Fiction Review

Critic Oline Cogdill recently wrote a piece for Mystery Scene that celebrated the 20th anniversary and the history of Poisoned Pen Press. Due to copyright, I won’t reprint the article, but I’ll certainly encourage readers to check out the story, including photos of publisher Robert Rosenwald, and his wife, executive editor Barbara Peters. https://bit.ly/2qtL5Ek

If you don’t know the history of the award-winning Poisoned Pen Press, you’ll want to check it out.

Jay Baron Nicorvo’s The Standard Grand is June’s Modern First Pick for The Poisoned Pen. Here’s the synopsis.

Nicorvo is a bracingly original writer and a joy to read.” – Dennis Lehane

“A desperate masterpiece of a debut” that tells a huge-hearted American saga – of love, violence, war, conspiracy and the aftermath of them all.” – Bonnie Jo Campbell

“Nicorvo’s muscular and energetic prose will stun readers with its poignancy, while providing a punch to the solar plexus.” – Booklist (Starred Review)

“A dash of Coetzee, a dram of Delillo, but mostly just the complicated compassion of Jay Nicorvo. The Standard Grand is a brutally beautiful novel.” – Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted

“It seems possible that Nicorvo has ingested all the darkness of this life and now breathes fire.” Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

When an Army trucker goes AWOL before her third deployment, she ends up sleeping in Central Park. There, she meets a Vietnam vet and widower who inherited a tumbledown Borscht Belt resort. Converted into a halfway house for homeless veterans, the Standard – and its two thousand acres over the Marcellus Shale Formation – is coveted by a Houston-based multinational company. Toward what end, only a corporate executive knows.

With three violent acts at its center – a mauling, a shooting, a mysterious death decades in the past – and set largely in the Catskills, The Standard Grand spans an epic year in the lives of its diverse cast: a female veteran protagonist, a Mesoamerican lesbian landman, a mercenary security contractor keeping secrets and seeking answers, a conspiratorial gang of combat vets fighting to get peaceably by, and a cougar – along with appearances by Sammy Davis, Jr. and Senator Al Franken. All of the characters – soldiers, civilians – struggle to discover that what matters most is not that they’ve caused no harm, but how they make amends for the harm they’ve caused.

Jay Baron Nicorvo’s The Standard Grand confronts a glaring cultural omission: the absence of women in our war stories. Like the best of its characters – who aspire more to goodness than greatness – this American novel hopes to darn a hole or two in the frayed national fabric.

*****

Nicorvo wrote about the inspiration and background of the book for Poets & Writers e-newsletter. https://bit.ly/2rvKous

You can order a signed copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2raL0T2

Oh, you don’t know about Modern Firsts? You should check out the information about the book clubs. Those are book clubs to receive books, not to discuss them. The information is here. https://poisonedpen.com/book-clubs/

The Arthur Ellis Awards were just announced this week. Crime Writers of Canada present the Arthur Ellis Awards (named after the working name of Canada’s official hangman) to recognize excellence in Canadian crime writing. Awards are presented in six categories for works in the crime genre published for the first time in the previous year by authors living in Canada, regardless of their nationality, or by Canadian writers living outside of Canada.

Derrick Murdoch Award – Christina Jennings

Best Crime Novel – The Fortunate Brother by Donna Morrissey

Best First Crime Novel – Strange Things Done by Elle Wild

Best Crime Novella – Rundown by Rick Blechta

Best Crime Short Story – “A Death at the Parsonage” by Susan Daly, The Whole She-Bang 3, Toronto Sisters in Crime

Best Juvenile/YA Crime Book – Masterminds by Gordon Korman

Best Crime Nonfiction Book – A Daughter’s Deadly Deception: The Jennifer Pan Story by Jeremy Grimaldi

Do you remember this book? Here’s the synopsis.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.

