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The Poisoned Pen is closed today for Christmas. We hope you have a wonderful holiday, whichever one, and however you celebrate. Even when the store is closed, you can browse and shop the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com
Have a beautiful, peaceful day.
Something a little different today. CrimeReads analyzes movies with a list of their top ten movies, “Which Christmas Classic is the Most Noir?” Does your favorite Christmas movie make the list? You might be surprised which ones make it, and why they made the list. It’s just a fun piece to share. https://bit.ly/2GAnxGw
If you haven’t yet tried Steven F. Havill’s Posadas County mysteries, set in a New Mexico border town, it might be time. Lies Come Easy is set in December, so it’s seasonal. Signed copies of this book, and copies of the other books in the series, are available through the Web Store. bit.ly/2PXJ77g
Anne Corey recently reviewed Lies Come Easy for Reviewing the Evidence. https://bit.ly/2V7OrZh
Here’s the summary of Lies Come Easy.
Best of the West 2019 – 3rd Place in 20th- to 21st-Century Western Mystery Fiction by TrueWest Magazine
One blizzardy New Mexico night, Posadas County Deputy Pasquale picks up a toddler scooting his Scamper along the shoulder of State 56.
Yes, it’s horrifying – a child apparently dumped out of a truck by his father. Nearly as horrifying is what unrolls while Christmas approaches after dad Darrell Fisher’s arrest: a request arrives from the US Forest Service to locate a missing range tech and his unit last reported headed for nearby Stinkin’ Springs, and the brutal murder of Constance Suarez in the border town of Regál, population 37.
The Sheriff’s Department is stretched to its limits as its dedicated personnel juggle working cases and caring for citizens with their own relationships and family celebrations. The irony of so much wickedness at the holidays is not lost on anyone. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman, heading out her door to a crime scene, reflects: “It would be a glorious holiday evening for somebody.”
As their mother joins her colleagues in dealing with the Fisher family, the Forest Service’s absent Myron Fitzwater, the murder, and who knows what else in Regál, Francisco and Carolos, the sons of Estelle and physician Francis, arrange to jet in to spend Christmas with their parents. Francisco the musical prodigy is now a celebrated pianist and composer with an international career. Carlos is thriving at Stanford. Both sons bring special surprises with them. And retired Sheriff Bill Gastner is cooking up a Christmas gift of his own.
In Steven Havill’s twenty-third Posadas County Mystery, family dynamics play a huge role as Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman and the whole department work to pull the right threads out of a tangle of seemingly small lies. It makes for a mix of the mundane with the harrowing. And justice for all will prove elusive
Gary Shteyngart, author of Lake Success, shares a seven-sentence holiday story in a recent video. Before watching the video, you might want to read about that book. Signed copies, as well as Shteyngart’s other books, are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2T66qh3
Here’s the description of Lake Success.
“Spectacular.”—NPR “¢ “Uproariously funny.”—The Boston Globe “¢ “An artistic triumph.”—San Francisco Chronicle “¢ “A novel in which comedy and pathos are exquisitely balanced.”—The Washington Post “¢ “Shteyngart’s best book.”—The Seattle Times
The bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story returns with a biting, brilliant, emotionally resonant novel very much of our times.
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MAUREEN CORRIGAN, NPR’S FRESH AIR AND NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review “¢ NPR “¢ The Washington Post “¢ O: The Oprah Magazine “¢ Glamour “¢ Library Journal “¢ Kirkus Reviews “¢ Newsday “¢ Pamela Paul, KQED “¢ Financial Times “¢ The Globe and Mail
Narcissistic, hilariously self-deluded, and divorced from the real world as most of us know it, hedge-fund manager Barry Cohen oversees $2.4 billion in assets. Deeply stressed by an SEC investigation and by his three-year-old son’s diagnosis of autism, he flees New York on a Greyhound bus in search of a simpler, more romantic life with his old college sweetheart. Meanwhile, his super-smart wife, Seema—a driven first-generation American who craved the picture-perfect life that comes with wealth—has her own demons to face. How these two flawed characters navigate the Shteyngartian chaos of their own making is at the heart of this piercing exploration of the 0.1 Percent, a poignant tale of familial longing and an unsentimental ode to what really makes America great.
LONGLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION
“The fuel and oxygen of immigrant literature—movement, exile, nostalgia, cultural disorientation—are what fire the pistons of this trenchant and panoramic novel. . . . [It is] a novel so pungent, so frisky and so intent on probing the dissonances and delusions—both individual and collective—that grip this strange land getting stranger.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Shteyngart, perhaps more than any American writer of his generation, is a natural. He is light, stinging, insolent and melancholy. . . . The wit and the immigrant’s sense of heartbreak—he was born in Russia—just seem to pour from him. The idea of riding along behind Shteyngart as he glides across America in the early age of Trump is a propitious one. He doesn’t disappoint.”—The New York Times
*****
Here’s Gary Shteyngart, reading his seven-sentence short story, “The Groundhog’s Revenge”.
Dana Stabenow recently wrote a post on her website. She disagreed with the titles (and I can see why) that were suggested on another site. She wrote about her own reaction. Check the Web Store for the books she mentions. https://store.poisonedpen.com/You can also read Stabenow’s posts on her site, https://stabenow.com
Okay, so I subscribe to Buzzfeed’s morning newsletter, which can be scarily informative and often unintentionally hilarious and sometimes just incredibly depressing, but then that’s the news today.
This morning the newsletter included a link to this article, 14 Books For Anyone Who’s Had A Tough Year. As I read down it with an increasing sense of incredulity, I was moved to look up synonyms for navel-gazing (on which until this moment I thought that my generation had the monopoly) and came across this perfectly delightful word, omphaloskepsis.
When I stopped laughing I decided there was nothing for it but to come up with an, ah, alt-book list, populated with engaging characters, good plots, and brave new worlds. It is the very antithesis of omphaloskepsian and is a hell of a lot more amusing than picking the lint out of your belly button. Trust me, if you’ve had a tough year, these are the books you should be reading.
There. Thirty-eight novels in four different genres, every last one of them separately or together guaranteed to make you feel better about life in general and your own in particular. I promise.
And then there’s my own Kate Shugak series,
beginning with A Cold Day for Murder,
also at $2.99 on Kindle right now.
#justsayn
Perhaps I should refer to Paul Souders’ book as the “Cold Book of the Week”, rather than the Hot one. Arctic Solitaire is subtitled “A Boat, a Boy, and the Quest for the Perfect Bear.” Signed copies are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2CmUPoa
Here’s the summary of Arctic Solitaire.
A photographer, a boat, and a somewhat quixotic quest to capture the perfect polar bear photo
“¢ Damned funny adventure tale from a gifted photographer and writer
“¢ Author is winner of prestigious National Geographic and BBC photography awards
“¢ Color photos throughout
Photographer Paul Souders considered himself a lucky guy. He traveled the world and got paid to take pictures. Yet at age fifty he seemed an unlikely explorer. Recently married, he was leading a generally contented life as an urban homebody, ending most days with a cold martini and a home-cooked meal. So how did he find himself alone aboard a tiny boat, enduring bad weather and worse cooking, while struggling to find his way across more than a thousand miles of of Hudson Bay?
It was all for a picture. He dreamed of photographing the Arctic’s most iconic animal, the polar bear, in its natural habitat.
