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I was about to post the recap of a recent event at The Poisoned Pen, but I saw the upcoming schedule of events, and it was too good not to share. How about a schedule that includes David Baldacci, Rhys Bowen, Janet Evanovich, and Michael Connelly, along with other terrific authors? Check out the schedule, and then you might want to preorder books through the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here’s the next couple weeks at The Poisoned Pen.
It was time to celebrate holiday mysteries at The Poisoned Pen. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, welcomed authors Paula Munier and Spencer Quinn. Quinn’s Up on the Woof Top, the latest Chet and Bernie mystery, is a Christmas story. Paula Munier’s Home at Night is set at Halloween. There are signed copies of both books available in the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Here’s the description of Up on the Woof Top.
Chet the dog, “the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction” (Boston Globe) and his human partner Bernie Little find themselves high in the mountains this holiday season to help Dame Ariadne Carlisle, a renowned author of bestselling Christmas mysteries, find Rudy, her lead reindeer and good luck charm, who has gone missing.
At Kringle Ranch, Dame Ariadne’s expansive mountain spread, Chet discovers that he is not fond of reindeer. But the case turns out to be about much more than reindeer after Dame Ariadne’s personal assistant takes a long fall into Devil’s Purse, a deep mountain gorge. When our duo discovers that someone very close to Dame Ariadne was murdered in that same spot decades earlier, they start looking into that long ago unsolved crime.
But as they reach into the past, the past is also reaching out for them. Can they unlock the secrets of Dame Ariadne’s life before they too end up at the bottom of the gorge? Is Rudy somehow the key?
Up on the Woof Top is a brand-new holiday adventure in Spencer Quinn’s delightful New York Times and USA Today bestselling series that the Los Angeles Times called “nothing short of masterful.”
Spencer Quinn is the pen name for Peter Abrahams, the Edgar-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Chet and Bernie mystery series, as well as the #1 New York Times bestselling Bowser and Birdie series for middle-grade readers. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife Diana and with his dogs Pearl and Dottie.
Here’s the summary of Paula Munier’s Home at Night.
Beware the blackbirds…
It’s Halloween in Vermont, winter is coming, and five humans, two dogs, and a cat are a crowd in Mercy Carr’s small cabin. She needs more room—and she knows just the place: Grackle Tree Farm, with thirty acres of woods and wetlands and a Victorian manor to die for. They say it’s haunted by the ghosts of missing children and lost poets and a murderer or two, but Mercy loves it anyway. Even when Elvis finds a dead body in the library.
There’s something about Grackle Tree Farm that people are willing to kill for—and Mercy needs to figure out what before they move in. A coded letter found on the victim points to a hidden treasure that may be worth a fortune—if it’s real. She and Captain Thrasher conduct a search of the old place—and end up at the wrong end of a Glock. A masked man shoots Thrasher, and she and Elvis must take him down before he murders them all. Under fire, she and Elvis manage to run the guy off, but not before they are wounded, leaving Thrasher fighting for his life in the hospital, Mercy on crutches, and Elvis on the mend.
Now it’s up to Mercy and Troy and the dogs to track down the masked murderer in a county overflowing with leaf peepers, Halloween revelers, and treasure hunters and bring him to justice before he strikes again and the treasure is lost forever, along with the good name of Grackle Tree Farm….
PAULA MUNIER is the USA TODAY bestselling author of the Mercy Carr mysteries. A Borrowing of Bones, the first in the series, was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and named the Dogwise Book of the Year. Blind Search also won a Dogwise Award. The Hiding Place and The Wedding Plot both appeared on several “Best Of” lists. HOME AT NIGHT, the fifth book in the series, was inspired by her volunteer work as a Natural Resources Steward of New Hampshire. Along with her love of nature, Paula credits the hero dogs of Mission K9 Rescue, her own rescue dogs, and a deep affection for New England as her series’ major influences. A literary agent by day, she’s also written three popular books on writing: Plot Perfect, The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings, and Writing with Quiet Hands, as well as Happier Every Day and the memoir Fixing Freddie: The True Story of a Boy, a Mom, and a Very, Very Bad Beagle. She lives in New England with her family and Bear the Newfoundland-retriever rescue, Bliss the Great Pyrenees-Australian cattle dog rescue, pandemic puppy Blondie, a Malinois rescue (much like Elvis in her books), and Ursula The Cat, a rescue torbie tabby who does not think much of the dogs. For more, check out www.paulamunier.com.
