I should have known what Kaye Wilkinson Barley would pick as her favorite Christmas mystery when I asked friends in the crime fiction community to write pieces for the blog. But, I’m saving the special photo for the end.

You might know Kaye from DorothyL or Jungle Red Writers (www.jungleredwriters.com). She has the space at Jungle Reds on the first Sunday of each month. She’s the author of Whimsey: A Novel, and My Name is Harley and This is My Story. Barley has also written short stories for anthologies including this year’s Bouchercon collection, Blood on the Bayou. Kaye blogs at www.meanderingsandmuses.com. Her author page is www.kayewilkinsonbarley.com.

Thanks for the piece, Kaye!

*****

My favorite Christmas mystery is Margaret Maron’s “Corpus Christmas,”  and I re-read it every year during the holidays.  The scene is The Erich Bruel House, referred to as “a relic of Manhattan’s Gilded Age.”  This is a Sigrid Harald novel and probably my favorite of the series, although I recommend the series be read in order.  Sigrid and Oscar Nauman, famous artist and Sigrid’s significant other, are attending a Christmas party at the Bruel House in Oscar’s honor.  The Bruel House has lived many years on art donations, public monetary donations and a trust fund that is dwindling.  Trustees, old and new, have differing opinions on how to bring The Bruel House back to its once proud glory.  A trustee is found dead the morning after the party and Sigrid returns to the scene to investigate, which is much more her métier than party guest, as she is not a social person, by any means.  There’s no shortage of suspects as the dead trustee was pretty much no one’s favorite person.  If you like Christmas mysteries, you’ll enjoy Corpus Christmas. If, like me, you’re a fan of art and the people who populate the art world, this is a book for you.

If you’re looking for copies of Margaret Maron’s Corpus Christmas or Kaye Wilkinson Barley’s Whimsey: A Novel, we can special order them through the Web Store for you. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Author Mark Pryor set several of his Hugo Marston mysteries in Paris, including his first one, The Bookseller, and his most recent, The Paris Librarian.

If you’re a fan of the series, or of Paris, you might want to read Pryor’s article in The Good Life: France Magazine. Pryor discusses his love of the city in “Paris Mon Amour“. https://joom.ag/GjkQ/p50

Mark Pryor’s books feature Hugo Marston, former FBI profiler turned head of security at the U.S. embassy in London. They’re available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2grxvLv

Pierce Brown, author of the Red Rising trilogy, recently did an AuthorShorts for Penguin Random House. He talks about his career before writing, and the ideal environment for writing.

Here’s the clip. https://youtu.be/uYavZJ1LJKU?list=PLAEeCVmw82hVA1X0cNUrLx7swnfiBokxb

Pierce has been at The Poisoned Pen several times. Red Rising and the sequels are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2gRd2N6

 

Did you see that Linda Fairstein’s Into the Lion’s Den is the Hot Book of the Week?

Here’s the description from the Web Store if you’re thinking about buying it as a gift.

Watch out, Nancy Drew—Devlin Quick is smart, strong, and she will DEFINITELY close the case in this thrilling new mystery series for girls and boys from New York Times bestselling author Linda Fairstein

Someone has stolen a page from a rare book in the New York Public Library. At least, that’s what Devlin’s friend Liza thinks she’s seen, but she can’t be sure. Any other kid might not see a crime here, but Devlin Quick is courageous and confident, and she knows she has to bring this man to justice—even if it means breathlessly racing around the city to collect evidence. But who is this thief? And what could the page—an old map—possibly lead to? With her wits, persistence, and the help of New York City’s finest (and, okay, a little bit of help from her police commissioner mother, too), Dev and her friends piece the clues together to uncover a mystery that’s bigger than anyone expected—and more fun, too.

With all of the heart-pounding excitement that made her internationally bestselling Alexandra Cooper series a hit, Linda Fairstein paves the way for another unstoppable heroine . . . even if she is only twelve.

