Fiction Review

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Kwei Quartey for a virtual event. His latest book, Last Seen in LaPaz, is available through the Webstore. There will be more signed copies available there. https://tinyurl.com/y25rv26p

Here’s the description of Last Seen in LaPaz.

When a whirlwind romance leads to a brutal murder and the disappearance of a young Nigerian woman, PI Emma Djan resorts to dangerous undercover work to track her down in Accra.

Just as things at work are slowing down for PI Emma Djan, an old friend of her boss’s asks for help locating his missing daughter in Accra. According to her father, Ngozi had a bright future ahead of her when she became secretive and withdrawn. Suddenly, all she wanted to do was be with her handsome new beau, Femi, instead of attending law school in the fall. So when she disappears from her parents’ house in Nigeria in the middle of the night, they immediately suspect Femi was behind it and have reason to believe the pair has fled to Ghana.

The case escalates quickly when Femi is found murdered at an opulent hotel in Accra, but there are no signs of Ngozi at the scene. Emma knows if she’s to have any hope of finding Ngozi, she must learn more about Femi, so she digs into his past and discovers he was part of a network of sex traffickers operating across West Africa. Fearing the worst, Emma resorts to dangerous undercover work in a desperate attempt to track Ngozi down before it’s too late.

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Kwei Quartey was born in Ghana and raised by a Black American mother and a Ghanaian father. A retired physician, he lives in Pasadena. He is the author of five critically acclaimed novels in the Darko
Dawson series, as well as two other books in the Emma Djan series, including The Missing American, which was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel.

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Enjoy the conversation with Kwei Quartey.

Kellerman. Hurwitz. Todd. Berry. Those are just a few of the authors scheduled to appear for The Poisoned Pen in the next couple weeks. Check out the upcoming events, and then check the Webstore for books by your favorite authors. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

There’s so much news to share with the announcement that Walter Mosley has been awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger for 2023. Let’s start with his forthcoming live appearance at The Poisoned Pen. He’ll be at the bookstore on Friday, Feb. 24 at 7 PM to talk about and sign his latest book, Every Man a King. You can order your copy through the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/item/-lOcjb5TGYKrAEfREO5Nnw

Here’s the announcement from the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA).

Walter Mosley is the 2023 recipient of the highest honour in crime writing, the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Diamond Dagger.

The CWA Daggers are now regarded by the publishing world as the foremost awards hosted in Britain for crime writing. Mosley receives the award in the CWA’s 70^th Jubilee year; the CWA was founded in 1953.

The Diamond Dagger recognises authors whose crime writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to the genre.

One of the most versatile and admired writers in America, Walter Mosley was born and raised in Los Angeles, and now lives in Brooklyn and LA.

Walter Mosley is the author of more than 60 critically acclaimed books, that cover a wide range of genres. His work has been translated into 25 languages.

He brought a cast of crime fiction characters into the American canon with his first novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, featuring private detective, Easy Rawlins. Several of his books have been adapted for screen, including Devil in a Blue Dress starring Denzel Washington, the HBO production of Always Outnumbered, starring Laurence Fishburne and Natalie Cole, and Apple TV+’s production of The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey starring Samuel Jackson.

Maxim Jakubowski, Chair of the CWA, said: “I am truly delighted my friend Walter has been deemed worthy of the Diamond Dagger by my colleagues and members of the CWA. His voice has dominated the fiction scene for decades and I can think of no more deserving and ground-breaking an author to be given this ultimate accolade, for the so many things he has contributed to our genre but also to modern society.”

A multi-award-winning author, Mosley was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame in 2013. His numerous awards include The Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, a Grammy, and a PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2020, he was named the recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement from Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and the National Book Foundation presented him with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

The CWA Diamond Dagger is selected from nominations provided by CWA members.

Walter Mosley joins icons of the genre who have been recognised with the accolade, Ruth Rendell, Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Ian Rankin, PD James, Colin Dexter, Reginald Hill, Peter Lovesey, John Le Carré, Martina Cole, Michael Connelly, Elmore Leonard, Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, Lawrence Block, Eric Ambler, Ed McBain and CJ Sansom.