By Patrick Millikin
Boston Teran first arrived on the scene back in 1999 with the publication of God is a Bullet (which we selected for our First Mystery Club). In the years since, the pseudonymous Teran (his real identity has been kept a closely-guarded secret) has created a substantial body of work, largely ignoring genre limitations and forging his own path. In 2001, Never Count Out the Dead introduced readers to William Worth, an agoraphobic LA journalist who writes under the pen-name “Landshark.” Now, more than twenty years later, Teran has brought Worth back, just when it seems we need him most. Big Island L.A. (click to order a signed copy) is at once a classic of Los Angeles crime fiction and somehow captures the city as it is now. I’m pleased to select the book as the November selection of the Hardboiled and Noir Club. I conducted the following brief interview with Boston Teran via email. Enjoy!
1. Big Island LA is told through Landshark’s eyes and commentary. It is, as you write, “as much about the state of his Los Angeles and soul as it is about a pyramid of corruption and murder.” Why did you decide to bring him back now? It does seem like we’re at a peculiar turning point in time, and Los Angeles as always is a funhouse mirror.
Twenty years since NEVER COUNT OUT THE DEAD and Landshark… That long! Blade Runner should be collecting Social Security by now.
The Los Angeles of that first book—NEVER COUNT OUT THE DEAD—used to be utterly definable. Much of the city’s persona was born of movies, music, books, art, and television. It was a faux reality that people came to love, believe in, and lean on.
But now, Los Angeles is besieged and being broken to pieces. Not only historically, but culturally, socially. And no one is yet sure, nor is it possible to be sure, what Los Angeles will come to be, and to mean.
The city wants to portray itself as the ultimate progressive vision. A vision buffed up by social media and the soft sell, while it bears the curse of poverty, homelessness, disillusionment, and a host of lesser sufferings—all with a quiet and invisible disdain.
It seems the city would like to raze its dark side with bigger and even better dark sides. And the strain of those extremes its domineering force. Its arsenal the new era of TikTok, X, and all the usual big ticket tech platforms where lurk unseen agents known as indifference and moral paralysis.
So who better to bring down from the shelf, dust off, shine up, and let loose other than William Worth—aka Landshark—the living embodiment of Los Angeles extremes?
2. Journalists, especially “outlaw” (for lack of a better term) journalists are of such crucial importance today, challenging the perceived wisdom, giving voice to those who usually have none, and sometimes at great personal risk (I think, especially of certain heroic Mexican journalists). Are there any particular journalists who informed the character of Landshark?
If the Landshark of NEVER COUNT OUT THE DEAD was, as you rightly suggest, a classic eccentric, then the Landshark of BIG ISLAND, L.A. is a classic eccentric 2.0.
When you say that “outlaw” journalists are of crucial importance, it’s true. Because much of journalism has been taken over by critical corporate powers that have the means to reshape the world, and mean to do it.
Most of the small, independent newspapers, etc., have gone the way of the printing press. They’re museum pieces. It’s the new technologies that have opened up unchartered avenues where stories can escape to daylight, important stories that otherwise would die unnoticed.
Now it’s mostly the journalist who dies unnoticed. And they don’t even have the benefit of health insurance for all the effort.
As for who informed Landshark, he was created from the ground up—the agoraphobia, the family history of depravities and sexual abuse, the parents’ mega wealth come by way of the pharmaceutical business. He was a “modeled character,” you might say, as he was the book’s stand in for Los Angeles.
