Fiction Review

Douglas Preston was recently in town for an event hosted by The Poisoned Pen. He showed slides and talked about his adventures that led to his nonfiction account, The Lost City of the Monkey God.

If you didn’t read Dana Stabenow’s recent review, here’s the book summary from the Web Store.

“A five-hundred-year-old legend. An ancient curse. A stunning medical mystery. And a pioneering journey into the unknown heart of the world’s densest jungle.

Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location.

Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.

Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn’t until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease.

Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.”

We do have a few photos from the event.

Here are a couple slides from Preston’s presentation.

If you would like to order a signed copy of The Lost City of the Monkey God, it’s available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2iHhsaH

Donis Casey’s latest Alafair Tucker mystery is The Return of the Raven Mocker. Donis will be at The Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, Jan. 24 at 7 PM to discuss and sign the book.

Michael Barson recently did a Q & A with Donis. It’s fun to read, so I hope you enjoy it.

1)  Return of the Raven Mocker is the ninth entry in your series featuring the indomitable Alafair Tucker of Boynton, Oklahoma and mother of ten (!). Did setting the story in 1918, at the height of the influenza pandemic that was running rampant in both Europe and the U.S., present any special research challenges?

Donis– Since my series is historical, I always do a lot of research before I start a novel. When I was writing my first Alafair Tucker Mystery, The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, I was particularly concerned with the kind of life Alafair would have led in 1912, so much of my research consisted of  personal interviews with people who had grown up on substance farms, and lots of library time reading diaries and other personal accounts.

The passing years have made quite a difference, both for Alafair and for me. The outside world has intruded on Alafair in a big way, and my research methods have changed as well. The internet has exploded. I don’t have to rummage around in the dusty library stacks (even though I still do. Not everything is online, especially diaries.)

The official websites of the Cherokee Nation is where I learned the details of the Cherokee legend of Raven Mocker, an evil witch/wizard who takes the form of a raven at night and flies about looking for the old and the sick to torment and suck the life out of them. This, I thought, is the perfect theme to weave into a book about the flu epidemic of 1918. And a good title, too.

I learned from the websites for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that no one knows for sure how many died in the flu pandemic, but modern estimates put the number at somewhere between thirty and fifty million people worldwide. The U.S. Center for Disease Control estimates that more than six hundred thousand of those were Americans. In May of 2015, The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs listed just over 53,000 American battle deaths in World War I, which means that twelve times as many Americans died from complications of the flu than died in battle. I found most of my information about the desperate attempts of the medical establishment to find a cure, or at least an effective treatment for the disease, from a fabulous book by John Barry called The Great Influenza. Some of the cures doctors tried made things worse than they were.

One of my favorite research resources for any of my books is newspapers. In fact, for many years I have kept a file of interesting newspaper clippings for inspiration. I used to travel to libraries and read old newspaper archives on rolls of microfilm. Now I can find most early 20th Century newspapers online, including the Boynton Index. I am able find out about the weather for whatever day I want, and what was showing at the movies. I can learn the price of a bushel of wheat, a barrel of oil, a lady’s hat, and an automobile. Most importantly, I discover from letters to the editor and editorials what people were thinking about. It’s fascinating to see what people knew and when they knew it.

From the perspective of 100 years on, we know how things turned out. But they had no idea what was going to happen. During the horrible flu pandemic of 1918, the government actually encouraged news outlets to downplay the seriousness of the situation, because the first World War was still going on and nothing was to be allowed to interfere with war production! Eventually, factories all over the United States were no longer able to stay open because most of their workers were ill, and the stories in the papers began to change radically, printing all kinds of weird and generally useless advice about how to avoid becoming sick.

A few years ago, one of my cousins gave me a subscription to the Haskell News, a weekly paper from a little town near Boynton, in the same county. The News tells about the school lunch menu and such, but there is a historian who writes occasional priceless articles on local history for the paper. Many months ago he wrote a full page article on the effect of the 1918 flu epidemic on Muskogee County. Solid gold.

2) Is it fair to say that the mystery element of Raven Mocker takes a back seat to the vivid presentation you make of the influenza calamity that affected small communities like yours in Boynton, OK? It feels like the true villain of this piece is actually the pandemic itself.