Walter Mosley said: “At the beginning of my writing career I was fortunate enough to be awarded the CWA’s New Blood Dagger, otherwise called the John Creasey Award. That was the highest point of my experience as a first book author.  Since then, I have picked up other honours along the way but the only award that comes near the Diamond Dagger is the MWA’s Grand Master nod.  These two together make the apex of a career that I never expected.”

Celia Killen, Walter Mosley’s editor at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, said: “With over sixty books published, numerous bestsellers and multiple awards, Walter Mosley is a master storyteller and a true icon of crime writing. His career has been characterised not only by creative excellence, but by significant contribution to the publishing landscape, notably establishing The Publishing Certificate Program to encourage diversity in all levels of the industry. In 2020, the National Book Foundation presented him with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. We are incredibly proud to publish Walter and thrilled that his brilliant work is being recognised with this year’s CWA Diamond Dagger.”

One of the UK’s most prominent societies, the CWA was founded in 1953 by John Creasey. As the oldest awards in the genre, they have been synonymous with quality crime writing for over half a century. Its awards started in 1955, with its first award going to Winston Graham, best known for Poldark.

The Diamond Dagger is announced before the annual CWA Dagger Awards, dubbed the ‘Oscars of the crime genre’, due to take place on July 6^th at a glittering gala evening.

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Here’s the description of Mosley’s forthcoming book, Every Man a King.

In this highly anticipated sequel from Edgar Award-winning “master of craft and narrative,” Walter Mosley, Joe King Oliver is entangled in a dangerous case when he’s asked to investigate whether a white nationalist is being unjustly set up. (National Book Foundation)When friend of the family and multi-billionaire Roger Ferris comes to Joe with an assignment, he’s got no choice but to accept, even if the case is a tough one to stomach. White nationalist Alfred Xavier Quiller has been accused of murder and the sale of sensitive information to the Russians. Ferris has reason to believe Quiller’s been set up and he needs King to see if the charges hold.

This linear assignment becomes a winding quest to uncover the extent of Quiller’s dealings, to understand Ferris’ skin in the game, and to get to the bottom of who is working for whom. Even with the help of bodyguard and mercenary Oliya Ruez—no regular girl Friday—the machine King’s up against proves relentless and unsparing. As King gets closer to exposing the truth, he and his loved ones barrel towards grave danger.

Mosley once again proves himself a “master of craft and narrative” (National Book Foundation) in this carefully plotted mystery that is at once a classic caper, a family saga and an examination of fealty, pride and how deep debt can go.

Patrick King from The Poisoned Pen recently welcomed Tom Rob Smith for the virtual launch of his new book, Cold People. You can find copies of that book in the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/369hc783

Here’s the summary of Cold People.

From the brilliant, bestselling author of Child 44 comes a suspenseful and fast-paced novel about an Antarctic colony of global apocalypse survivors seeking to reinvent civilization under the most extreme conditions imaginable.

The world has fallen. Without warning, a mysterious and omnipotent force has claimed the planet for their own. There are no negotiations, no demands, no reasons given for their actions. All they have is a message: humanity has thirty days to reach the one place on Earth where they will be allowed to exist…Antarctica.

Cold People follows the perilous journeys of a handful of those who endure the frantic exodus to the most extreme environment on the planet. But their goal is not merely to survive the present. Because as they cling to life on the ice, the remnants of their past swept away, they must also confront the urgent challenge: can they change and evolve rapidly enough to ensure humanity’s future? Can they build a new society in the sub-zero cold?

Original and imaginative, as profoundly intimate as it is grand in scope, Cold People is a masterful and unforgettable epic.

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Tom Rob Smith is the author of the acclaimed Child 44 trilogy. Child 44 itself was a global publishing sensation, selling over two million copies. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Prize and won the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His most recent novel, The Farm, was a Number One international bestseller. Tom also writes for television and won a Writer’s Guild Award for best adapted series and an Emmy and Golden Globe for best limited series with American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

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Enjoy the conversation with Tom Rob Smith.

James Rollins’ latest book, The Cradle of Ice, is the second in his Moonfall series. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Rollins back to the bookstore to discuss the new scientific fantasy. There are signed copies of The Cradle of Ice available in the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/58dk87tz

Here’s the description of The Cradle of Ice. (Beautiful cover, isn’t it?)

