Even If It Kills Her – Kate White on Writing

Kate White brings back true crime writer Bailey Wiggins in her latest novel, Even If It Kills Her. You can order a copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2zRUqWM

Even If it Kills Her

First, you might want to read the summary.

Kate White returns to her New York Times bestselling Bailey Weggins’ Mystery series, with this favorite true-crime journalist turned sleuth’s most chilling case to date.

Bailey Weggins’ great new friend in college, Jillian Lowe, had everything going for her. Pretty, popular, and whip-smart, she lit up any room that she walked into. All of that dramatically changed during her sophomore year, when a neighbor became unhinged and murdered her family. Jillian immediately left school, and ever since, Bailey has felt guilty for not staying in closer contact and being a greater support to her friend.

Now, sixteen years later, Bailey is shocked to see Jillian at her book event, and even more stunned when her still-gorgeous friend approaches her with a case. The man accused of murdering her family is on the brink of being cleared of the crime through new DNA evidence. With the real killer walking free, Jillian is desperate for Bailey’s help to identify him and allow her the closure she yearns for.

As the two women return to Jillian’s childhood town to investigate, it doesn’t take long for their sleuthing to cause shock waves. Someone starts watching their every move. As they uncover deeply-guarded secrets, so shocking that they make Jillian rethink her entire relationship to her family, Bailey and Jillian find themselves in great peril. They must decide just how much they’re willing to risk to finally discover the truth about the Lowe family’s murder.

*****

Intrigued? You can also read John Valeri’s interview with author Kate White. It’s available on CriminalElement.com, at https://bit.ly/2z6diEa.

Scott Kelly’s Endurance – Hot Book of the Week

The Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen is a memoir, Scott Kelly’s Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery. You can order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2hlhPch

Endurance

Here’s the summary.

A stunning, personal memoir from the astronaut and modern-day hero who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station—a message of hope for the future that will inspire for generations to come.

The veteran of four spaceflights and the American record holder for consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few have. Now, he takes us inside a sphere utterly hostile to human life. He describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both life-threatening and mundane: the devastating effects on the body; the isolation from everyone he loves and the comforts of Earth; the catastrophic risks of colliding with space junk; and the still more haunting threat of being unable to help should tragedy strike at home–an agonizing situation Kelly faced when, on a previous mission, his twin brother’s wife, American Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot while he still had two months in space.

Kelly’s humanity, compassion, humor, and determination resonate throughout, as he recalls his rough-and-tumble New Jersey childhood and the youthful inspiration that sparked his astounding career, and as he makes clear his belief that Mars will be the next, ultimately challenging, step in spaceflight.

In Endurance, we see the triumph of the human imagination, the strength of the human will, and the infinite wonder of the galaxy.

A Must-See – Anatomy of Innocence

When Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, hosted Laura Caldwell and Leslie S. Klinger, she turned the program over to them as editors of Anatomy of Innocence.  You can order a signed copy of this remarkable book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2yaB5Uf

Anatomy

Why do I refer to it as remarkable? It includes pieces by authors such as Sara Paretsky, Scott Turow, Michael Harvey, Lee Child, dealing with The Innocence Project and testimony by people who were wrongly convicted of crimes, did prison time, and were eventually exonerated. You can watch the conversation on Livestream. https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/7872072

If you don’t have time to watch the entire program now, here’s the summary.

Wrongful convictions, long regarded as statistical anomalies in an otherwise sound justice system, now appear with frightening regularity. But few people understand just how or why they happen and, more important, the immeasurable consequences that often haunt the lucky few who are acquitted, years after they are proven innocent.

Now, in this groundbreaking anthology, fourteen exonerated inmates narrate their stories to a roster of high-profile mystery and thriller writers—including Lee Child, Sara Paretsky, Laurie R. King, Jan Burke and S. J. Rozan—while another exoneree’s case is explored in a previously unpublished essay by legendary playwright Arthur Miller. An astonishing and unique collaboration, these testimonies bear witness to the incredible stories of innocent men and women who were convicted of serious crimes and cast into the maw of a vast and deeply flawed American criminal justice system before eventually, and miraculously, being exonerated.

Introduced by best-selling authors Scott Turow and Barry Scheck, these master storytellers capture the tragedy of wrongful convictions as never before and challenge readers to confront the limitations and harsh realities of the American criminal justice system. Lee Child tells of Kirk Bloodsworth, who obsessively read about the burgeoning field of DNA testing, cautiously hoping that it held the key to his acquittal—until he eventually became the first person to be exonerated from death row based on DNA evidence. Judge John Sheldon and author Gayle Lynds team up to share Audrey Edmunds’s experience raising her children long distance from her prison cell. And exoneree Gloria Killian recounts to S. J. Rozan her journey from that fateful “knock on the door” and the initial shock of accusation to the scars she carries today.