Donis– I think that’s fair. Alafair is a farm wife with a very large family who lives in rural Oklahoma at the turn of the 20th century. She knows her world and has made her place in it. Each of the books in the series features a different one of Alafair’s children, with whom Alafair either works to solve a crime, or works to save from him or herself.  Since each child has his or her own distinct personality and interests, this gives me a great deal of latitude to explore all kinds of things that people were into in the early 20th Century.

For each book I must come up with a compelling reason for a farm wife and mother of ten to get involved in a murder investigation. It’s not like Alafair is looking for something to do. I also have to figure out a convincing way for her to either solve the murder or contribute substantially to the solution.

When I first began writing the Alafair Tucker Mystery series in 2003, I had a story arc in mind that was going to carry through ten books. This is a wonderful idea, but as anyone who has ever written a long series knows, after a couple of books all your plans for a story arc have been knocked into a cocked hat. The reason this happened, at least to me, is that I seem to be writing about real people who have their own ideas about how things should be gone about, and once I put them into a situation, they react to it in ways I had never anticipated. Besides, I really want readers to be able to pick up any book in the series and have a satisfying experience without having to know anything about what went before.

This poses the million dollar question for the author of a long series: How do you keep it fresh? How do you make every story stand alone, yet in its place as well? I have found over the course of nine books in the same series that I have begun to depart from the usual mystery novel format. The later books are constructed more like thrillers than puzzles.

3) No doubt you often receive feedback from your readers as your series develops from book to book. Have you ever been struck by a comment to the extent that you incorporated the idea into a subsequent book?

Donis– The comments I get from readers often have to do with their own memories or stories they’ve heard about life in a large family or on a farm. I’ve used many delightful pieces of information from readers to bring Alafair’s world to life. Children carving their names into ice-covered window panes, boating down a rain flooded gully in a washtub, throwing hard-boiled eggs at a fence post, using kerosene-soaked corncobs to start a coal fire.

In The Return of the Raven Mocker, I used a story that I heard from a friend many years ago about the curative power of onion. When my friend was a young boy, he developed such a severe case of pneumonia that the doctor told his mother to prepare herself for his imminent demise. In an act of desperation, his mother sliced up a raw onion and bound it to the bottoms of his feet with strips of sheet, then put cotton socks on him. In the morning, his fever had broken, his lungs had cleared, and the onion poultice had turned black. Did the onions save his life? For my purposes, they did.

*****

The Web Store has signed copies of The Return of the Raven Mocker is you’d like to catch up with Alafair Tucker and her family. https://bit.ly/2iZRxvu

Do you subscribe to Jacqueline Winspear’s newsletter? The author of the Maisie Dobbs mysteries recently talked about her forthcoming book, In This Grave Hour.

It’s a little early to discuss her March appearance at The Poisoned Pen, but it isn’t too early for you to read her note about the background of the next story in the series. Check out the January newsletter for Winspear’s account. https://bit.ly/2icorL6 She’s very clear about history repeating itself. We’ll have the author and signed copies of In This Grave Hour  available in March.

Deanna Raybourn, author of the Veronica Speedwell mysteries, as well as the Lady Julia Grey ones, will be appearing at The Poisoned Pen on Thursday, January 12 at 7 PM. She will be joined by Tasha Alexander (A Terrible Beauty), and Andrew Grant (False Friend).

Deanna was kind enough to answer questions for “In the Hot Seat”. Thank you, Deanna.

Deanna, would you introduce yourself to readers?

Certainly! I’m a sixth-generation native Texan transplanted to Virginia where I live with my husband, daughter, and goldendoodle. I write, I read, and I spend way too much time on Twitter and Instagram.

Tell us about Veronica Speedwell. Veronica is an intrepid young woman making her way in the world as a lepidopterist. By traveling the globe in search of butterflies, she is able to provide for herself financially as well as satisfy her wanderlust—and her taste for discreet love affairs. Unfortunately, she’s formed the habit of stumbling over dead bodies and is far too curious not to take a stab at solving the murders herself. She’s also managed to acquire a sidekick in the form of the Honourable Revelstoke Templeton-Vane, a natural historian with a shady past. Veronica is loosely inspired by Margaret Fountaine, a butterfly hunter who traveled the world for decades, enjoying a robust series of love affairs as well as a successful career well into her 70s.