What did inform him was the L.A. WEEKLY, which I’m sure you are familiar with as the alt newspaper of that era, and the perfect home for a William Worth to become Landshark.
As an aside—for your audience—have them check out Lalo Alcaraz, whose famous cartoon strip, the first Latino themed strip, called “La Cucaracha,” first appeared in the L.A. WEEKLY of that era.
3. Ana Ride and her father are great characters. Can you write a little about what inspired them?
BIG ISLAND, L.A. is as much about a series of damaged families, families at odds with each other, broken families, lost and failed families.
Ana Ride and her father are certainly one of those families and pivotal to BIG ISLAND as they are literally the past, present, and future of a story that has them in its grip.
Now…how they came to be, especially Ana Ride. I wish I could tell you the answer came from some instant of literary provenance, or a hip contemporary article I read that became a dramatic fated moment.
The truth is much simpler, but straight out of L.A., and in that respect fits the book well.
I was at the home of a film freak friend of mine who was watching an old Hollywood movie…Wee Willie Winkie…which is itself the story of a broken family that features a child at a British military fort in India during the colonial period.
It starred Shirley Temple. Big star in her day and she was only six. In the original book by Rudyard Kipling, Wee Willie Winkie was a boy, but Hollywood juiced it up, changing the character to a girl, even squeezing in a song or two.
Now it also happens that the movie Ana and her father were watching at the beginning of the book was Wee Willie Winkie. And my film freak friend bears a telling resemblance to Ana’s father. My film freak friend also had, shall we say, a deeply flawed relationship with his own daughter.
Now, the differences between a father and daughter, especially a wounded hero of a daughter, who in some respects has “outmanned” and “outgunned” that father, who was military and LAPD himself, are born for the stuff of spontaneous literary combustion.
4. The reader will be tempted to draw parallels between Landshark’s reclusiveness and your own anonymity. The two, of course, are not quite the same. Worth is in many ways a classic Los Angeles eccentric. Do you find at this stage of the game, that your anonymity is as important as ever? I imagine that it probably is. Your books have always offered a sane perspective on history, challenging the popular narrative and our tendency to sanitize the past.
Anonymity, to me, says—I am my books.
By removing myself from the equation my books are left to live or die on their own merit. To fend for themselves with history. I neither help them nor hurt them.
Writers, as you know, are often pigeonholed by their personal lives and beliefs, their histories, as to what they can and cannot write about. I saw it coming a quarter century ago when I began.
There was no real social media then, but it was there. It just did not have quite the grasp of technology then to back up its contradictory passions.
How many writers have been limited, if not grounded, by publishers or a public that since they do one kind of book, they can’t do another?
Didn’t Mark Twain suggest publishing The Prince and the Pauper anonymously so his name for comedy would not get in the way? And wasn’t it the same for his Joan of Arc?
Anonymity, for me, is also—freedom.
I answer to no one, except those ghosts in my head that took me here. And so I have the right to go down in flames, by choice, for my choices, and I’m willing to be judged accordingly.
I appreciate your suggestion I offered a sane view on history, challenging the popular narrative and our tendency to sanitize the past. That sentence caused me to wonder: Do we sanitize the past because we have been such abject failures at cleaning up the present? And if so, are we, as a culture, aware of it?
What does your audience think?
5. Los Angeles is a shape shifter, its history endlessly mythologized. There are still ghosts of the city’s frontier past. Big Island LA really captured this beautifully. Were you at all influenced by some of the city’s classic chroniclers, such as Raymond Chandler, Dorothy B Hughes (esp. In a Lonely Place), Nathanael West, John Fante and so many others?
I love this question because it causes me to ask: How much did the literary chroniclers contribute to L.A. mythology, and how much did L.A. mythology contribute to the works of the chroniclers?