Together, the powerful stories collected within the Anatomy of Innocence detail every aspect of the experience of wrongful conviction, as well as the remarkable depths of endurance sustained by each exoneree who never lost hope.

New Best Seller – John Sandford’s Deep Freeze

John Sandford’s latest Virgil Flowers novel debuts at #2 on The New York Times Best Seller List this week. Deep Freeze is available through the Web Store, along with a custom designed magnet. Order your signed copy, https://bit.ly/2yUbGvh. That custom designed magnet represents the school crest from the book.

Deep Freeze

Here’s the summary of the new Virgil Flowers book.

Class reunions: a time for memories—good, bad, and, as Virgil Flowers is about to find out, deadly—in the thrilling new novel in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series.

Virgil knows the town of Trippton, Minnesota, a little too well. A few years back, he investigated the corrupt—and as it turned out, homicidal—local school board, and now the town’s back in view with more alarming news: A woman’s been found dead, frozen in a block of ice. There’s a possibility that it might be connected to a high school class of twenty years ago that has a mid-winter reunion coming up, and so, wrapping his coat a little tighter, Virgil begins to dig into twenty years’ worth of traumas, feuds, and bad blood. In the process, one thing becomes increasingly clear to him. It’s true what they say: High school is murder.

Lost Luggage – Ripped from the Headlines

Wendall Thomas’ debut novel, Lost Luggage, is about animal trafficking. The mystery may seem outrageous at times, but not when you read Makeda Easter’s article for the Los Angeles Times, “‘Operation Jungle Book’ leads to federal criminal charges against suspected wildlife traffickers”, https://lat.ms/2iCh1mI

Intrigued? Here’s the link to Lost Luggage in the Web Store, followed by the summary of this first mystery in a new series. https://bit.ly/2i7kXYW

Lost Luggage

Cyd Redondo, a young, third-generation Brooklyn travel agent who specializes in senior citizens, has never ventured farther than New Jersey. Yet even Jersey proves risky when her Travel Agents’ Convention fling, Roger Claymore, leaves her weak in the knees-and everywhere else-then sneaks out of her Atlantic City hotel room at three a.m.

Back in Brooklyn, when she reads about smugglers stopped at JFK with skinks in their socks or monkeys down their pants, she never imagines she will join their ranks. But days after the pet store owner next door to Redondo Travel is poisoned, Cyd wins a free safari. Her boss, Uncle Ray, wants to cash it in for computers, but Cyd is determined to go. When Roger turns up at the Redondo clan’s door, Cyd invites him along as her “plus one.” And just like that she is thrown heels-first into the bizarre and sinister world of international animal smuggling.

She and Roger arrive in Africa, luggage lost, to find two of Cyd’s elderly clients in a local jail. She manages to barter them out, only to discover smugglers have hidden five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of endangered parrots, snakes, frogs, and a lone Madagascan chameleon in the clients’ outbound luggage. When Roger steals the bags – is the U.S. Embassy in on the contraband ring? – Cyd and the chameleon helicopter into the jungle to go after Roger on their own.

Wondering if “plus one” Roger is actually a minus, Cyd dodges Interpol, faces off with a cobra, steals a diplomatic bag, hijacks a FedEx truck, crashes an eco-safari, winds up in a leopard trap, and is forced to smuggle snakes in her bra. It’s a scramble to find the smugglers, save her clients, and solve Mrs. Barsky’s murder before finding herself at the top of the endangered species list.

For fans of Elaine Viets, Lisa Lutz, Janet Evanovich, and Blaize Clement

Haunting Fiction

October isn’t the only time of you to read haunting fiction, but there are a number of books that fall under the category Halloween Crime Fiction. Janet Rudolph, who blogs at Mystery Fanfare, posts lists of holiday crime fiction on her site whenever holidays are approaching. You can check out her entire list of books here. https://bit.ly/2zBerRr

Looking for Mark de Castrique’s Fatal Undertaking since he was just here at The Poisoned Pen? How about Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party? You can’t go wrong with Agatha Christie.

Check out Janet’s lists of Halloween Crime Fiction and Halloween Mystery Short Story Anthologies. Then, check out the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

‘Tis the Season – The Usual Santas

From Halloween to Christmas. It’s not difficult to find books relating to the holidays. In fact, Soho Crime has the book that will be The Poisoned Pen’s December Fresh Fiction Club Pick, the collection The Usual Santas. It’s already available to order through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2gE02zW

 

Usual Santas

Here’s the description.

Finally: the perfect stocking stuffer for the crime fiction lover in your life! With a foreword by CWA Diamond Award-winner Peter Lovesey, these eighteen delightful holiday stories by your favorite Soho Crime authors contain laughs, murders, and plenty more.

This captivating collection, which features bestselling and award-winning authors, contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming  reminders of the spirit of the season.