Without spoilers, tell us about A Perilous Undertaking.

PERILOUS is Veronica and Stoker’s second adventure, one that sees them feverishly attempting to right a miscarriage of justice and save a baronet from the hangman’s noose for a murder he didn’t commit. They are set on the trail of a cunning murderer at the behest of a very demanding woman who is not quite what she seems…

Your Lady Julia Grey books are also set in Victorian England. What draws you to that time period and setting? Late Victorian England has far more in common with modern times than most people realize. It was a period of enormous technological change, and those innovations caused repercussions in every area of life—how people dressed, how they ate, how information was communicated, who was permitted to own property, how status was determined. Nationalism was on the rise; women were demanding the vote; science was developing new theories that upended the status quo. Everything Victorians thought they knew about the world was being questioned or changed, and ultimately people had to, quite simply, adapt or die. That has obvious and fascinating parallels for us today, so it’s interesting to me to explore that in a setting that is familiar but still different enough to seem a bit exotic.

I heard you speak at Bouchercon, talking about the female travelers of the 19th century. Would you talk a little about them now?

My degree is in English and history, so I quite naturally gravitated towards the writings of the Victorian travelers. They were tireless recordkeepers, writing memoirs or travelogues, keeping journals, penning letters. They noted everything—geography, customs, languages, natural history, their own experiences—so the material makes for fascinating reading, and I was particularly intrigued to discover how intrepid these women were. We tend to think of Victorian women as sitting quietly in the parlor, sharing tea and sympathy with the vicar, but the fact is that there were a host of ladies who packed up their parasols and petticoats and set off to see the world. In some cases they had scores of porters haul trunks of formal gowns and tea services across deserts so they could dine in style, but in other cases the women simply carried a carpetbag and didn’t even travel with a maid. There were travelers who ventured into places men didn’t even dare to go, and those were the ones I was particularly interested in learning more about. I’ve spent the last 25 years or so researching these women, and I never fail to be fascinated by their determination, their unflagging resolve, their tireless curiosity.

The Lady Grey mysteries were optioned for a TV series in the UK in 2015. Has there been any progress? There has been progress, but nothing I can discuss yet! I hope to be able to give lots of details soon but until I get the green light from the producer I’m sworn to secrecy.

When I reviewed the first Veronica Speedwell book, A Curious Beginning, I said, “She’s a literary descendent of Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody, and an ancestor of Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce.” Those authors may actually not have influenced you in any way. What authors have inspired you? Those references are perfectly apt because they have influenced me tremendously. Elizabeth Peters had such a gift for repartee as well as sexual tension that was managed to be so subtle you could miss it if you weren’t careful but which was also utterly combustible. That’s a very tricky line to straddle. I think Alan Bradley is doing a superb job with Flavia; he’s created a heroine who is prickly and occasionally unlikeable and very certain of her own brilliance which are qualities she shares with Veronica, so they are kindred spirits! I also count Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle as tremendous influences as well as Victoria Holt.

What’s your favorite book you’ve written, and why? It varies—ask me on any given day and you’ll get a different answer from the day before. I have a soft spot for SILENT IN THE GRAVE because it was my first published book; I am also quite fond of A CURIOUS BEGINNING because it was the start of Veronica’s series. Right now I’m smitten with Veronica’s third adventure—the one I’m still writing—which is a good thing!

Other than your own, name several books you would never part with. Besides full collections of Jane Austen and Agatha Christie and the complete Sherlock Holmes canon, I’d keep some Georgette Heyers, THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL, the Provincial Lady series, my Nigella cookbooks, and Helen Castor’s SHE-WOLVES, as well as anything by Judith Flanders or Lucy Worsley.

What was your favorite book of 2016? Lyndsay Faye’s JANE STEELE had its paperback release in 2016, so I’m going to count that on a technicality! I also loved Sherry Thomas’s A STUDY IN SCARLET WOMEN, a unique reimagining of the Sherlock stories.