It seems it was the movies that struck a fatal blow for L.A. mythology. They made the city the poisoned giant that it is. The real west had been an essential part of L.A. history, then in no time at all, it was nothing more than film locations for westerns being shot there.
Los Angeles had become a crossroads of corruption and golden promise through the twenties and thirties and what came with it—the Raymond Chandlers, the John Fantes, the James M. Cains, the Dorothy Hugheses. A list of artists that goes on, that had a more acute and cutting contemporary vision of their world.
They were taking all that corruption and reinventing it. Creating an iconography of a city. They were putting the worst of Los Angeles to good artistic use. And Los Angeles was a willing accomplice because all that crime and corruption found its way into the work of those artists which created more mythology that books and films fed on.
You mention Dorothy Hughes and In a Lonely Place.
The book had exceptional originality, social definition, and a diamond hard view of mankind that created a bastard child, the movie, which had Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. Creating more mythology.
In its own way that set piece of book—movie—place is pure distilled L.A. An L. A. that begat websites dedicated to the book and the movie and their particular similarities and peculiar differences. And then there are the real locations and details the writer of the book used, and the L.A. locations the filmmakers used. And stories about each and comparisons to other books and movies in an ever increasing mythology.
It’s like one of those labyrinthine libraries Jorge Luis Borges was so fond of using in his pinpoint tales.
If I could ask Landshark what he thought of all this, I think I’d go to a comment I was saving for him further down the road.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m swimming in a great sea of the blind.”
Andrew Child recently appeared at The Poisoned Pen to talk about the 28th Jack Reacher thriller, The Secret. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, said this is the last Reacher that Lee Child will write with his brother. Andrew Child has a contract to write the next four books. There are signed copies of The Secret available through the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/ye3ycc96
Here’s the summary of The Secret.
The gripping new Jack Reacher thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child
A string of mysterious deaths. A long-classified mission. A young MP with nothing to lose.
1992. All across the United States respectable, upstanding citizens are showing up dead. These deaths could be accidents, and they don’t appear to be connected—until a fatal fall from a high-floor window attracts some unexpected attention.
That attention comes from the secretary of defense. All of a sudden he wants an interagency task force to investigate. And he wants Jack Reacher as the army’s representative. If Reacher gets a result, great. If not, he’s a convenient fall guy.
But office politics isn’t Reacher’s thing. Three questions quickly emerge: Who’s with him, who’s against him, and will the justice he dispenses be the official kind . . . or his own kind?
Lee Child is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher series and the complete Jack Reacher story collection, No Middle Name. Foreign rights in the Reacher series have sold in one hundred territories. A native of England and a former television director, Lee Child lives in New York City and Wyoming.
Andrew Child, who also writes as Andrew Grant, is the author of RUN, False Positive, False Friend, False Witness, Invisible, and Too Close to Home. He is the #1 bestselling co-author of the Jack Reacher novels The Sentinel, Better Off Dead, and No Plan B. Child and his wife, the novelist Tasha Alexander, live on a wildlife preserve in Wyoming.
Enjoy the conversation as Andrew Child talks about family, and Jack Reacher.
The Poisoned Pen recently hosted Historicon, an event with multiple authors who write about various historical periods. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, introduce brother and sister,Boyd & Beth Morrison, Tasha Alexander and Stephanie Barron. You can order signed copies of their books through the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Boyd and Beth Morrison’s latest book is The Last True Templar. Here’s the summary.
The thrilling new historical adventure from New York Times bestselling author Boyd Morrison and expert medievalist Beth Morrison. Fox and Willa find themselves on a dangerous quest for the treasure of the Templar Knights.A Perilous Quest. A Deadly Legacy.
Italy, 1351. English knight Gerard Fox and the resourceful Willa have come through a death-defying journey across war-torn Europe. Now looking towards their future together, they must first find a way to reconcile with their difficult pasts.
