Fiction Review
Grant Blackwood & Whitney Terrell at The Poisoned Pen
Anne Wilson recently hosted Grant Blackwood, author of Tom Clancy’s Duty and Honor, and Whitney Terrell, author of The Good Lieutenant. It seems, from the photos, as if everyone had a great time.
Would you like signed copies of either Blackwood’s Tom Clancy’s Duty and Honor or Terrell’s The Good Lieutenant?
They’re available through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com
And, Anne Wilson will be appearing again at The Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, July 12 at 7 PM with her debut novel, Clear to Lift. It’s always fun to hear a debut author, and feel as if you were in on the ground floor. You might want to mark your calendar.
Trail of Echoes by Rachel Howzell Hall – An Excerpt
Rachel Howzell Hall, author of Trail of Echoes, will be at The Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, June 21 at 7 PM, along with Gina Wohlsdorf.
Thanks to CriminalElement.com, we can link to an excerpt from the novel. It’s a teaser. We hope you’re interested and want to come meet Rachel Howzell Hall on Tuesday.
And, don’t forget! You can order a signed copy of the book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/25muI74
Christine Carbo & J. Todd Scott at The Poisoned Pen
Did you miss The Poisoned Pen’s recent program with Christine Carbo and J. Todd Scott? Carbo is the author of a novel of suspense, Mortal Fall.
J. Todd Scott wrote The Far Empty.
We do have a few photos to share for those who missed it. The store even had two moderators participate – Karen Shaver and Patrick Millikin.
You can purchase signed copies of Carbo’s Mortal Fall and Scott’s The Far Empty through the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Gina Wohlsdorf, In the Hot Seat
Debut author Gina Wohlsdorf will join Rachel Howzell Hall at The Poisoned Pen on Tuesday, June 21 at 7 PM. Gina’s debut novel, Security, is set at a glamorous resort called Manderley. She agreed to be put In the Hot Seat so you could meet her.
Congratulations, Gina, on your debut novel. Because it is a debut, our readers will want to meet you. Please introduce yourself.
Hello, Poisoned Penners! I grew up in North Dakota, graduated from Tulane University, worked at bookstores in 4 states, taught English in the south of France, earned an MFA at the University of Virginia, and wrote the whole time.
I’ve seen way too many horror movies. I love Mexican food. Pugs are probably my favorite thing on the planet; if I happen to pet one, my whole day is better.
I’m (charmingly?) scattershot at introducing myself.
Tell us about the Manderley Resort.
It’s the most opulent, luxurious, beautiful hotel you’ve ever seen, built on a flawless stretch of Santa Barbara beach. With service unmatched and safety guaranteed, you’ll leave all the worries of your life behind. I promise.
A fifty-by-fifty-yard hedge maze out front will entertain the adventurous – but please skip it if you’re at all claustrophobic. The rows are somewhat narrow, the correct path is hard to find, and there are all those red roses, with their sharp thorns.
The pool is an ecological wonder – a former underwater cave, it’s primarily lit with phosphorescent algae. Not recommended for children, of course, as the naturally occurring rock is unforgiving of falls.
And inside? Twenty floors of pure bliss – or, excuse me, nineteen. The twentieth floor is off-limits to all but security staff. Excuse me again, eighteen floors. There is no thirteenth floor at Manderley. Bad luck, you know . . .
Tell us about Security, without spoilers.
Security is the story of a luxury hotel getting ready for its grand opening. A skeleton crew staff is putting the finishing touches on every detail so the gala later this week will be the talk of Los Angeles. A skittish maid is counting toilet paper on the second floor. The manager is up to no good in his office. The head chef is reading his underlings the riot act.
Their boss is holding it all together, barely, until a man from her past arrives and throws her whole night into turmoil.
And unbeknownst to all of them, The Killer is cleaning blood off his hands in Room 717. Masked, immense, and unrelenting, he hunts them down one by one.
Who will live, who will die, and just who is telling the story?
What made you decide to write?
