Fiction Review

You may have watched some of the Poisoned Pen’s events on Livestream in the past. Times change, and the bookstore filmed a recent event and party for YouTube. Rhys Bowen brought her latest Royal Spyness Mystery, Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding, to the bookstore, despite the 112 degree heat in Scottsdale, Arizona. To avoid spoilers, Bowen and bookstore owner Barbara Peters discussed threads that have run through the series. You can watch the program on YouTube. https://youtu.be/xNP84XxnFbk

If you haven’t picked up a copy of the new Lady Georgiana Rannoch mystery, you can order a signed copy of Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding, and other mysteries by Rhys Bowen, through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2LV4U1i

Here’s the summary of Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding.

In the days leading up to her wedding to Darcy O’Mara, Lady Georgiana Rannoch takes on the responsibilities of a grand estate, but proving she can run a household just may be the death of her in the new Royal Spyness Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service.

If only Darcy and I had eloped! What I thought would be a simple wedding has been transformed into a grand affair, thanks to the attendance of the queen, who has offered up the princesses as bridesmaids. Silly me! I thought that withdrawing from the royal line of succession would simplify my life. But before Darcy and I tie the knot in front of queen and country, we have to find a place to live as man and wife…

House hunting turns out to be a pretty grim affair. Just as we start to lose hope, my globetrotting godfather offers us his fully staffed country estate. Mistress of Eynsleigh I shall be! With Darcy off in parts unknown, I head to Eynsleigh alone, only to have my hopes dashed. The grounds are in disarray and the small staff is suspiciously incompetent. Not to mention the gas tap leak in my bedroom, which I can only imagine was an attempt on my life. Something rotten is afoot–and bringing the place up to snuff may put me six feet under before I even get a chance to walk down the aisle…

You may know Joe Hill as the author of Strange Weather or The Fireman, and other bestselling novels. You might know him as Stephen King’s son. (Hill’s books are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2OpPcJ7)

But, Isaac Stanley-Becker’s recent article in The Washington Post points out that Hill is as curious about cold cases as the rest of us. In “A “˜tantalizing’ theory from Stephen King’s son: Shark thriller “˜Jaws’ holds the clue to an unsolved 1974 murder”, Stanley-Becker discusses Joe Hill’s theory about the identity of a murder victim. https://wapo.st/2OWZaCL

It’s a fascinating article and theory. But, one line did make me laugh. Joe Hill is quoted as saying his father is fascinated about this theory as well. “Everyone in my family likes a good bit of weird,  unsettling Americana,” the writer said.

With Our House, British author Louise Candlish makes her American debut. It’s a story of domestic suspense in which secrets are kept from spouses. It’s available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2LZ1JGI

Candlish recently did an interview for Shelf Awareness. You can read it here. https://bit.ly/2vnktWe

Here’s the summary of Our House, although Candlish summarizes it in one sentence. “It’s about a man who sells the family home without his wife’s knowledge.”

From an internationally acclaimed author, a disturbing and addictive novel of domestic suspense where secrets kept hidden from spouses cause shocking surprises that hit home…

There’s nothing unusual about a new family moving in at 91 Trinity Avenue. Except it’s her house. And she didn’t sell it.

When Fiona Lawson comes home to find strangers moving into her house, she’s sure there’s been a mistake. She and her estranged husband, Bram, have a modern coparenting arrangement: bird’s nest custody, where each parent spends a few nights a week with their two sons at the prized family home to maintain stability for their children. But the system built to protect their family ends up putting them in terrible jeopardy. In a domino effect of crimes and misdemeanors, the nest comes tumbling down.

Now Bram has disappeared and so have Fiona’s children. As events spiral well beyond her control, Fiona will discover just how many lies her husband was weaving and how little they truly knew each other. But Bram’s not the only one with things to hide, and some secrets are best kept to oneself, safe as houses.

Susanna Kearsley’s Bellewether is the current Hot Book of the Week at the Poisoned Pen. You can order a signed copy of it, or copies of Kearsley’s other novels, through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2AQkAys

Of course, you know about the event on Friday evening, August 10, don’t you? At 7 PM that evening, there is a ticketed event at the Poisoned Pen. Kearsley will sign copies of Bellewether. The event is hosted by Diana Gabaldon. Tickets are $20, and they entitle you to a paperback of one of three titles, including Bellewether. Details are available here. https://bit.ly/2OfnjDx

Tickets were going fast, so you must call the bookstore to buy them or find out if there are any left. Here are the numbers – 480 947 2974 or 888 560 9919.