In a small village between Florence and Siena, Fox and Willa are caught up in a deadly ambush. After rescuing the enigmatic woman who is the target of the attack, they take refuge in her opulent villa and learn her heartbreaking story – a tale of loss, deception… and a burning desire for freedom.
Soon, Fox and Willa are involved in a perilous quest to save her family’s legacy… and to do so, they will have to solve a mystery that points the way to the fabled lost treasure of the Knights Templar.
Reviewers on the TALES OF THE LAWLESS LAND series:
‘The brother/sister team of Boyd and Beth Morrison brings the Middle Ages to life in vivid detail. This thriller has it all!’ Graham Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author
‘A novel full of both authenticity and thrills… Readers are sure to clamor for more from this writing duo.’ Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times bestselling author
‘Historical fiction fans will eagerly await the couple’s further adventures.’ Publishers Weekly starred review
‘Combines the rich historical tapestry of Umberto Eco and the relentless pace and adventure of Clive Cussler into a brilliant new series.’ J.T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author
Boyd Morrison is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twelve thrillers, including six with Clive Cussler. His first novel, The Ark, was an Indie Next Notable pick and was translated into over a dozen languages. He has a PhD in industrial engineering from Virginia Tech. He lives in Seattle.
Follow Boyd on: @BoydMorrison IG: @BoydMorrisonWriter www.facebook.com/BoydMorrisonWriter
Beth Morrison is Senior Curator of Manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She has curated major exhibitions including ‘Imagining the Past in France, 1250-1500’, and ‘Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World’. She has a PhD in the History of Art from Cornell University. She lives in Los Angeles.
Follow Beth on: @BethMorrisonPhd IG: @BethMorrisonWriter www.facebook.com/BethMorrisonWriter
Here’s the summary of Tasha Alexander’s new book, A Cold Highland Wind.
In this new installment of Tasha Alexander’s acclaimed Lady Emily series set in the wild Scottish highlands, an ancient story of witchcraft may hold the key to solving a murder centuries later.
In the summer of 1905, Lady Emily, husband Colin Hargreaves, and their three sons eagerly embark on a family vacation at Cairnfarn Castle, the Scottish estate of their dear friend Jeremy, Duke of Bainbridge. But a high-spirited celebration at the beginning of their stay comes to a grisly end when the duke’s gamekeeper is found murdered on the banks of the loch. Handsome Angus Sinclair had a host of enemies: the fiancée he abandoned in Edinburgh, the young woman who had fallen hopelessly in love with him, and the rough farmer who saw him as a rival for her affections. But what is the meaning of the curious runic stone left on Sinclair’s forehead?
Clues may be found in the story of Lady MacAllister, wife of the Laird of Cairnfarn Castle, who in 1676 suddenly found herself widowed and thrown out of her home. Her sole companion was a Moorish slave girl who helped her secretly spirit her most prized possessions—a collection of strange books—out of the castle. When her neighbors, wary of a woman living on her own, found a poppet—a doll used to cast spells—and a daisy wheel in her isolated cottage, Lady MacAllister was accused of witchcraft, a crime punishable by death.
Hundreds of years later, Lady Emily searches for the link between Lady MacAllister’s harrowing witchcraft trial and the brutal death of Sinclair. She must follow a trail of hidden motives, an illicit affair, and a mysterious stranger to reveal the dark side of a seemingly idyllic Highland village.
TASHA ALEXANDER is the author of the New York Times bestselling Lady Emily mystery series. The daughter of two philosophy professors, she studied English literature and medieval history at the University of Notre Dame. She and her husband, novelist Andrew Grant, live on a ranch in southeastern Wyoming.
Stephanie Barron’s last Jane Austen book is Jane Austen and the Final Mystery.
