this will end for Kubu, but the great thing about reading Michael Stanley novels is how much you learn about Africa and so many other things along the way…and the masterful story telling that takes you there.

Well, that’s all for now folks.  Here’s wishing for you all to stay safe—and happily distracted.

*****

Jeffrey Siger’s most recent book in the Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series is Island of Secrets, previously published as The Mykonos Mob.

“A perfect setting and first-rate storytelling.” —Ragnar Jónasson, bestselling author of The Dark Iceland series

From international bestselling author, Jeffrey Siger, comes another heart-stopping story of corruption and intrigue.

The case begins for Athens’ Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis with a literal bang when a corrupt former police colonel who runs a protection racket on Mykonos is gunned down. Suddenly, Kaldis is face-to-face with Greece’s top crime bosses on an island whose natural beauty and reputation as an international playground belies the corruption lurking just beneath the surface.

While Kaldis and his Special Crimes unit wrestle for answers, his wife, Lila, meets an American expat named Toni, a finder of stolen goods and a piano player in a gender-bending bar who has a zest for life and no apparent regard for rules. As Lila and Toni bond over a common desire to mentor young island girls trapped in an exploitative and patriarchal culture, they soon find that their efforts intersect with Kaldis’ investigation in ways that prove to be dangerous for all involved…

 (Previously published as The Mykonos Mob)