Fiction Review

Jeremy Bushnell visited The Poisoned Pen a month ago to discuss his latest book, Relentless Melt. The Webstore still has copies in stock if you’d like to order one. https://tinyurl.com/2p8k6tt

Bushnell has been popular recently at http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com.

There’s an enthusiastic review of Relentless Melt posted there. http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com/review.html?id=11876

He’s also the subject of one of their “60 Seconds” interviews. http://www.reviewingtheevidence.com/interviews.html?id=306

One more time, here’s the description of Relentless Melt.

“A supernatural mystery—part Stranger Things, part Enola Homes, but very much itself… This book is way, way over the top—and is sure to delight its intended audience.” — firstCLUE

Stranger Things meets the Golden Age of Detective fiction in a rollicking supernatural detective thriller that introduces Artie Quick, a sales assistant at Filene’s in Boston, who moonlights as an amateur detective.

The year is 1909, and Artie Quick—an ambitious, unorthodox and inquisitive young Bostonian—wants to learn about crime. By day she holds down a job as a salesgirl in women’s accessories at Filene’s; by night she disguises herself as a man to pursue studies in Criminal Investigation at the YMCA’s Evening Institute for Younger Men.  

Eager to put theory into practice, Artie sets out in search of something to investigate. She’s joined by her pal Theodore, an upper-crust young bachelor whose interest in Boston’s occult counterculture has drawn him into the study of magic. Together, their journey into mystery begins on Boston Common—where the tramps and the groundskeepers swap rumors about unearthly screams and other unsettling anomalies—but soon Artie and Theodore uncover a series of violent abductions that take them on an adventure from the highest corridors of power to the depths of an abandoned mass transit tunnel, its excavation suspiciously never completed.

Will Theodore ever manage to pull off a successful spell? Is Artie really wearing that men’s suit just for disguise or is there something more to it?  And what chance do two mixed-up young people stand up against the greatest horror Boston has ever known, an ancient, deranged evil that feeds on society’s most vulnerable?

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Jeremy P. Bushnell is the author of two earlier novels with Melville House: The Weirdness and The Insides. He teaches writing at Northeastern University in Boston, and lives in Dedham, Massachusetts. He is also the cofounder of Nonmachinable, a distributor of optically interesting zines and artists’ books.
 
His website: http://jeremypbushnell.com/

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You can still catch the video of his event for The Poisoned Pen.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, and Patrick Millikin from the bookstore, recently welcomed a long-time friend, Michael McGarrity. McGarrity’s latest book, The Long Ago, is the current Hot Book of the Week. There are signed copies of the book available in the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/2s3deujc

Here’s the description of The Long Ago.

A soldier returns home from Vietnam in the early 1960s to search for his missing sister in this gripping story of broken lives and a search for happiness.

Growing up in Montana, siblings Raymond and Barbara Lansdale held their chaotic world together through their shared childhood fantasy of The Long Ago: a distant place where happiness and tranquility reigned, far from the dysfunction at home. But imagination only goes so far. To escape his painful past, Ray joins the army and finds a career that gives him a sense of purpose and the promise of adventure.

Recent news of his kid sister’s disappearance brings Ray home on leave before beginning a stateside assignment almost certain to send him back into the jungles of Vietnam. Determined to find Barbara despite a police investigation that has led nowhere, Ray embarks on a relentless search that takes him from the majestic Montana ranchlands and glitter of Hollywood to the mean streets of L.A. and beyond. As time dwindles, he must confront his worst nightmare. What if Barbara’s search for The Long Ago ended in a shallow, unmarked grave, not in the carefree life she’d once so longed for and imagined?

A spin-off from McGarrity’s nationally best-selling Kevin Kerney family saga, The Long Ago is a richly crafted and enthralling story of grit, determination, and the enduring, restorative strength of love.

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Michael McGarrity is the author of the nationally best-selling Kevin Kerney crime novels, which he concluded in Head Wounds, and the acclaimed American West historical trilogy. A former psychotherapist and deputy sheriff, he lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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Enjoy the conversation with Michael McGarrity.

Check out Michael McGarrity’s Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. McGarrity appears at The Pen on Thursday, July 6 at 5 PM PDT. He’ll sign copies of The Long Ago. Signed copies are available through the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/2s3deujc

Here’s the description of The Long Ago.

A soldier returns home from Vietnam in the early 1960s to search for his missing sister in this gripping story of broken lives and a search for happiness.