*****

Now, here’s the link to the latest news. For all of those who loved the book, some of the cast of Downton Abbey are in the process of filming the movie. https://bit.ly/2rYuHcd

“The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is already in production in the U.K. with Lily (James) in the lead role as journalist Juliet Ashton, who becomes intrigued by a secret book society established during the German occupation of the Channel Islands during World War Two.”

While you wait for the movie, you can always pick up a copy of the book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2rYuea1

Steve Hamilton was just here on book tour for Exit Strategy, and his latest novel is The Poisoned Pen’s Hot Book of the Week. Here’s the summary.

In the stunning follow-up to the New York Times bestseller The Second Life of Nick Mason, the remarkable hero fights to take back control from the crime lord who owns his life, as he races to complete a daring and dangerous new mission…

Nick Mason has been given a true mission impossible: Infiltrate WITSEC, the top-secret federal witness-protection program that has never been compromised, locate the three men who put his boss Darius Cole behind bars for life, and kill them.

But first he has to find them—they’re ghost prisoners locked down around the clock in classified “deep black” locations by an battalion of heavily armed U.S. marshals charged with protecting them—and the clock is ticking. Cole is appealing his conviction, and these witnesses are either his ticket to freedom or the final nail in his coffin. If they testify, Darius Cole will never step foot in the outside world again. If they are killed, he will walk out a free man.

As he risks everything to complete his mission, Mason finds himself being hunted by the very man he replaced, the ruthless assassin who once served, then betrayed, Darius Cole. Rather than waiting to be Mason’s next victim, he has escaped witness protection to hunt down and kill Mason himself.

In an action-packed journey that leads from a high-security military installation in the Appalachian Mountains to a secret underground bunker hidden far below the streets of New York City, Nick Mason will have to become, more than ever before, the lethal weapon that Darius Cole created.

*****

We have signed copies! If you would like to order any, they are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2qUeM06

If you’re reading this post, you’re undoubtedly a fan of bookstores. So is Edan Leducki, author of Woman No. 17.

She recently did a short video talking about two subjects – bookstore shopping and her favorite punctuation mark.  https://bit.ly/2qnYbm8

Here’s the description of Lepucki’s Woman No. 17.

New York Times bestselling author Edan Lepucki’s Woman No. 17 “reads like a Hollywood HIlls film noir.” — Seattle Times
 
High in the Hollywood Hills, writer Lady Daniels has decided to take a break from her husband. Left alone with her children, she’s going to need a hand taking care of her young son if she’s ever going to finish her memoir. In response to a Craigslist ad, S arrives, a magnetic young artist who will live in the secluded guest house out back, care for Lady’s toddler, Devin, and keep a watchful eye on her older, teenage son, Seth. S performs her day job beautifully, quickly drawing the entire family into her orbit, and becoming a confidante for Lady.

But in the heat of the summer, S’s connection to Lady’s older son takes a disturbing, and possibly destructive, turn. And as Lady and S move closer to one another, the glossy veneer of Lady’s privileged life begins to crack, threatening to expose old secrets that she has been keeping from her family. Meanwhile, S is protecting secrets of her own, about her real motivation for taking the job. S and Lady are both playing a careful game, and every move they make endangers the things they hold most dear.

Darkly comic, twisty and tense, this mesmerizing new novel defies expectation and proves Edan Lepucki to be one of the most talented and exciting voices of her generation.

Woman No. 17 can be ordered through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2rWdsaI

Long before Joseph Finder was the author of The Switch, he was a boy who fell in love with one author’s book.

Finder tells that story in a recent article for Publishers Weekly. https://bit.ly/2qTZCGt. It’s the story of an author who cared enough to answer a young boy, answers that inspired him.

You can read the article. You can also meet Joseph Finder at The Poisoned Pen on Saturday, June 17 at 2 PM when he’s on book tour for The Switch. You can pre-order a signed copy of the book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2qThvY5

Here’s the description of The Switch.