The final volume of the critically acclaimed mystery series featuring Jane Austen as amateur sleuth
March 1817: As winter turns to spring, Jane Austen’s health is in slow decline, and threatens to cease progress on her latest manuscript. But when her nephew Edward brings chilling news of a death at his former school, Winchester College, not even her debilitating ailment can keep Jane from seeking out the truth. Arthur Prendergast, a senior pupil at the prestigious all-boys’ boarding school, has been found dead in a culvert near the schoolgrounds—and in the pocket of his drenched waistcoat is an incriminating note penned by the young William Heathcote, the son of Jane’s dear friend Elizabeth. Winchester College is a world unto itself, with its own language and rites of passage, cruel hazing and dangerous pranks. Can Jane clear William’s name before her illness gets the better of her?
Over the course of fourteen previous novels in the critically acclaimed Being a Jane Austen Mystery series, Stephanie Barron has won the hearts of thousands of fans—crime fiction aficionados and Janeites alike—with her tricky plotting and breathtaking evocation of Austen’s voice. Now, she brings Jane’s final season—and final murder investigation—to brilliant, poignant life in this unforgettable conclusion.
Stephanie Barron is a graduate of Princeton and Stanford Universities, where she studied history. A former intelligence analyst at the CIA, she is the author of thirty novels, including the critically acclaimed Merry Folger series, which she writes under the name Francine Mathews. She lives and works in Denver, Colorado. Visit her online at www.stephaniebarron.com.
If you’re a fan of historical novels, enjoy the Historicon event.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Danielle Valentine and Ashley Winstead to the bookstore. It was Valentine’s first visit to the bookstore, while Winstead has appeared for all of her books. Signed books by both authors are available in the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/ Valentine’s book is Delicate Condition, and Winstead’s is Midnight is the Darkest Hour.
Here’s the description of Delicate Condition.
Hush little baby, don’t say a word…
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK!
As seen in People, Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, Shondaland, Goodreads, and more!
…Mama’s going to show you the horrors she’s endured.
Anna Alcott is desperate to have a family. But as she tries to balance her increasingly public life as an indie actress with a grueling IVF journey, she starts to suspect that someone is going to great lengths to make sure that never happens. Crucial medicines are lost. Appointments get swapped without her knowledge. Cryptic warnings have her jumping at shadows. And despite everything she’s gone through to make this pregnancy a reality, not even her husband is willing to believe that someone is playing twisted games with her.
Then her doctor tells her she’s had a miscarriage—except Anna’s convinced she’s still pregnant despite everything the grave-faced men around her claim. She can feel the baby moving inside her, can see the strain it’s taking on her weakening body. Vague warnings become direct threats as someone stalks her through the bleak ghost town of the snowy Hamptons. As her symptoms and sense of danger grow ever more horrifying, Anna can’t help but wonder what exactly she’s carrying inside of her…and why no one will listen when she says something is horribly, painfully wrong.
DELICATE CONDITION IS:
“A twisty, page-turner with unsettling details and crackling writing that’s also a timely critique of sexism in modern medicine.” —Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author of We Were Never Here
“A spooky, devour-in-one-sitting story that’s guaranteed to have everyone talking.”—Leah Konen, author of You Should Have Told Me
“A frightening, propulsive read brimming with brutal truths about motherhood, autonomy, and the everyday horror of not being believed. This twisty horror thriller will have you guessing until the staggering end.” —Rachel Harrison, National Bestselling author of Cackle and Such Sharp teeth
“Beautifully written, unbearably tense, and deeply scary. A modern fairy tale that asks what we’d be willing to sacrifice for the thing we want most.” —Katie Gutierrez, National Bestselling author of More Than You’ll Ever Know
DANIELLE VALENTINE is a pseudonym for the young adult novelist Danielle Vega. Her work, which includes The Merciless series, has been optioned for film and television by Lionsgate and Warner Bros, and has been translated into dozens of languages worldwide. Danielle lives outside of New York city with her husband, daughter, and two ornery cats. Delicate Condition is her first adult novel.
Check out the summary of Ashley Winstead’s Midnight is the Darkest Hour.