Thank you, Deanna. If you can make it for an interesting, historical evening, please come to The Poisoned Pen on Thursday, Jan. 12 at 7 PM. Even if you can’t make it, you can buy a signed copy of A Perilous Undertaking through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2hvUO8f

“Nobody writes chase scenes like Perry, who devises intricate itineraries, multiple identities and frequent costume changes…” That’s a quote from Marilyn Stasio from “The Best and Latest in Crime Fiction” in The New York Times. She’s referring to Thomas Perry’s The Old Man, The Poisoned Pen’s Book of The Week.

You can read the rest of Stasio’s review of that book, and others here. https://nyti.ms/2i0E48m

After reading the review, you might want to pick up a copy of The Old Man from The Web Store. https://bit.ly/2jg5CEg

If you’ve never heard Diana Gabaldon talk about her Outlander books, you’ve missed a treat. She appears regularly for The Poisoned Pen, and we carry a number of her signed books in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2iNiFy6

Diana Gabaldon is interviewed by Julie Kosin for the Random House Open House. Penguin Random House sent the link with permission to use it. If you’re a fan, I think you’ll enjoy it.  https://bit.ly/2j8zeDv

 

Ingrid Thoft will be here at The Poisoned Pen on Wednesday, January 11 at 7 PM. She’s appearing with Brad Taylor (Ring of Fire) and Nicholas Petrie (Burning Bright). Ingrid will be signing and talking about her latest Fina Ludlow mystery, Duplicity.

Ingrid is familiar with The Poisoned Pen. She appeared here with her second book, Identity.

She’s been interviewed by an expert, Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen.

But, Ingrid did agree to an interview for In the Hot Seat. Thank you, Ingrid.

Ingrid, would you introduce yourself to readers?

I was born in Boston and graduated from Wellesley College, and DUPLICITY is the fourth book in my series featuring Fina Ludlow, a private investigator in Boston.  Fina gets most of her cases from the Ludlow family law firm, Ludlow and Associates.  The Ludlows are personal injury attorneys—rich and successful, but not universally well-liked.

I live in Seattle, but have also called Pittsburgh, New York City, London, and L.A. home.  When I’m not writing or reading, I love to scuba dive, snorkel, and eat good food, activities that I find are best enjoyed in exotic locations!  Some of my more memorable destinations include Vietnam, China, Australia, Spain, and Hawaii.

Tell us about Fina Ludlow and her family.

Fina is strong, funny, and flawed, and she pushes the limits.  She’s an excellent investigator and has a complicated relationship with her family.  Like many readers, I was fascinated by the Lisbeth Salander character in the Stieg Larsson books.  Lisbeth is strong, brash, and violent, and operates outside of society’s norms.  That character was born of abuse and neglect and didn’t have a “normal” family.  I wondered what would happen if I created a character who was headstrong and independent, but came from a domineering family unit and had to operate within the bounds of that family.  If you have nothing holding you back and nothing to lose—like Lisbeth Salander—your actions can be extreme.  However, if you’re trying to operate within a family system and maintain your standing in that family, you have more to lose, and the stakes can be quite high.

Carl Ludlow is the patriarch of the family and oversees the family law firm.  Fina has a complex relationship with her father, and her interactions with her mother, Elaine, are fraught with resentment and bad feelings on both sides.  Fina’s brothers, Scotty and Rand, are her closest friends, but her eldest brother, Rand, is her nemesis and the source of much of the Ludlow family dysfunction.  I’ll leave it at that for readers who starting the series at the beginning with LOYALTY, but rest assured, there’s plenty of family drama.

Without spoilers, tell us about DUPLICITY.

DUPLICITY features a slightly different kind of case for Fina:  Her father has asked her to investigate an evangelical church as a favor to an old friend, Ceci Renard.  Lead by a charismatic pastor and his wife, the church seems to have tremendous influence over its congregants, one of whom is Ceci’s daughter.  Fina tries to dig into the church’s practices and finances, only to be thwarted at every turn, and the situation grows more serious when a congregant turns up dead.  The investigation raises questions about faith and power, and Fina is forced to contemplate these concepts within the context of her own life and family.