It was a seemingly simple plan: Haul a 22-foot fishing boat northeast a few thousand miles, launch, and shoot the perfect polar bear photo. After an inauspicious start and endless days spent driving to the end of northern Canada’s road system, he backed his C-Dory, C-Sick, into a small tributary of Hudson Bay. Battered by winds and plagued by questionable navigation, Paul slowly motored C-Sick north in the hopes of finding the melting summer ice that should be home to more than a thousand polar bears. He struggled along for weeks, grounding on rocks, hiding from storms, and stopping in isolated Inuit villages, until finally, he found the ice and the world was transformed. The ice had brought hundreds of walrus into the bay and dozens of polar bears arrived to hunt and feed. For a few magical days, he was surrounded by incredible wildlife photo ops. He was hooked.
I immediately thought of Thomas Kies when I asked authors to either tell me about their favorite holiday book or their favorite books of 2018. Kies is the author of two mysteries featuring reporter Geneva Chase, Random Road and Darkness Lane. Both books, as well as the books Kies suggests, are available through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Thank you, Tom, for taking the time to write a post.
*****
I was asked to write about either my favorite Holiday book or my three favorite books from 2018. Hands down, A CHRISTMAS CAROL is my favorite holiday book. No need to recount the story because we all know it, but a couple of little-known facts are: the book was published on December 17, 1843 and was sold out in three days. By the end of 1844, thirteen editions had been printed. Dickens began writing the novella in October and finished it in six weeks to have it ready before Christmas.
One last fact, Mark Twain was in the audience when Dickens did a reading (more a performance than a reading) in New York and gave him a tepid review. “There is no heart. No feeling. It is nothing but glittering frostwork.”
So, let me talk about three of my favorite mysteries from this year. I was lucky enough to be on two panels at the Poisoned Pen Press Mystery Conference over Labor Day weekend and met a wonderful group of writers. Among them were Hank Phillippi Ryan, Stephen Mack Jones, and Ian Rankin. While I was there, I scored their latest novels and signatures and read them while riding out Hurricane Florence here on the coast of North Carolina less than two weeks after the conference.
Hank Phillippi Ryan’s book, TRUST ME, is a gripping psychological thriller featuring a grieving journalist playing a cat and mouse game with an accused killer claiming her innocence of a horrifying murder. According to the cover, there are three sides to every story. Yours, mine, and the truth. After reading her book, I say “Amen to that.”
Stephen Mack Jones’ AUGUST SNOW is a fast-paced thriller taking place in Detroit and featuring an ex-cop solving the murder of a wealthy socialite. This is a rollercoaster ride of cyber-terrorism, mercenaries, race, and urban decay. This was Mr. Jones’ debut novel and I look forward to his second.
Ian Rankin is the Scottish Grand Master of mystery writing. He’s been at it for thirty years and I had the unique opportunity to talk with him about his lead character, Detective Inspector John Rebus, now retired (sort of). After meeting Mr. Rankin, I read RATHER BE THE DEVIL (and of course, now I need to get his latest, IN A HOUSE OF LIES, already a bestseller in the UK. By the way, Rankin’s novels are best read with a Scottish burr and a tumbler of Laphroaig.
What makes these books so special to me is that not only are they terrific mysteries, but I’ve met the authors and talked with them and when I read their work, I could hear their voices in my head.
If you want to give the mystery reader in your life a great holiday gift, of course you can buy them that mystery/thriller they want. I encourage it. But better yet, sign them up for a mystery conference. There’s nothing like the experience of being with people who love a good mystery, both writers and readers.