From the critically acclaimed author of In My Dreams I Hold A Knife and The Last Housewife comes Midnight is the Darkest Hour, a gothic Southern thriller about a killer haunting a small Louisiana town, where two outcasts—the preacher’s daughter and the boy from the wrong side of the tracks—hold the key to uncovering the truth.
For fans of Verity and A Flicker in the Dark, Midnight is the Darkest Hour is a twisted tale of murder, obsessive love, and the beastly urges that lie dormant within us all…even the God-fearing folk of Bottom Springs, Louisiana. In her small hometown, librarian Ruth Cornier has always felt like an outsider, even as her beloved father rains fire-and-brimstone warnings from the pulpit at Holy Fire Baptist. Unfortunately for Ruth, the only things the townspeople fear more than the God and the Devil are the myths that haunt the area, like the story of the Low Man, a vampiric figure said to steal into sinners’ bedrooms and kill them on moonless nights. When a skull is found deep in the swamp next to mysterious carved symbols, Bottom Springs is thrown into uproar—and Ruth realizes only she and Everett, an old friend with a dark past, have the power to comb the town’s secret underbelly in search of true evil.
A dark and powerful novel like fans have come to expect from Ashley Winstead, Midnight is the Darkest Hour is an examination of the ways we’ve come to expect love, religion, and stories to save us, the lengths we have to go to in order to take back power, and the monstrous work of being a girl in this world.
“Where The Crawdads Sing meets Twilight meets Thelma and Louise in this brilliantly realized, totally original thriller. Absolutely sensational—I couldn’t put it down.” —Clare Mackintosh, New York Times bestselling author
Ashley Winstead is an academic turned novelist with a Ph.D. in contemporary American literature. She lives in Houston with her husband, two cats, and beloved wine fridge. You can find her at www.ashleywinstead.com.
Enjoy the conversation!
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Lev AC Rosen to the bookstore. Rosen’s Lavender House was a big hit last year. Now, he follows up with the same character, Evander “Andy” Mills with The Bell in the Fog. There are signed copies available in the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/mvrnb68w
Here’s the summary of The Bell in the Fog.
The Bell in the Fog, a dazzling historical mystery by Lev AC Rosen, asks—once you have finally found a family, how far would you go to prove yourself to them?
San Francisco, 1952. Detective Evander “Andy” Mills has started a new life for himself as a private detective—but his business hasn’t exactly taken off. It turns out that word spreads fast when you have a bad reputation, and no one in the queer community trusts him enough to ask an ex-cop for help.
When James, an old flame from the war who had mysteriously disappeared, arrives in his offices above the Ruby, Andy wants to kick him out. But the job seems to be a simple case of blackmail, and Andy’s debts are piling up. He agrees to investigate, despite everything it stirs up.
The case will take him back to the shadowy, closeted world of the Navy, and then out into the gay bars of the city, where the past rises up to meet him, like the swell of the ocean under a warship. Missing people, violent strangers, and scandalous photos that could destroy lives are a whirlpool around him, and Andy better make sense of it all before someone pulls him under for good.
LEV AC ROSEN writes books for people of all ages, including the Anthony and Lambda Literary Award nominated Lavender House. His YA novel Camp was a best book of the year from Forbes, Elle, and The Today Show, among others, and is a Lambda finalist and ALA Rainbow List Top Ten. He lives in NYC with his husband and a very small cat. You can find him online at LevACRosen.com and @LevACRosen.
Enjoy the conversation, including the discussion of Agatha Christie, locked room mysteries, and country house mysteries.
Karen Shaver from The Poisoned Pen recently welcomed Tim Johnston to discuss his latest book, Distant Sons. Although there are characters from Johnston’s last two books, this is a standalone. You don’t need to have read the earlier books to enjoy this one. You can order it through the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/5n8zabdu
Here’s the description of Distant Sons.
WHAT IF?