I was an insomniac as a kid. I didn’t like to dream asleep; I much preferred to do it awake. So I’d sit up at my little pink desk and write stories on the backs of my father’s mimeographed English quizzes that he had by the pileful in our house.
I wrote a memoir at age 11, and yes, I too find that hilarious. I started trying novels in junior high, kept trying through high school, and could never finish one — until I finished one at age 22. I was hooked. I never really stopped after that.
I read a few reviews of Security that hinted as to who the reviewers were reminded of when they read Security. But, what authors do you feel influenced you?
Stephen King. As a teen, I read everything he wrote.
Daphne du Maurier and Shirley Jackson, the grand masters of haunted places populated by haunted people.
And, out of left field, Alain Robbe-Grillet, a French modernist from the mid-twentieth century, who wrote an entire first-person novel called Jealousy in which the pronoun “˜I’ does not appear once. Jealousy is such a mind-bend — can’t recommend it enough.
Now, I’m going off-topic. Hypothetically, you have the money to live any place you want. You can’t pick Denver. Where would you live, and why?
Fortunately, a lot of places qualify, so I’ll just tell you what it looks like.
I’m near the beach; it’s walking distance but not right outside my door. There’s a really good coffee house in walking distance, too, and several restaurants that serve excellent soup. Several others serve excellent Mexican food. Snowy winters happen, but they are short and – this is important – not North Dakota brutal.
Where do you take friends when they come to visit?
In Denver? Tattered Cover. It’s embarrassing, but most of my friends know that my idea of a good time is a book store. I’m so in the right line of work.
Describe yourself in 5 words or phrases.
How about song lyrics?
1) I swim for brighter days, despite the absence of sun
2) Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken Halleluja
3) Imagine no possessions
4) I don’t care if they eat me alive, cuz I’ve got better things to do than survive
5) I’ve got a long way to run
What’s on your TBR (To Be Read) pile right now?
Descent by Tim Johnston. I’m halfway. I stopped to revise my second book for Algonquin, and it’s killin’ me — the suspense!
Arcadia by Lauren Groff. I’ve heard so many amazing things about her.
Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro. The word “˜genius’ gets tossed around a lot. But he’s a genius.
Better by Atul Gawande. I’m in the middle of this one too, but here I’m progressing. I can read nonfiction, but not fiction, while writing fiction. Gawande’s writing is a clinic in clarity.
Thank you, Gina! (I liked your answer with song lyrics. I may have to adapt that for future interviews.)
As I said, Gina Wohlsdorf will be at the Pen on Tuesday, June 21 at 7 PM. But, Security is already available through the Web Store if you’d like a copy. https://bit.ly/1t5fk0W
Hannah Dennison & Honeychurch Hall
Hannah Dennison and I didn’t connect before her recent appearance at The Poisoned Pen. So, I asked her to follow-up on her visit with a discussion of the inspiration for her Honeychurch Hall mystery series. Thank you, Hannah!
Thank you for inviting me to talk about the Honeychurch Hall Mysteries today. As you know I’m a huge fan of The Poisoned Pen Bookstore!
In a nutshell my protagonist Kat Stanford stars in a hit road show called Fakes & Treasures. Weary of being permanently in the public eye, Kat switches careers initially to set up an antique business with her newly widowed mother, Iris. Kat’s mother, however, has other ideas and Kat is horrified to learn that not only has Iris secretly purchased a dilapidated carriage house on a crumbling country estate several hundred miles away from London, she’s actually an internationally best-selling author of erotica, writing under the pseudonym of Krystalle Storm. Kat sets off to make her mother “see sense” and ends up staying herself.
The inspiration for this series came from my own mother’s rash decision to purchase a highly impractical wing of a country house in Devon, after my Dad passed away in 2002. She was 73 at the time. As you can imagine, my sister and I were really worried. It wasn’t so much the isolated location with a mile-long drive, no local shop and no public transport. The house was a money drain, with a roof in need of mending, heating and plumbing breaking down constantly and generally, the whole estate was falling apart.