| Register HereView the Schedule |
Meet the New Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference Over the last 15 years, we’ve prided ourselves on creating an intimate space where writers of all backgrounds, genres, and levels of experience can come together through the celebration and study of literary craft, culture, and community. This year, we’re making that experience even better. More Affordable Conferences are investments. Lowering the registration costs to $250 (down from $350 last year) makes the conference more affordable. Single day passes are available, too. Easier to Attend You’re busy. Condensing the schedule from three days down to two without losing any sessions makes attending easier to fit in. More Community Programs We’re all here. New fellowship programs, pre-conference workshops, and the Desert Nights, Rising Stars literary fair create more opportunities for writers to make real connections with each other outside of sessions, bringing the community in closer to what we do. Strengthened Values What we’re doing is important. Diverse, comprehensive sessions take deep dives into literary craft and engage with critical issues in society and literature. Come see what we’ve been up to. Meet our faculty, view the schedule, and learn more about this year’s Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference at https://piper.asu.edu/conference. Don’t forget! Early registration ends December 31 |
| Register HereView the Schedule |
Ruth Reichl was the last editor of Gourmet. She’s a chef and food writer, so her third selection for “What I’m Reading” isn’t surprising. In short videos, Penguin Random House asks writers what they’re reading. You can check for Reichl’s books, including My Kitchen Year, and the other books she suggests in Poisoned Pen’s Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com
Dana Stabenow recently sent me this post, with a request that I share it here. It’s about writing, and giving back.
1989 I was busily engaged in sending novels to New York agents and watching them return like little homing pigeons. That spring a story appeared in the local paper about a retreat for women writers on Whidbey Island in Washington state. It was calledHedgebrook. I thought, “What a wonderful opportunity for some lucky writer, but they’d never take me.” My best friend, Katherine Gottlieb, read the same storyand called me to say, “You should apply.” It took her a week of nagging until Ifinally did, and in the fall of that year I flew to Seattle, took the bus up tothe Mukilteo ferry, and was met on the other side by Holly Gault, the thenchef/manager in residence who drove me the rest of the way.
It was an old farm with five (we watched the sixth cottage go up while I was there) beautiful new post-and-beam cottages with stained glass windows and hand-woven throws, in a quiet, iconically Pacific Northwest setting where every morning I’d look up to see wild rabbits carousing out front or Nancy marching by with a rifle to scareoff the deer. On a clear day, the Seattle skyline was only a distant reminderof the madding world. I rode the farm bike to the library in Freeland and tothe beach to dig for clams and Holly took us up to Coupeville for mussels and beer.
And I wrote. I worked on anovel, I wrote a short story inspired by something I saw on the beach, I even wrote a sonnet, my one and only, and left it behind in the cottage journal.It’s pretty bad.
Dana’s original piece from Waterfall Cottage journals shared with her permission.
I was there for two weeks. I had all day in Waterfall Cottage to work without interruption, and every evening over dinner I could talk shop and tell war stories with my fellow residents, author Kathleen Alcala, poet Amy Pence, and author Susan Brown. It was a seminal, no, it was the seminal moment of my career. It was the first time anyone had ever acted around me like writing was a real job (“Sit down,”Nancy said when I got up to help clear the dinner dishes, “you’ve already doneyour work for the day.”) and it was the first time I’d ever been in the companyof other women writers. It turned out I wasn’t the only person who thoughtadjectives were important.
I sold my first book the following year. So when I unexpectedly found myself with four acres of view property in Homer, Alaska, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine what to do with it. When Hedgebrook invited me back for their 25th anniversary they toldme they could have as many as 1,400 applications for 40 spaces in a singlesemester. Unquestionably there is a need. I started a nonprofit corporation andbegan a capital campaign fund which has to date raised $500,000 of the $1million it will cost to build a main house and six cabins. We have two grant applicationspending and if they come through we will begin construction in April 2019, andwe hope to be in operation in 2020.
There is a direct line from my residency at Hedgebrook to the subsequent publication of the first of my thirty-four novels, to my appearance on the New York Times bestseller list, to my winning an Edgar award, to being named Individual Artist for the Governor’s Arts Awards in 2007.
And there is a direct line from Hedgebrook to Storyknife. It is my hope that, like Hedgebrook, Storyknife will build a sustainable community where women writers will find the support and encouragement they need to succeed.
Hedgebrook led the way. We are only following them.
Dana Stabenow’s books, including signed copies of her latest one, Death of an Eye, can be ordered through Poisoned Pen’s Web Store, https://bit.ly/2E1Ifci
Her website is https://stabenow.com