Growing up in Montana, siblings Raymond and Barbara Lansdale held their chaotic world together through their shared childhood fantasy of The Long Ago: a distant place where happiness and tranquility reigned, far from the dysfunction at home. But imagination only goes so far. To escape his painful past, Ray joins the army and finds a career that gives him a sense of purpose and the promise of adventure.

Recent news of his kid sister’s disappearance brings Ray home on leave before beginning a stateside assignment almost certain to send him back into the jungles of Vietnam. Determined to find Barbara despite a police investigation that has led nowhere, Ray embarks on a relentless search that takes him from the majestic Montana ranchlands and glitter of Hollywood to the mean streets of L.A. and beyond. As time dwindles, he must confront his worst nightmare. What if Barbara’s search for The Long Ago ended in a shallow, unmarked grave, not in the carefree life she’d once so longed for and imagined?

A spin-off from McGarrity’s nationally best-selling Kevin Kerney family saga, The Long Ago is a richly crafted and enthralling story of grit, determination, and the enduring, restorative strength of love.

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Michael McGarrity is the author of the nationally best-selling Kevin Kerney crime novels, which he concluded in Head Wounds, and the acclaimed American West historical trilogy. A former psychotherapist and deputy sheriff, he lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Patricia Cornwell recently hosted Barbara Butcher for a virtual event for The Poisoned Pen. Butcher’s nonfiction book is What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator. You can order a copy through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3DdoqiN

Here’s the description of What the Dead Know.

A riveting, deeply personal memoir of more than twenty years of death-scene investigations by New York City death investigator Barbara Butcher.

Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism when she found an unexpected lifeline: a job at the Medical Examiner’s Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty, demanding, morbid, and sometimes dangerous – she loved it.

Butcher (yes, that is her real name, and she has heard all the jokes) spent day in and day out investigating double homicides, gruesome suicides, and most heartbreaking of all, underage rape victims who had also been murdered. In What the Dead Know, she writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides. In the opening chapter, she describes how just from sheer luck of having her arm in cast, she avoided a boobytrapped suicide. Later in her career, she describes working the nation’s largest mass murder, the attack on 9/11, where she and her colleagues initially relied on family members’ descriptions to help distinguish among the 21,900 body parts of the victims.

This is the fascinating and stunning real-life story of a woman who, in dealing with death every day, learned surprising lessons about life—and how some of those lessons saved her from becoming a statistic herself. Fans of Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, and true crime won’t be able to put it down.

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Barbara Butcher, MPH, was Chief of Staff and Director of the Forensic Sciences Training Program at the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. She was responsible for overall agency management, strategy, and inter-agency relations. She lives in New York City.

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Enjoy the conversation.

Steve Berry and Grant Blackwood collaborated to write The 9th Man. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed the authors for the virtual launch of The 9th Man. You can find signed copies of the book in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/431n2dv

Here’s the description of The 9th Man.

From New York Times bestselling author of the Cotton Malone series comes a thrilling, action-packed historical adventure that sends Luke Daniels on an international manhunt for the truth about the assassination of President John Kennedy.

Luke Daniels is in London, between assignments with the Magellan Billet, when he receives a frantic call from an old friend.  Jillian Stein is in trouble.  She made a mistake and now her life may be in danger.  She needs Luke’s help.  Immediately.  Racing to Belgium Luke quickly finds that she was right.  A shadow team of highly-trained operatives are there on the hunt.  Intervening, he finds himself embroiled in a war between two determined sides — one seeking the truth, the other trying to escape the past — a war that has already claimed one life and is about to claim more.   

Thomas Rowland is a Washington insider, a kingmaker, problem-solver, but also a man with a past.  For him everything turns with what happened on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.  What history has recorded is wrong.  There is more to the story, much more, and Thomas Rowland is at the center of that terrible reality.  But forces are working against him, and Rowland will do anything to keep the world from learning what actually happened on that fateful day, including killing Luke, Jillian and anyone else who might be a threat. 

In a race from Belgium, to Luxembourg, to the bayous of Louisiana and the Wyoming wilderness, to a final confrontation in the Bahamas, Luke Daniels confronts a series of shocking truths which not only rewrite history but will forever change his own life — as he comes face to face with the ninth man.   