Then we realized that it was what Mum really wanted. Although my parents had shared 54 years of marriage together, it had been in a different time when the man ruled the house. Suddenly, she could do exactly what she liked.
Of course I’m no former TV celebrity—although I have had some experience in the antique world—and my mother is definitely no romance writer nor does she have a brother who has spent a career in various establishments at “Her Majesty’s Pleasure” —although my relatives did box with the notorious Kray twins back in the 1960s.
Honeychurch Hall itself is based on two private houses. The first is Dundridge, near Totnes, where my mother lives and the second, where I grew up.
We used to live in the converted gatehouses at the bottom of the main drive of Hillersdon House near Cullompton, Devon. I was always fascinated by the “goings-on” at the big house. When Hillersdon came up for sale in June of 2009, I discovered that it had had a reputation for holding wild society parties during the 1890s or “naughty nineties” as they were then known. Elinor Glyn, who was rumored to be one of the first writers of erotic fiction, was a frequent visitor.
Men were to say: “Would you like to sin with Elinor Glyn on a tiger skin? Or would you prefer to err with her on some other fur?”
Elinor Glyn was said to popularize the concept of “It” as in, “You either have it, or you don’t.” She claimed that “With ‘It,’ you win all men if you are a woman and all women if you are a man.” By modern standards, her books are pretty tame but well-worth reading. She said, “Romance is the glamour that turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.” I rather like that!
Mike Lloyd, my friend and the man who took on Hillersdon House, has unearthed the original plans dating from the mid-seventeen hundreds and he’s following them to the letter—putting back the lakes, introducing deer, and sprucing up the grotto and stumpery. It’s very exciting.
Now at age 87, my mother is more vibrant than ever. She continues to spy on the neighbors—all in the name of helping me with my stories. She still works as a docent at Greenway, Agatha Christie’s summer home and believe me, that comes in very handy whenever I’m stuck on a plot point or facing a blank page. She’ll just give me a few Agatha Christie tips. There is nothing my mother does not know about the Queen of Crime.
Yet, murder and romance aside, at the core of the Honeychurch Hall Mysteries is the relationship between a mother and daughter facing new and uncertain beginnings. I’m fascinated by the notion that it’s those who are nearest and dearest to us who are often the most duplicitous of all.
Interested in more about the mystery series? Check out this video of the carriage house that became the influence for the Honeychurch Hall mysteries.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofVbMw5BiJA&w=560&h=315]
Murder at Honeychurch Hall (Minotaur) May, 2014
Deadly Desires at Honeychurch Hall (Minotaur) May, 2015
A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall (Minotaur) May, 2016
Other series: The Vicky Hill Mysteries
https://www.facebook.com/HannahDennisonBooks
https://twitter.com/HannahLDennison
Hannah Dennison’s books can be purchased through the Poisoned Pen’s Web Store. https://bit.ly/1UOfSkM
David Morrell & the Department of First Stories
David Morrell recently shared a delightful story of his first sale as an author. We’d like to share it with you.
This is the background to my story “The Granite Kitchen” in the July issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Back in 1971, I finished the manuscript of FIRST BLOOD and sent it to my agent. Shortly afterward, I had a dream so vivid that I immediately used it as the basis for a short story. It was called “The Dripping,” and I submitted it to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. I still recall the excitement of receiving an acceptance letter and a check for $100. My first sale. I smiled more broadly when I learned that the magazine had a “Department of First Stories,” which drew attention to writers whose first sale was to EQMM. Many authors who’d influenced me were in that “Department of First Stories”: Jack Finney, Stanley Ellin, William Link and Richard Levinson (Columbo, Murder She Wrote), for example. Last year, many decades later, EQMM asked me to write a new story for a 75th anniversary issue that celebrated the “Department of First Stories.” The joy of that first sale came back to me as I wrote the new story, remembering the suspense with which I’d submitted “The Dripping” years ago and now feeling that because EQMM had actually asked me to write a new story for it, I had finally arrived. My novel First Blood was later published, unleashing Rambo, but the thrill of that publication couldn’t equal what I felt when I received that acceptance letter from EQMM in 1971. “The Dripping” turned out to be my most reprinted story and was included in The Best American Noir of the Century, edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler.