*****

Here’s the summary of Bellewether.

“I’ve loved every one of Susanna’s books! She has bedrock research and a butterfly’s delicate touch with characters—sure recipe for historical fiction that sucks you in and won’t let go!”— DIANA GABALDON, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Outlander

“The house, when I first saw it, seemed intent on guarding what it knew; but we all learned, by the end of it, that secrets aren’t such easy things to keep.”

It’s late summer, war is raging, and families are torn apart by divided loyalties and deadly secrets. In this complex and dangerous time, a young French Canadian lieutenant is captured and billeted with a Long Island family, an unwilling and unwelcome guest. As he begins to pitch in with the never-ending household tasks and farm chores, Jean-Philippe de Sabran finds himself drawn to the daughter of the house. Slowly, Lydia Wilde comes to lean on Jean-Philippe, true soldier and gentleman, until their lives become inextricably intertwined. Legend has it that the forbidden love between Jean-Philippe and Lydia ended tragically, but centuries later, the clues they left behind slowly unveil the true story.

Part history, part romance, and all kinds of magic, Susanna Kearsley’s latest masterpiece will draw you in and never let you go, even long after you’ve closed the last page.

Michael Brandman, author of the second Buddy Steel mystery for Poisoned Pen Press, One on One, returns to the Poisoned Pen on Wednesday, Aug. 8 at 7 PM to discuss this series and sign books. If you can’t make it, you can order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2vlzgAJ

Would you like to know what the critics are saying about One on One? Here’s Elise Cooper’s review at Crimespree Magazine.  https://bit.ly/2M1FfUI

Cooper’s review ends with, “Buddy is a likeable character who uses self-deprecating humor, sometimes acting like an overgrown schoolboy. He is easygoing and can handle people poking fun at him. Being smart, caring, and understanding of people’s emotional pain, Buddy has a moral sense of right versus wrong.

“Readers will enjoy this fast-paced mystery.  With well-developed characters and a plot that takes issues straight from the headlines, this is a good read.”

*****

Here’s the summary of One on One.

When legendary Sheriff Burton Steel summoned his son Buddy home from LAPD Homicide, a reluctant Buddy agreed. Burton is debilitated by ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease. While Buddy is to cover his back, not an assignment he wants, the clincher is it’s his last chance to connect with his proud, overbearing parent.

What Buddy didn’t expect was to encounter crime in Freedom, a privileged coastal community a hundred miles north of Los Angeles, as vicious and challenging as that of the city.

One spring morning, the latest challenge erupts. The brutal murder of a prominent Freedom High School sports coach leads Buddy into a clandestine universe of sexual deception, play parties, unwitting athletes, over-privileged youths, treacherous bullies, and shocking malfeasance.

At the same time, a sudden scourge of graffiti is disfiguring both public and private property, despoiling the beauty and serenity of Freedom’s unassuming landscape. Outraged, knowing he has few legal weapons to wield, Buddy is forced to find new and challenging ways to thwart the street artist, or artists, responsible. Irreverent and imaginative, not to say manipulative, Buddy is just the man for the job.

Buddy’s plate is soon full and the stakes are enormous as he sets about bringing resolution to a glut of seemingly irresolute occurrences.

One on One follows Missing Persons, Buddy’s first investigation in Freedom.

Did you see George Blecher’s article, “Murder, Politics and Architecture: The Making of Madison Square Park” in the recent New York Times? https://nyti.ms/2OEDbk1

It’s a fascinating article about the area, with historical photos and background. Readers of mysteries and other books will find all kinds of connections if you look carefully. There’s a beautiful photo of the Flatiron Building, the current home of Macmillan publishers. There’s a story about Senator Roscoe Conkling and his death during the Great Blizzard of 1888. That story is part of Rosemary Simpson’s historical mystery set during the Gilded Age, What the Dead Leave Behind.

You can find Simpson’s books about New York in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2OJxMYM

And, I’m sure you’ll find other historical mysteries about New York City, including Rhys Bowen’s Molly Murphy books, Caleb Carr’s books, such as The Alienist, Lyndsay Faye’s The Gods of Gotham. Don’t hesitate to ask the Poisoned Pen staff for help.