A simple mix up throws one innocent man into the crosshairs of sinister government secrets and ruthless political ambitions in New York Timesbestselling author Joseph Finder’s timely, electrifying new thriller.

Michael Tanner is on his way home from a business trip when he accidentally picks up the wrong MacBook in an airport security line. He doesn’t notice the mix-up until he arrives home in Boston, but by then it’s too late. Tanner’s curiosity gets the better of him when he discovers that the owner is a US senator and that the laptop contains top secret files.

When Senator Susan Robbins realizes she’s come back with the wrong laptop, she calls her young chief of staff, Will Abbott, in a panic. Both know that the senator broke the law by uploading classified documents onto her personal computer. If those documents wind up in the wrong hands, it could be Snowden 2.0—and her career in politics will be over. She needs to recover the MacBook before it’s too late.

When Will fails to gain Tanner’s cooperation, he is forced to take measures to retrieve the laptop before a bigger security breach is revealed.  He turns to an unscrupulous “fixer” for help.  In the meantime, the security agency whose files the senator has appropriated has its own methods, darker still—and suddenly Tanner finds himself a hunted man, on the run, terrified for the safety of his family, in desperate need of a plan, and able to trust no one.

Jo Nesbø, author of The Thirst, just appeared at The Poisoned Pen. You can watch the event on Livestream here. https://livestream.com/poisonedpen/events/7348078

Here’s the summary of the book.

#1 International Best Seller

In this electrifying new thriller from the author of Police and The Snowman, Inspector Harry Hole hunts down a serial murderer who targets his victims . . . on Tinder.

The murder victim, a self-declared Tinder addict. The one solid clue—fragments of rust and paint in her wounds—leaves the investigating team baffled.
Two days later, there’s a second murder: a woman of the same age, a Tinder user, an eerily similar scene.
The chief of police knows there’s only one man for this case. But Harry Hole is no longer with the force. He promised the woman he loves, and he promised himself, that he’d never go back: not after his last case, which put the people closest to him in grave danger.
But there’s something about these murders that catches his attention, something in the details that the investigators have missed. For Harry, it’s like hearing “the voice of a man he was trying not to remember.” Now, despite his promises, despite everything he risks, Harry throws himself back into the hunt for a figure who haunts him, the monster who got away.

STARRED REVIEW 
“Exceptional . . . Nesbo depicts a heartbreakingly conflicted Harry, who both wants to forget the horrors he’s trying to prevent and knows he has to remember them in all their grim detail.”
—Publishers Weekly

Even if you weren’t one of the happy people in the audience, shown here with the author and his book, you can get a signed copy of The Thirst. Look for it in the Web Store.

https://bit.ly/2qN6iYQ

Colson Whitehead is the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, and National Book Award winner, The Underground Railroad.

Here’s what Whitehead had to say about his early writing.

https://bit.ly/2qJnW0q

Now, if you’re interested in a copy of The Underground Railroad, they’re available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2q7ebVP

Have you seen the nonfiction book, Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann?

Here’s the description from the Web Store.

“Disturbing and riveting…Grann has proved himself a master of spinning delicious, many-layered mysteries that also happen to be true…It will sear your soul.” —Dave Eggers, New York Times Book Review

From New Yorker staff writer David Grann, #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Lost City of Z, a twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances.
In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes like Al Spencer, the “Phantom Terror,” roamed—many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll climbed to more than twenty-four, the FBI took up the case. It was one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations and the bureau badly bungled the case. In desperation, the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only American Indian agents in the bureau. The agents infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest techniques of detection.  Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. Based on years of research and startling new evidence, the book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward American Indians that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly compelling, but also emotionally devastating.

*****

Even more compelling are the photos that inspired Grann’s book. Grann recently wrote an article that included the rare archival photos behind the book. https://bit.ly/2q0Ol61

If we’ve caught your attention and you want to buy the book, we have signed copies in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2r0GEkn