Congratulations, David! We’re so glad you feel as if you finally arrived! (And, thank you for allowing us to share the story of your first sale.)
Warren Easley, Q&A
Warren Easley’s Not Dead Enough, A Cal Claxton Oregon Mystery from Poisoned Pen Press, is the June pick for the Thriller Club.
Michael Barson recently did a Q&A with the author in which they discussed Easley’s series.
1) When you created attorney Cal Claxton, how did you envision him being different from other protagonists in today’s crime fiction?
I certainly knew what I didn’t want him to be—a tragically flawed, enigmatic figure, which, to me, is a cliché in mystery fiction. I wanted him to be an everyman, a character whose reactions to situations are not particularly out of the ordinary. But I wanted him to be dogged and resilient, too. I knock him down a lot, but he gets up and re-engages. It’s a trait I admire greatly. Like most of us, he’s reluctant to engage when it looks daunting, but he’s guided by a strong moral compass, and he’s particularly prone to come to the aid of the most vulnerable.
2) Why did you decide that Cal needed to move from practicing law in L.A. to rural Oregon?
Cal was shattered by his wife’s suicide in L.A. because he felt he was so wrapped up in his career as a prosecutor that he missed the signs of her depression. He moves to a remote farmhouse in Dundee, Oregon, in the heart of the wine country, to essentially re-invent himself as a small town lawyer and a fly fisherman. His goal is to keep his head down and mind his own business, but, of course, trouble has a way of finding him.
3) The Native American characters who populate Not Dead Enough, and the Indian lore that suffuses the story, carry the ring of authenticity. How much expertise do you possess?
It’s always a challenge to write about another culture, and I don’t claim any expertise in Native American culture. Central to the book is the flooding of Celilo Falls on the Columbia River, a fishing and cultural center of the river tribes for millennia. I visited the re-located Celilo Village several times and read and viewed everything I could get my hands on about Celilo Falls, including historian Katrine Barber’s excellent book, Death of Celilo Falls. Like Tony Hillerman, who had a great influence on me, I write about Native American culture with the utmost respect and admiration.
4) If you had to choose one author of a classic crime series from whom you drew inspiration for the Cal Claxton series, who would top the list?
Well, that’s pretty easy call for me—Raymond Chandler’s body of work, particularly The Long Goodbye. I like the blend of hard-boiled noir, satire, and social commentary that Chandler brings to the genre.
5) Is there one writer working in the mystery field today whom you especially admire?
I mentioned Tony Hillerman, but the writer I admire the most is James Lee Burke, who writes, among other things, the Dave Robicheaux series set on the Gulf Coast. Burke’s characters jump off the page, his dialogue crackles, and his descriptions of the Gulf Coast always mesmerize me. I wanted to do something like that in my series with Oregon as the setting.
6) What is your long-range goal for this series? To keep writing one installment each year for the next twenty years or so?
Ha! That’s what James Lee Burke has done. My goal is simple—make the next book in the series the best piece of mystery fiction I’m capable of. One book a year seems reasonable, although the one I’m working on now—number five in the series—is ahead of that schedule. So many stories to tell, so little time!
7) Have you ever entertained the idea of starting a second series featuring a different protagonist?
No, I’m pretty focused on the Cal Claxton series. I do have some ideas for stand-alones that I hope to get to in the not-too-distant future.
Copies of Warren Easley’s Cal Claxton books, including signed copies of Not Dead Enough, are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/1X7DSTl
Cara Black, In the Hot Seat
Tuesday, June 14 is release date for Cara Black’s new Aimee Leduc mystery, Murder on the Quai. She’ll be here at The Poisoned Pen on Saturday, June 18 at 2 PM, so this is the perfect time to interview her. Cara’s In the Hot Seat today.