We have signed copies available. https://bit.ly/2gQZJfL

Linda Fairstein has been writing mysteries since she was just about Devlin Quick’s age, as shown in this video from Penguin Random House. https://youtu.be/C_8jnUO4Euw?list=PLAEeCVmw82hVA1X0cNUrLx7swnfiBokxb

Just think, your gift of this book could set a new writer on the same path as Linda Fairstein.

 

I recently asked friends in the mystery community to tell me about their favorite holiday mystery. Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes mysteries, said he could write a piece for me. Thank you, Bill.

My new favorite Christmas crime novel is Tim Hallinan’s Fields Where They Lay.  The narrator is a semi-reformed thief named Junior Bender, who’s hired by a thug to figure  out what’s going on with with an elaborate caper being carried out in a dying shopping mall three days before Christmas.  Bender has to find the solution . . . or else.

Junior has issues with Christmas, so that’s another problem.  Something’s going on with his girlfriend, too,  and the constant Christmas music in the mall doesn’t make him feel merry and bright, either.

There’s another Christmas story in the book, and it’s told to Bender by none other than Santa Claus.  Sure, it’s a mall Santa, but that counts.  It’s a powerful story, and its ending ties in with the title of the book, which is, as I’m sure you know, a line from a famous carol, “The First Noel.”

A whole lot is going on in this fast-paced novel.  It’s tough, it’s funny, and like all of Hallinan’s books, it has heart.  The ending is as satisfactory as any fan of Christmas could ask for, so this isn’t just my new favorite Christmas book.  It’s one of my favorite books of the year.

*****

We have signed copies of Tim Hallinan’s Fields Where They Lay, available for purchase through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2gD1Jgu

The Web Store also carries copies of Bill Crider’s latest mystery, Survivors Will Be Shot Again. https://bit.ly/2gfeR7y

*****

Bill Crider is a retired English professor who did his dissertation on the hardboiled detective novel. He’s written mysteries, westerns, and even a children’s book. You can follow Bill on his website, www.billcrider.com, and find his writings online and in magazines. He talks about mysteries, music, and, now, three delightful cats known to Bill’s devoted Facebook followers as the VBKs, Very Bad Kittens. (Well, maybe we’re devoted followers of the VBKs.)

Are you a fan of Ian Fleming’s James Bond?

In at Atlas Obscura story, https://bit.ly/2ftfE7C, “This James Bond Map Will Teach You How to Become a Spy”, Jack Goodman maps the locations of James Bond’s adventures. The article includes a photo, the map, and background.

If you’re looking for Ian Fleming’s books about Bond, you can purchase them through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2ftiKsx

Today, I’m going to link to a website many readers may not be familiar with. It’s the website for Crime Writers of Canada’s newsletter, Crime Beat. https://bit.ly/2fUF8a4 The Poisoned Pen sometimes hosts Canadian authors, but many of us may not be familiar with them. In Cool Canadian Crime, you can find out about books released in 2016 by Canadian authors. https://www.crimewriterscanada.com/images/CCC/ccc-current.pdf

It’s always fun to discover new authors.

Did you recognize the phrasing of the title, Some Writer! as coming from Charlotte’s Web? Melissa Sweet’s account of E.B. White’s life is this week’s Hot Book of the Week. Here’s the description from the Web Store.

SOME PIG,” Charlotte the spider’s praise for Wilbur, is just one fondly remembered snippet from E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web . In Some Writer! , the two-time Caldecott Honor winner Melissa Sweet mixes White’s personal letters, photos, and family ephemera with her own exquisite artwork to tell his story, from his birth in 1899 to his death in 1985. Budding young writers will be fascinated and inspired by the journalist, New Yorker contributor, and children’s book author who loved words his whole life. This authorized tribute is the first fully illustrated biography of E. B. White and includes an afterword by Martha White, E. B. White’s granddaughter.