What if Sean Courtland’s old Chevy truck had broken down somewhere else? What if he’d never met Denise Givens, a waitress at a local tavern, and gotten into a bar fight defending her honor? Or offered a ride to Dan Young, another young man like Sean, burdened by secrets and just drifting through the small Wisconsin town?
Instead, Sean enlists Dan’s help with a construction job in the basement of a local—the elderly, reclusive Marion Devereaux—and gradually the two men come to realize that they’ve washed up in a place haunted by the disappearance of three young boys decades earlier. As Sean and Dan’s friendship deepens, and as Sean gets closer to Denise and her father, they come to the attention of a savvy local detective, Corrine Viegas, who has her own reasons for digging into Dan’s past—and for being unable to resist the pull of the town’s unsolved mystery. And with each chance connection, an irreversible chain of events is set in motion that culminates in shattering violence and the revelation of long-buried truths.
Gripping and immersive, this crime novel by bestselling author Tim Johnston becomes so much more: a book about friendship and love and good hard work—and a masterful read about how the most random intersection of lives can have consequences both devastating and beautiful.
Tim Johnston is the author of the novels Descent, The Current, the story collection Irish Girl, and the young adult novel Never So Green. He holds degrees from the University of Iowa and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the recipient of the 2015 Iowa Author Award and currently lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
Enjoy Tim Johnston’s discussion of his writing and Distant Sons.
John Charles recently welcomed Kristin Cipolla and Erin Galloway from Berkley Books. The two industry professionals had the chance to talk about this fall’s forthcoming romance titles from Berkley. Charles stressed that people can preorder all the titles through The Poisoned Pen’s Website. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
If you’re a fan of romances, or want to hear about forthcoming books, enjoy the conversation.
Actor and debut author Richard Armitage recently joined Barbara Peters from The Poisoned Pen to discuss his debut novel, Geneva. There are copies available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/46wAs3v
Here’s the summary of Geneva.
A bold and unpredictable debut thriller set in the biotech world (and deceptive beauty) of Switzerland, by acclaimed actor Richard Armitage.
Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sarah Collier has taken a step back from work to spend more time with her family. Movie nights with her husband Daniel and their daughter Maddie are a welcome respite from the scrutiny of the world’s press. As much as it hurts, it’s good to be able to see her father more too. He’s suffering from Alzheimer’s and needs special care.
Sarah has started to show tell-tale signs of the disease too. She’s been experiencing blackouts and memory loss. It’s early days but she must face the possibility that she won’t be there to see her daughter grow up. Daniel, a neuroscientist himself, is doing his best to be supportive but she already knows that she will have to be the strong one. For all of them.
So when Sarah is invited to be the guest of honour at a prestigious biotech conference in Geneva she declines, wanting to stay out of the public eye—that is until Daniel shows her the kind of work that the enigmatic Mauritz Schiller has been developing.
Flown first class to the spectacular alpine city and housed in a luxury hotel, Sarah and Daniel are thrust back into the spotlight. As they try to shut out the noise of the public media storm, in private Sarah is struggling with her escalating symptoms. And the true extent of what Schiller has achieved is a revelation. This is technology that could change medicine forever. More than that, it could save Sarah’s life.
But technology so valuable attracts all kinds of interest. Wealthy investors are circling, controversial blogger Terri Landau is all over the story, and someone close to Schiller seems bent on taking advantage of the situation for themselves. Sarah feels threatened and does not know who to trust—including herself. Far from being her lifeline Schiller’s technology may be her undoing.
As events spiral out of control, Sarah and Daniel are faced with the ultimate question: how far would you go for someone you love?
Richard Armitage is a multi-award winning stage, screen, and voice actor best known for his roles in Peter Jackson’s trilogy of The Hobbit; Captain America: The First Avenger; Alice Through the Looking Glass; Ocean’s 8; and the recent Netflix series The Stranger. Geneva is his first novel. Richard lives in London and New York City.
Enjoy Richard Armitage’s appearance to talk about his debut novel, Geneva.