Cara, thank you for sitting In the Hot Seat. Would you introduce yourself to our readers?
I’m a former preschool teacher, my husband owned a bookstore and we live in San Francisco. I drink espresso and get to Paris whenever I can.
Now, would you introduce Aimee Leduc?
Aimée Leduc is the half-American, half-French daughter of a 70’s radical American mother who left her when she was eight, and a father, formerly in the Police, later a detective, who became a PI and took over the family business at Leduc Detective. Aimée lives in Paris on Ile Saint-Louis because that’s where I’d like to live. She has a motor scooter, a bichon frise puppy named Miles Davis pronounced Meels Daveez, a stormy relationship with her godfather, Commissaire Morbier, is attracted to bad boys and haunts the flea markets for vintage couture. She’s taller, thinner and with a better fashion sense than moi.
Tell us about Murder on the Quai. Why did you go back in Aimee’s career?
Great question. I never thought I would write a series much less sixteen books so it’s become a challenge to keep Aimée’s Paris world familiar yet fresh. Actually, at the end of Murder on the Champs de Mars, life changing things happened to Aimée Leduc and to someone close in her life. I couldn’t see much further ahead for her except from the Emergency room in the hospital where this person close to her, who betrayed her (she believes) and had shot, is fighting for their life. Conflicted, heartbroken, all I knew was that Aimée was at a crossroads. I didn’t know where she’d go from here. My editor asked me what would happen to Aimée, I think I mumbled I hadn’t much of a clue where Aimée’s life would take her now. Perfect segue for a prequel, my editor said in that brilliant way she has. She said she’d always wondered about Aimée’s origin story, on her younger days, what made her into the private detective (apart from inheriting the agency from her father) she’d become. Where did her dog, Miles Davis, come from and how did she find her partner, René Friant, and how did her vintage Chanel style emerge. Also, she asked, couldn’t we have a chance to meet Aimée’s father, Jean-Claude who we’ve heard about for 15 books and see him together with her mother and glimpse that love and attraction that drew these two very different people together. So in Murder on the Quai, we get to meet her father who’s death has affected her in the rest of the series. We also meet her grandfather, Claude, who I’ve sort of fallen in love with – he’s a bon vivant, loves good food and haunting the art auctions and has a mistress. Plus the music! I made a playlist to take me back to 1989 including some songs which Aimée hears in the story: 99 Luftballoons, Oh Champs Elysèes, Love Shack by the B-52’s, music by Duran Duran and Madonna. Also hearing wonderful old Parisian songs from the 1940’s by Edith Piaf, Yves Montand, Charles Trenet that brought to me another era and dancing around the laptop.
Would you introduce us to Aimee’s Paris?
Aimée lives in 90’s Paris with art, fashion, and cuisine reflecting that time. Setting the stories in the 90’s was never a conscious decision on my part nor an organized plan, it evolved organically. I was so thrilled to publish my first book, Murder in the Marais, that I hadn’t thought of anything else. When my editor asked me where Aimée was going next in Paris, what would be happening with the man she met etc…I got tongue tied…then she said..”Wait, you are writing a series, aren’t you?” “˜Of course” I lied. So, I started writing about Belleville (this was in the early to mid 90’s when I stayed with my friend there), impressed by the vibrant street life, and found a story. It’s been like that with all the books, exploring and describing off the beaten track Paris I discovered. I was writing about the Paris I was seeing in the 90’s when I began to visit often. I’ve just moved Aimée a few months ahead in time and so the stories have stayed in that era (the first set in 1993-1999 – the latest, and now the prequel set in 1989). I’m so glad, too because, while Aimée has a cell phone she doesn’t have to worry about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or texting. There were few CCTV cameras and everyone paid in francs – much sexier than the Euro. Oh and you could still smoke in the cafes. French society, to me, was and remains underneath very traditional. They are still ruled by the Napoleonic code so try to get paperwork done in a timely fashion. The French Colonial rule brought immigrants from Indochina and North Africa to France then in the third generation at that time. Aimée’s Paris is a salad bowl of cultures with strong ties from a Colonial heritage, a past from WW2, 17th century cobbled streets and history on every corner.