The second book in the New York Times bestselling Moonfall series from thriller-master James Rollins, The Cradle of Ice is a page-turning tale of action, adventure, betrayal, ambition, and the struggle for survival in a harsh world that hangs by a thread.

To stop the coming apocalypse, a fellowship was formed.

A soldier, a thief, a lost prince, and a young girl bonded by fate and looming disaster.

Each step along this path has changed the party, forging deep alliances and greater
enmities. All the while, hostile forces have hunted them, fearing what they might
unleash. Armies wage war around them.

For each step has come with a cost—in blood, in loss, in heartbreak.

Now, they must split, traveling into a vast region of ice and to a sprawling capital of the world they’ve only known in stories. Time is running out and only the truth will save us all.

The Moonfall Series:
The Starless Crown
The Cradle of Ice

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JAMES ROLLINS is the #1 New York Times bestseller of international thrillers, sold to over forty countries. His Sigma series has earned national accolades and has topped charts around the world. He is also a practicing veterinarian, who still spends time underground or underwater as an avid spelunker and diver.

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Enjoy Rollins’ discussion of creating the exotic universe of his books.

As Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, said, Hank Phillippi Ryan doesn’t need an introduction to many people. If you don’t know her, let me reverse this post, and share her biography first.

USA Today bestselling author HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN has won five Agatha Awards in addition to Anthony, Macavity, Daphne du Maurier, and Mary Higgins Clark Awards. As on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, she’s won 37 Emmys and many more journalism honors, and her work has resulted in new laws, criminals sent to prison, homes saved from foreclosure, and millions of dollars in restitution for victims and consumers. A past president of National Sisters in Crime and founder of MWA University, her novels include Trust Me, The Murder List, the Charlotte McNally series (starting with Prime Time), and the Jane Ryland series (which begins with The Other Woman). Ryan lives in Boston with her husband, a nationally renowned civil rights and criminal defense attorney.

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Signed copies of Ryan’s latest suspense novel, The House Guest, are available through the Webstore. http://bit.ly/3lffUtP

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Here’s the description of The House Guest.

The House Guest is another diabolical cat-and-mouse thriller from USA Today bestselling author Hank Phillippi Ryan—but which character is the cat, and which character is the mouse?

After every divorce, one spouse gets all the friends. What does the other one get? If they’re smart, they get the benefits. Alyssa Macallan is terrified when she’s dumped by her wealthy and powerful husband. With a devastating divorce looming, she begins to suspect her toxic and manipulative soon-to-be-ex is scheming to ruin her—leaving her alone and penniless. And when the FBI shows up at her door, Alyssa knows she really needs a friend.

And then she gets one. A seductive new friend, one who’s running from a dangerous relationship of her own. Alyssa offers Bree Lorrance the safety of her guest house, and the two become confidantes. Then Bree makes a heart-stoppingly tempting offer. Maybe Alyssa and Bree can solve each others’ problems.

But no one is what they seem. And the fates and fortunes of these two women twist and turn until the shocking truth emerges: You can’t always get what you want. But sometimes you get what you deserve.

Other books by Hank Phillippi Ryan:
Her Perfect Life
The First to Lie
The Murder List
On the House
Trust Me

THE JANE RYLAND SERIES:
The Other Woman / The Wrong Girl / Truth Be Told / What You See / Say No More

THE CHARLOTTE MCNALLY SERIES:
Prime Time / Face Time / Air Time / Drive Time

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Hank Phillippi Ryan is always fascinating. She’s such a storyteller. Check out the conversation.

Deborah Goodrich Royce’s psychological thriller, Reef Road, is based on a true crime. When Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen welcomed Royce to the bookstore, she asked Royce to talk about the background for the novel. You can order a signed copy of the novel through the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/vm8bj8j2

Here’s the description of Reef Road.

A Publishers Weekly Bestseller

When a severed hand washes ashore in the wealthy enclave of Palm Beach, Florida, the lives of two women—a lonely writer obsessed with the unsolved murder of her mother’s best friend and a panicked wife whose husband has disappeared with their children—collide as the world shutters in the pandemic lockdown of 2020.