Interested? If you’d like to buy a copy of Some Writer! for yourself, or as a gift, check out the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2fs0KNz

Dana Stabenow will be joining Barbara Peters, the owner of The Poisoned Pen, for two live travelogue programs, one on Nov. 29 at 7 PM, the other Dec. 3 at 2 PM. They will be discussing Alaska, the Arctic, and the Northwest Passage. Dana will also be at the Small Business Saturday event on Nov. 26. It seemed to be the perfect time to ask Dana to sit In the Hot Seat for an interview.

Dana, would you introduce yourself to readers?

I’m the author of 32 novels, including historical novels, thrillers and science fiction, but I’m best known for the crime fiction novels featuring Liam Campbell and Kate Shugak.

Tell us about Kate Shugak.

She’s an Aleut living in a national park in Alaska and working as a private detective from Dutch Harbor to Prudhoe Bay.

You’re signing the first book in the Kate Shugak series at The Poisoned Pen. Tell us about A Cold Day for Murder, without spoilers.

A park ranger goes missing in the Park, and then so does the investigator who goes looking for him. Kate’s former boss, Jack Morgan, and the FBI hire her to find them both.

It seems odd to ask an author who was raised in Alaska about her connection to Hawaii. Would you tell us about it?

Back when I was a broke and homeless writer I housesat for a friend on the Big Island for two winters. During one of those winters I wrote A Cold Day for Murder on his lanai. I was jonesing for home big time.

You’re the Guest of Honor for Left Coast Crime in Hawaii in 2017. I know you have a couple plans for Author Connect events. Would you tell us about those events, and, if people can’t attend, what are your favorite suggestions for visitors?

On Thursday I’m sponsoring the 10 am outrigger canoe ride for fans. On Friday in my suite (they’re giving me a suite, squee!) I’m hosting a wine-and-cheese thingie for aspiring authors, during which we can talk about the business of writing. I think the canoe can hold eleven including me. I don’t know how many people I can fit into the suite yet. Other than that, I plan to reprise Laurie King’s Bouchercon GOH gig in SFO—be available to everyone everywhere all the time except when I’m actually asleep. I’m still in awe.

I like a quote from Neil Gaiman. “Trust your obsession.” Did you ever have an obsession that you had to turn into a story? What was it?

I read The Travels of Marco Polo, oh, must be twenty-five years ago. By his own account he loved the ladies and he was all over east Asia for twenty years in the employ of Kublai Khan. He had to have scattered some seed around and I obsessed over what happened to those kids. Took me this long to write the story of one of them, Silk and Song, an historical trilogy the third of which published last year.

Dana, what authors have inspired you?

Going all the way back? The first time I realized that books were actually written by actual human beings? Was when I read the Scholastic paperback edition of Robb White’s The Lion’s Paw. I loved and still love that book because it was about kids on a boat and so was I. It was also the first time I realized that if an author wrote one book he probably wrote more, and I could read them, too. And later, write my own.

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

Trustee from the Toolroom by Nevil Shute, A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer, The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman, the collected letters of E.B. White and John Steinbeck. And of course The Lion’s Paw by Robb White.

What’s on your TBR pile?

[had to go look] Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters (everyone should read his Last Policeman trilogy), Jean Hersey’s The Shape of a Year, Marie Phillips’ Gods Behaving Badly, Before the Fall by Noah Hawley, Blue Madonna by James R. Benn, An Obvious Fact by Craig Johnson, Skyfaring by Mark Vanhoenacker. There are about three times that many but I will be merciful and stop.

What are some novels by other authors you wish had gotten more attention?

Right now, Matthew Frank’s Joseph Stark mystery series, the second of which just published in the UK. He still doesn’t have a US publisher and that is just a gross injustice to American readers. Great characters, great plots, and he has given real thought to what happens when veterans try to transition from combat to back in the world. Wonderful reads, both of them.

Thank you, Dana. Dana’s books are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2eNy9U1  And, if you’re in town, stop in for one of the travelogues!

 

Whatever your plans for today, wherever you are,  we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.