I’ve heard a couple wonderful stories about your youth and love of Paris and your first trip. Would you tell our readers?
In high school for a book report, I discovered a book on the library shelf and fell in love. The book was Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary. In love with his writing, the story, his way with words, the way he evoked images and time. So I wrote the author a fan letter. In those days, we used pen and paper, we addressed the envelope to the writer in care of the publishing house in New York and hoped. I doubted my gushing fan letter would ever get a response, especially since Romain Gary, the writer, lived in France but something felt right about trying to tell him he’d touched me and the book changed the way I looked at writing and words.
I jumped out of my skin when later a letter addressed to Mademoiselle Black with a French stamp arrived.
Monsieur Romain Gary, who’d won the Prix Goncourt literary prize for Promise at Dawn, the book I’d read, had written thanking me for my letter. And he wrote to me as an adult, as if my letter mattered to him. It rocked my world.
I had saved my babysitting money and after high school, backpacked around Europe. In those days we slept under the Pont Neuf in Paris, munched baguettes and shared wine with other travelers down on the Seine, as one did. I had Monsieur Gary’s address. 108 rue du Bac opened to a treelined courtyard, an imposing white stone building. I followed the red carpeted staircase winding upwards past a stained glass window and bold as brass knocked on the tall carved wood door. A man answered. Wild black hair sticking up, thick mustache, blue-turquoise eyes with a severe stare who took one look at me and said.
“Do I know you?”
“Uhm..I wrote you a letter…” I fumbled, staring at the carpet wishing it would swallow me up “from California and you wrote me back..and..”
“Just a moment.” He slammed the door.
I waited, feeling stupid and awkward at my terrible faux pas. One doesn’t just appear at the door of a famous and busy Prix Goncourt winning author and expect them to…
The door opened. “Shall we go for a coffee?” I nodded dumbstruck. We walked to the corner cafe, his local and the cafe man had a cigar and expresso waiting on the counter for Monsieur Gary. The cafe man looked at me, in jeans, flannel shirt etc and then at Monsieur Gary.
“What about her?” he asked.
“She’ll have the same,” Monsieur Gary said.
I don’t remember everything we talked about because I was trying to puff on the cigar and not cough, drink this acid tasting coffee – my first ever expresso – and not choke and make some kind of intelligent conversation. I do remember Monsieur Gary, to his credit, showing amazing generosity.
I’m going off-topic. Hypothetically, you have the money to live anyplace you want. You can’t pick France or your present home. Where would you live, and why?
I’ve kind of fallen in love with a friend’s farmhouse in Umbria, somewhere between Rome and Florence. Rolling hills, cypress trees, breathtaking views, the way the light falls and the quiet of the countryside. There’s great hiking, old ruins, very off the beaten track except for an old Roman road. The only thing is the local cafe is too far away…I’d move it closer.
Cara, in five words or phrases, how would Aimee Leduc describe you?
Works best on a deadline.
Bucket list. We all have one. What’s next on your list? What do you hope to do soon?
I’d love to visit Prague, Talinn in Estonia and snorkel in the Maldives.
College students just graduated. Look back at your own twenties. What advice would you give new college graduates?
I think it’s great to take a year off and discover a part of the world and things about yourself before hitting the textbooks. I’m all for a gap year as they say in the UK.
What’s on top of your TBR (To Be Read) pile right now?
The new Alan Furst that comes out soon!
Thank you, Cara! As I said, Cara Black will be here Saturday, June 18 at 2 PM. If you can’t make it, you can purchase a signed copy of Murder on the Quai. https://bit.ly/1TH6qks
The Tony Awards – Advice for Actors
With the Tony Awards tonight, it’s the perfect time to share the advice for actors that comes from the Golden Age of Mysteries. Once again, thanks to https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress.com for the clever post. Here’s the link – https://bit.ly/1Xuc0aZ