In some areas of the country, kids are going back to school this week. It seems so early, with another month of summer. As an adult, you might not have the summer off. Whether or not you do, you can still take time for a cozy getaway. Shari Randall recently wrote about “New England Cozy Mysteries: 7 New England Destinations for Armchair Mystery Lovers.” Her article is featured in CriminalElement.com.  https://bit.ly/2OIBoKN

Randall herself has a new Lobster Shack mystery, Against the Claw. Once you’ve read her article, you can order her book, or any of the other titles covered. Check out the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com

If you take the time to watch the Del Rey Books Panel from the San Diego Comic-Con, you’ll recognize some familiar faces and authors. Local favorite Kevin Hearne is on the panel, along with his co-author for Kill the Farm Boy, Delilah S. Dawson. Once you read the short summary, you might want to watch the video and check out their books.  Don’t forget to check the Web Store for the books, including signed copies of Kill the Farm Boy. https://store.poisonedpen.com

Here’s the information about the Del Rey panel.

Adventure, SFF, and fairy tale authors discuss their new and upcoming books. Featuring Katherine Arden (The Winternight trilogy), Pierce Brown (Red Rising series), Delilah S. Dawson (Kill the Farm Boy), Christie Golden (World of Warcraft: Before the Storm), Kevin Hearne (Kill the Farm Boy), Sylvain Neuvel (The Themis Files), and Naomi Novik (Spinning Silver). Moderated by Tricia Narwani (Del Rey editorial director).

Poisoned Pen Press author Sulari Gentill continues to appear on award lists in Australia. Her novel, Crossing the Lines, is still on the shortlist for the Ned Kelly Awards. You can order Crossing the Lines, and Gentill’s other novels through the Web Store.  https://bit.ly/2N5KsYB

The Australian Crime Writers Association just announced the shortlists for the 21st Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Fiction. The Ned Kelly Awards celebrate the best in Australian crime fiction and true crime. The shortlists have been drawn from over seventy five entries across three award categories.

Six exceptional crime novels made it onto the shortlist of the the Best Crime Fiction Award. The list includes multiple Ned Kelly Award winners Garry Disher and Candice Fox as well as newcomers to the shortlist. The shortlist includes:

• Marlborough Man by Alan Carter
• Under Cold Bright Lights by Garry Disher
• Redemption Point by Candice Fox
• Crossing the Lines by Sulari Gentill
• The Lone Child by Anna George
• The Student by Iain Ryan

There are two other categories of Ned Kelly Awards.

The shortlist for the Best Debut Crime has four entries from writers who are already being widely recognized for their contribution to the genre:

• Wimmera by Mark Brandi
• The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey
• The Girl in Kellers Way by Megan Goldin
• See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

The Best True Crime shortlist is a mix of academic, adventure, historic and courtroom stories:

• The Contractor by Mark Abernethy
• Unmaking a Murder: The Mysterious Death of Anna-Jane Cheney by Graham Archer
• The Suitcase Baby by Tanya Bretherton
• The Fatalist by Campbell McConachie
• Whiteley on Trial by Gabriella Coslovich

The winners will be announced during the Melbourne Writers Festival with the awards ceremony on August 26th.

*****

Congratulations to Sulari Gentill for making the shortlist for the Ned Kelly Awards. Here’s the description of Gentill’s Crossing the Lines.

“As one for whom certain story lines and characters have become as real as life itself, Crossing the Lines was a pure delight, a swift yet psychologically complex read, cleverly conceived and brilliantly executed.” –Dean Koontz, New York Times Bestselling author

Sulari Gentill, author of the 1930s Rowland Sinclair Mysteries, jumps to the post-modern in Crossing the Lines.

A successful writer, Madeleine, creates a character, Edward, and begins to imagine his life. He, too, is an author. Edward is in love with a woman, Willow, who’s married to a man Edward loathes, and who loathes him, but he and Willow stay close friends. She’s an artist. As Madeleine develops the plot, Edward attends a gallery show where a scummy critic is flung down a flight of fire stairs…murdered. Madeleine, still stressed from her miscarriages and grieving her inability to have a child, grows more and more enamored of Edward, spending more and more time with him and the progress of the investigation and less with her physician husband, Hugh, who in turn may be developing secrets of his own.

As Madeline engages more with Edward, he begins to engage back. A crisis comes when Madeleine chooses the killer in Edward’s story and Hugh begins to question her immersion in her novel. Yet Crossing the Lines is not about collecting clues and solving crimes. Rather it’s about the process of creation, a gradual undermining of the authority of the author as the act of writing spirals away and merges with the story being told, a self-referring narrative crossing over boundaries leaving in question who to trust, and who and what is true.

For fans of Paul Auster, Jesse Kellerman, Vera Caspary’s Laura, Martin Amis, Haruki Murakami, Marisha Pessl.