Why did you want to write crime novels?

I love to read crime novels, which is why I wanted to write them.  People often say, “Write what you know,” but I’ve always said, “Write what you want to read.”  It takes a lot of time and effort to write a book, and as the author, you are your first reader.  If you aren’t engaged then how can you expect other readers to be? 

Fina’s a P.I. and you graduated from a certificate program in private investigation.  Tell us about a few aspects of that program that you’ve used in Fina’s cases.

I sought out the private investigation certificate program at the University of Washington when I made the decision to create a character who is a professional investigator rather than an amateur detective. This decision was based on the limitations I encountered in an unpublished series I had already written featuring an amateur sleuth.  Over time, I found her amateur status to be problematic; an amateur can only stumble over so many bodies before it strains credulity!  So I made the main character a professional investigator, which opened up a lot of possibilities and gives me options as the series progresses.

Having made that choice, I wanted to learn the rules of private investigation before I created a character who broke them.  Fina needed to ring true and use tactics and procedures that PIs actually use.  She takes liberties with the law, and some of her tactics might be frowned upon by other PIs, but her actions are purposeful, not the result of poor training.  When creating the character, I made conscious decisions about her choices based on what I gleaned from the certificate program.

I learned a lot of practical information in terms of detection that Fina employs, like how to mine information from public records and how to conduct effective interviews, but the thing I was most surprised by was my shifting attitudes toward personal injury attorneys.  One of my instructors did a lot of work for the kinds of attorneys who advertise on TV, like Carl Ludlow, and I learned that in certain circumstances, those attorneys are the only thing saving victims from financial ruin.  Perhaps a single mom is injured in a car accident that wasn’t her fault, but if she doesn’t have health insurance or other safety nets, the dominos in her life can quickly fall.  Maybe she misses work to go to physical therapy, but then she can’t pay for day care, and then she loses her job, but has no one to watch her kids when she looks for a new job, and what about all those doctors’ bills?  Many of us are lucky enough to have layers of support that keep us from the brink—both financially and emotionally.  For people who don’t have that, personal injury lawyers can be lifesavers.

Why do you see Boston as the perfect setting for crime novels?

Boston offers myriad opportunities for creating layered, interesting characters who inhabit various mini worlds.  There are so many world-class things about the city: its medical facilities, higher education, the arts, professional sports teams, as well as a strong sense of pride and history that shows up in things like the multiple generations of families who serve in the police and fire departments.  People from all over the world come to Boston, and on any given day a visitor could be seen by a specialist in a top-notch hospital or watch a baseball game sitting above the Green Monster.  I wanted Fina’s adventures to reflect that diversity.  She may spend time interviewing a potential client in the ICU at Mass General or visiting the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, but you’ll also find her at Kelly’s Roast Beef on the beach eating fried clams and a lobster roll.  It’s fun for me and readers to ride along with her as she dips into the various sub-cultures of the city.

What authors have influenced you?

I always cite the Nancy Drew books as an early influence.  More contemporary influences are the late Robert Parker, Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, Laura Lippman, Reed Farrel Coleman, Ace Atkins, C.J. Box, David Joy, and Chevy Stevens.

Other than your own, name a couple of books you would never part with.

My Nancy Drews, of course, but quite honestly, I part with most books.  If they are signed by the author, they become a part of my permanent collection, but I love passing books on to others.  In general, I don’t tend to re-read things, and I love the idea of someone else getting pleasure from a book that I found entertaining or thought-provoking.

What author would you like to recommend who you think has been underappreciated?

I’m a big fan of Archer Mayor and his Joe Gunther series.  In the early books, Joe was a detective in Brattleboro, VT and is now the head of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation.  The books feature a motley crew of investigators and offer a real sense of place.  I especially enjoy reading the installments that are set in winter, with a cup of cocoa while curled under a blanket, of course!

What’s on your TBR pile?