Nine mall Santas must find the imposter among them. An elderly lady seeks peace from her murderously loud neighbors at Christmastime. A young woman receives a mysterious invitation to Christmas dinner with a stranger. Niccolò Machiavelli sets out to save an Italian city. Sherlock Holmes’s one-time nemesis Irene Adler finds herself in an unexpected tangle in Paris while on a routine espionage assignment. Jane Austen searches for the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough’s stolen diamonds. These and other adventures in this delectable volume will whisk readers away to Christmases around the globe, from a Korean War POW camp to a Copenhagen refugee squat, from a palatial hotel in 1920s Bombay to a crumbling mansion in Havana.

Includes Stories By (In Order of Appearance):
Helene Tursten, Mick Herron, Martin Limón, Timothy Hallinan, Teresa Dovalpage, Mette Ivie Harrison, Colin Cotterill, Ed Lin, Stuart Neville, Tod Goldberg, Henry Chang, James R. Benn, Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis, Sujata Massey, Gary Corby, Cara Black, Stephanie Barron and a Foreword and story by Peter Lovesey.

‘Tis the Season – Dracula

‘Tis the season for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Although the Poisoned Pen carries several editions, you might want to check out The New Annotated Dracula by Bram Stoker and signed by Leslie S. Klinger. https://bit.ly/2yBN90u

Dracula

Here’s the summary.

In his first work since his best-selling The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Leslie S. Klinger returns with this spectacular, lavishly illustrated homage to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. With a daring conceit, Klinger accepts Stoker’s contention that the Dracula tale is based on historical fact. Traveling through two hundred years of popular culture and myth as well as graveyards and the wilds of Transylvania, Klinger’s notes illuminate every aspect of this haunting narrative (including a detailed examination of the original typescript of Dracula, with its shockingly different ending, previously unavailable to scholars). Klinger investigates the many subtexts of the original narrative—from masochistic, necrophilic, homoerotic, “dentophilic,” and even heterosexual implications of the story to its political, economic, feminist, psychological, and historical threads. Employing the superb literary detective skills for which he has become famous, Klinger mines this 1897 classic for nuggets that will surprise even the most die-hard Dracula fans and introduce the vampire-prince to a new generation of readers.

*****

To give you a little more background, along with The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Mental Floss recently had an article by Kat Long, “The Charming English Fishing Village That Inspired Dracula”. Check It Out. https://bit.ly/2gWs7PN

Sara Blaedel’s Louise Rick on TV?

Fans of Sara Blaedel’s Louise Rick series will be happy with the news recently reported in Shelf Awarness. https://bit.ly/2yWGqyC

Here’s their news report.

Bron Studios’ TV group has acquired rights to Danish author Sara Blaedel’s crime fiction book series featuring police detective Louise Rick. Deadline reported that “the plan is to adapt the novels as a TV series, with the first published Rick book The Forgotten Girls to serve as the backdrop for Season 1.” Bron’s Aaron L. Gilbert and Danielle Reardon will serve as executive producers.

“It has been a longtime dream to see Louise Rick on the screen, and I couldn’t imagine working with a more dynamic and creative team than Bron to realize this,” Blaedel said. “Louise is a tenacious and relentless investigator, but also deeply human and imperfect. Simultaneously tough and charming, watching her stories come alive on the screen will be enthralling.”

Reardon commented: “The Forgotten Girls is a spellbinding beginning to the suspenseful and addictive Louise Rick book series. We are thrilled to be working with Sara Blaedel to bring the character Louise Rick and her brilliantly brutal murder mysteries to television.”

Forgotten Girls

You can order Blaedel’s The Forgotten Girls, and other books in the series, through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2zBrJ0V

Here’s the summary of The Forgotten Girls, the first in the Louise Rick series.

#1 International Bestseller
THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS

The body of an unidentified woman has been discovered in a remote forest. A large, unique scar on one side of her face should make the identification easy, but nobody has reported her missing. Louise Rick, the new commander of the Missing Persons Department, waits four long days before pulling off a risky move: releasing a photo of the victim to the media, jeopardizing the integrity of the investigation in hopes of finding anyone who knew her.

The gamble pays off when a woman recognizes the victim as Lisemette, a child she cared for in the state mental institution many years ago. Lisemette was a “forgotten girl”, abandoned by her family and left behind in the institution. But Louise soon discovers something even more disturbing: Lisemette had a twin, and both girls were issued death certificates more than thirty years ago.

Louise’s investigation takes a surprising when it brings her closer to her childhood home. And as she uncovers more crimes that were committed–and hidden–in the forest, she is forced to confront a terrible link to her own past that has been carefully concealed. Set against a moody and atmospheric landscape, THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS is twisty, suspenseful, emotionally intense novel that secures Sara Blaedel’s place in the pantheon of great thriller writers.