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Steve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of seventeen Cotton Malone novels, five stand-alone thrillers, and several works of short fiction. He has 26 million books in print, translated into over 40 languages. With his wife, Elizabeth, he is the founder of History Matters, an organization dedicated to historical preservation. He serves as an emeritus member of the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board and was a founding member of International Thriller Writers, formerly serving as its co?president.

Grant Blackwood is the New York Times bestselling author of the Briggs Tanner series, (The End of Enemies, The Wall of Night, and An Echo of War), the co-author of the Fargo Adventure Series (Spartan Gold, Lost Empire, and The Kingdom) with Clive Cussler, as well as the co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, Dead or Alive, with Tom Clancy, and the new thriller, The Kill Switch, with James Rollins. A U. S. Navy veteran, Grant spent three years aboard a guided missile frigate as an Operations Specialist and a Pilot Rescue Swimmer. Grant lives in Arizona, where he is working his own standalone series starring a new hero.

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You’ll want to find out about the new series. Enjoy the event!

Mark Greaney was guest host when Joshua Hood appeared for a virtual event for The Poisoned Pen. Hood’s latest book, The Guardian, is the first in a new military series. There are signed copies of The Guardian available through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/44qQPgF

Here’s the summary of The Guardian.

From the “master of action” (Publishers Weekly) and USA Today bestselling author of Robert Ludlum’s Treadstone series comes a new thriller as intense and fast paced as The Bourne Identity.

As a member of the elite Air Force Pararescue, Travis Lane abides by the motto “These things we do, that others may live.” After an injury forces him to consider retirement, he is blindsided when his brother-in-law is killed in the line of duty, leaving Lane as the sole support for his sister and the family farm they can no longer afford.

Desperate for something to help them keep the farm, Lane accepts an offer to join Broadside Solutions, a private company with specially trained military operatives who provide protection for clients all over the world. But it’s trial by fire when his first mission takes him to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to find and retrieve a kidnapped American in the middle of a densely forested jungle.

Infused with the author’s own experience as a parachute infantryman, this high-octane thriller throws the reader deep into the African jungle on a rescue mission where nothing is as it seems.

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Joshua Hood joined the army after graduating with an English degree from the University of Memphis and served as a squad leader with the 1-508th Parachute Infantry Regiment in Afghanistan, where he was decorated for valor in Operation Furious Pursuit. A former SWAT team member with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department in Memphis, Tennessee, he is a USA Today bestselling author of several books, including Robert Ludlum’s Treadstone series. He lives in Collierville, Tennessee, with his wife and two children.

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Enjoy the conversation about writing and Hood’s latest book, The Guardian.

John Charles from The Poisoned Pen recently welcomed David Bell for a virtual event. Bell’s latest book is Try Not to Breathe. There are signed copies available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3ptIyd8

Here’s the description of Try Not to Breathe.

An ex-cop sets out to find her missing sister and discovers the shocking truth about her family…

A traumatic experience in the line of duty forces thirty-year-old Avery Rogers to abandon both her relationship and her position as a Kentucky State Police officer. She retreats to a college town where she works an unfulfilling job as a security guard, breaking up fights between drunken frat boys. 

But a frantic phone call turns Avery’s life upside down. Her father—a retired cop who never fails to convey his disappointment in Avery—says her half sister is missing and in danger. Avery is sure Anna’s just crashing with friends, but her father strong-arms her into searching for the sister she barely knows.

Anna Rogers is fed up with her family—a half sister who resents her existence and a domineering father who thinks it’s okay for cops to shoot unarmed civilians. She hits the road to attend a protest against police brutality, unaware of the danger that awaits her there. 

Just after catching a glimpse of Avery at the protest, Anna receives a shocking text. Now she’s no longer road-tripping; she’s running, pursued by an older sister she doesn’t trust and a violent stranger who has been stalking her for weeks. 

When Avery discovers Anna’s hiding place near a remote cave system, she risks everything to save her. Little do the sisters know that a secret is catching up to them—a secret at the very heart of their family history.

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David Bell is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling, award-winning author whose work has been translated into multiple languages. He’s currently a professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

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There’s quite a bit of quiet humor in David Bell’s event. Enjoy watching it!

With the first July author event for The Poisoned Pen on July 6, you certainly have time to make plans to attend, whether in person or virtually. Look for your favorite authors, and then check the Webstore for their books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the kickoff to July.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Beatriz Williams, author of The Beach at Summerly. The Beach at Summerly is the current Hot Book of the Week at the bookstore. You can order signed copies of the book through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/4449K16

Here’s the description of The Beach at Summerly.