So many books! Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple, The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly, and Evicted by Matthew Desmond.  I have ARCs for The Weight of This World by David Joy and Never Let You Go by Chevy Stevens and need to get my hands on What You Break, the new Gus Murphy book by Reed Farrel Coleman.  I’m planning to reread a Victorian novel that I read in college and remember loving, New Grub Street, by George Gissing.  It’s about the British publishing industry and should provide an interesting change of pace.  Also, The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.  It’s a non-fiction account of the migration of black citizens to the northern and western parts of the U.S. in the early and mid-1900s.  My mom loved it and thinks it should be on every American’s TBR list.

Thank you, Ingrid, for taking time for the interview.

I hope you’ll be able to make it to The Pen on January 11th to hear and meet Ingrid and the other authors. But, if you can’t make it, you can order a signed copy of Duplicity through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2hWpyLo

One of my favorite author blogs, Jungle Red Writers (jungleredwriters.com), started the new year with an announcement. They added two new mystery authors to the prestigious list. https://bit.ly/2iczeCs

And, because they both have a January connection to The Poisoned Pen, I thought I’d pass it on. Ingrid Thoft and Jenn McKinlay join the ranks that make up Jungle Red Writers. The other writers are Julia Spencer Fleming, Lucy Burdette, Hallie Ephron, Rhys Bowen, Hank Phillippi Ryan, and Deborah Crombie.

Why are Ingrid and Jenn connected to The Pen? Ingrid Thoft will be signing her latest book, Duplicity, here on January 10 at 7 PM, appearing with Brad Taylor and Nicholas Petrie.

And, Jenn McKinlay, one of our Scottsdale authors, will be here Saturday, January 14 at 2 PM to sign her latest Hat Shop Mystery, Assault and Beret.

Congratulations to both authors for joining Jungle Red Writers. We’ll look forward to reading their posts.

Are you familiar with the newsletter Criminal Element? It’s actually distributed by Macmillan, but the newsletter covers all areas of crime fiction, nonfiction, television. The most recent newsletter contained an article by Brad Ricca called “True Crime and Mrs. Sherlock”. https://bit.ly/2iN7Njo

Ricca discusses true crime, why he hates it, and why he writes about it. His latest book is Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The True Story of New York City’s Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated a Nation.

Here’s the summary in the Web Store.

Mrs. Sherlock Holmes tells the incredible story of Mrs. Grace Humiston, the New York lawyer and detective who solved the famous cold case of Ruth Cruger, an 18-year-old girl who disappeared in 1917. Grace was an amazing lawyer and traveling detective during a time when no women were practicing these professions. She focused on solving cases no one else wanted and advocating for innocents. Grace became the first female U.S. District Attorney and made ground-breaking investigations into modern slavery.

One of Grace’s greatest accomplishments was solving the Cruger case after following a trail of corruption that lead from New York to Italy. Her work changed how the country viewed the problem of missing girls. But the victory came with a price when she learned all too well what happens when one woman upstages the entire NYPD.

In the literary tradition of In Cold Blood and The Devil in the White City, Brad Ricca’s Mrs. Sherlock Holmes is a true crime tale told in spine-tingling fashion. This story is about a woman whose work was so impressive that the papers gave her the nickname of fiction’s greatest sleuth. With important repercussions in the present about kidnapping, the role of the media, and the truth of crime stories, the great mystery of the book-and its haunting twist ending-is how one woman can become so famous only to disappear completely.

*****

Check out Ricca’s article in the Criminal Element newsletter. https://bit.ly/2iN7Njo

Then, if you’re interested, you can order the book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2iG8BZZ

While we’re waiting for events to start up again at The Poisoned Pen, I thought I’d share news from Rhys Bowen, since we claim her, at least part for part of the year, as a local author.

Rhys just published her latest newsletter, and she has news about her next three books, including the standalone, In Farleigh Field, released March 1. Here’s the link to Rhys’ newsletter. https://bit.ly/2iXZbWu

It may be early, but you can already pre-order a signed copy of In Farleigh Field through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2iIMW0H

But, watch for further news. I’m sure Rhys Bowen will be appearing at The Poisoned Pen when she can. (And, sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can meet her when she’s in the audience to hear other authors.)