“Grand and gripping…shot through with suspense, romance, and glorious, beach-laden locales. I could not put it down.”–Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling author of The Mitford Affair

A ravishing summer read from New York Times bestseller Beatriz Williams, sweeping readers back to a mid-century New England rich with secrets and Cold War intrigue.

June 1946. As the residents of Winthrop Island prepare for the first summer season after the sacrifice of war, a glamorous new figure moves into the guest cottage at Summerly, the idyllic seaside estate of the wealthy Peabody family. To Emilia Winthrop, daughter of Summerly’s year-round caretaker and a descendant of the island’s settlers, Olive Rainsford opens a window into a world of shining possibility. While Emilia spent the war years caring for her incapacitated mother, Olive traveled the world, married fascinating men, and involved herself in political causes. She’s also the beloved aunt of the two surviving Peabody sons, Amory and Shep, with whom Emilia has a tangled romantic history.

As the summer wears on, Emilia develops a deep rapport with Olive, who urges her to leave the island for a life of adventure, while romance blossoms with the sturdy and honorable Shep. But the heady promise of Peabody patronage is blown apart by the arrival of Sumner Fox, an FBI agent who demands Emilia’s help to capture a Soviet agent who’s transmitting vital intelligence on the West’s atomic weapon program from somewhere inside the Summerly estate.

April 1954. Eight years later, Summerly is boarded up and Emilia has rebuilt her shattered life as a professor at Wellesley College, when shocking news arrives from Washington—the traitor she helped convict is about to be swapped for an American spy imprisoned in the Soviet Union, but with a mysterious condition only Emilia can fulfill. A reluctant Emilia is summoned to CIA headquarters, where she’s forced to confront the harrowing consequences of her actions that fateful summer, and a choice that could destroy the Peabody family—and Emilia’s chance for redemption—all over again.

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Beatriz Williams is the bestselling author of thirteen novels, including Her Last Flight, The Summer Wives, and The Golden Hour, as well as All the Ways We Said Goodbye, cowritten with Lauren Willig and Karen White. A native of Seattle, she graduated from Stanford University and earned an MBA in finance from Columbia University. She lives with her husband and four children near the Connecticut shore, where she divides her time between writing and laundry.

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Enjoy the conversation with Beatriz Williams.

It’s been a few years since Paul Doiron appeared at The Poisoned Pen. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, welcomed Doiron back to discuss his fourteenth Mike Bowditch novel, Dead Man’s Wake. There are signed copies of Dead Man’s Wake available through the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/444p3e3k

Here’s the description of Dead Man’s Wake.

Game Warden Mike Bowditch’s engagement party is interrupted by the discovery of a gruesome double murder in this new thriller from Edgar Award-winning author Paul Doiron.

On the evening of their engagement party, Maine Game Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch and Stacey Stevens witness what seems to be a hit-and-run speedboat crash on a darkened lake. When they arrive at the scene, their spotlight reveals a gruesome sight: a severed arm floating just beneath the surface. As day breaks, the warden dive team recovers not one but two naked corpses: a dismembered man and the married woman with whom he was having an affair. Mike begins to suspect the swimmers’ deaths were not a senseless accident but a coldly calculated murder.

Meanwhile, the hunt is on for the mysterious boater. Suspects abound on the lake, nicknamed “Golden Pond,” including the violent biker husband of the murdered woman who may have taken vengeance on his wife and her paramour; a strange woman who claims to have witnessed the crash, but then changes her story; a very aggressive realtor and his wife who were determined to catch trespassers; and the lake’s earnest young constable whose eagerness to help may hide darker motives.

Alone among his fellow officers, Mike starts to sense the involvement of a trained marksman, smarter and more dangerous than any enemy he has ever faced before. As Mike and Stacey get closer to identifying the killer, their own lives are suddenly on the line as they confront a lethal killer who plans to silence them forever. The finale is a tour de force of drama and suspense.

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A native of Maine, bestselling author PAUL DOIRON attended Yale University, where he graduated with a degree in English. The Poacher’s Son, the first book in the Mike Bowditch series, won the Barry award, the Strand award for best first novel, and has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity awards in the same category. He is a Registered Maine Guide specializing in fly fishing and lives on a trout stream in coastal Maine with his wife, Kristen Lindquist.

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Enjoy the conversation with Paul Doiron.