“Reef Road is magnificent. It feels utterly real, a novel of deeply personal context. It swerves between truth and lies—the lies that lead to an even deeper—and more devastating—truth. Though pure fiction, it reads as compellingly as a mixture of memoir and exposé. It has left me shaken to the core. Deborah Goodrich Royce writes with brilliant understanding of the mystery and occasional grace of trauma.” —Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author

A young woman’s life seems perfect until her family goes missing. A writer lives alone with her dog and collects arcane murder statistics. What each of them stands to lose as they sneak around the do-not-enter tape blocking Reef Road beach is exposed by the steady tightening of the cincture encircling them.

In a nod to the true crime that inspired it, Deborah Goodrich Royce’s Reef Road probes unhealed generational scars in a wrenching and original work of fiction. It is both stunning and sexy and, like a bystander surprised by a curtain left open, you won’t be able to look away.

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Deborah Goodrich Royce’s thrillers examine puzzles of identity. Ruby Falls won the Zibby Award for Best Plot Twist in 2021 and Finding Mrs. Ford was hailed by Forbes, Book Riot, and Good Morning America’s “best of” lists in 2019.

She began as an actress on All My Children and in multiple films, before transitioning to the role of story editor at Miramax Films, developing Emma and early versions of Chicago and A Wrinkle in Time.

With her husband, Chuck, Deborah restored the Avon Theatre, Ocean House Hotel, Deer Mountain Inn, United Theatre, Savoy Bookstore, and numerous Main Street revitalization projects in Rhode Island and the Catskills.

She serves on the governing and advisory boards of the American Film Institute, Greenwich International Film Festival, New York Botanical Garden, Greenwich Historical Society, and the PRASAD Project.

Deborah holds a bachelor’s degree in modern foreign languages and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Lake Erie College.

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Enjoy Deborah Goodrich Royce’s discussion of Reef Road and writing.

World War II mysteries featuring women have been very popular in recent years. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Stephanie Graves for a virtual event. Graves is the author of the the Olive Bright, Pigeoneer series set during the war. Signed copies of A Courage Undimmed, the third book in the historical mystery series, are available in the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/5n9xenvn

Weaving wartime intrigue, rural village life, and little-known historical facts about the role of carrier pigeons in WWII, Stephanie Graves continues the adventures of British pigeoneer Olive Bright, but as bitter cold weather forces her racing birds indoors in November 1941, Olive is assigned to a new role in the war effort – escorting none other than Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming on his visit to the Brickendonbury Manor spy training center…

As the weather turns bitterly cold in the dark days of November 1941, fewer pigeons are being conscripted for missions into occupied Europe and Olive fears her covert program may be dropped altogether. In fact, the new CO of the Baker Street intelligence operation at Brickendonbury Manor, Major Blighty, has expressed his doubts regarding her birds—not to mention Olive herself—and assigned her to a far more insignificant role: escort to a visiting officer of the Royal Navy Intelligence Special Branch. 

She’s none too keen on her assignment or her charge—the aloof and arrogant Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming—but the last place she expects to accompany him is to a séance. Self-proclaimed medium Velda Dunbar—new to the village of Pipley—has drawn fascination and skepticism after a very public channeling of a doomed seaman aboard the HMS Bartholomew, which she claims has sunk. Fleming remains tight-lipped about his reason for attending her séance, but his arrival with Olive raises eyebrows as she is still maintaining the ruse of dating Captain Jameson Aldridge. When murder occurs before her very eyes, Olive must trust her own instincts and not rule out anyone as a suspect—including the secretive Fleming—for one of them is harboring a hidden deadly agenda.

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Stephanie Graves is the author of the Olive Bright mystery series and four romantic novels, written under the pseudonym Alyssa Goodnight. She lives in Houston with her family. Visit her online at msstephgraves.com.

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Check out Stephanie Graves recent conversation with Barbara Peters.

Have you checked out the next few days of events at The Poisoned Pen? Just look at the schedule of this week’s authors, beginning today, and then check for their books in the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Patrick Millikin recently welcomed Jordan Harper, author of Everybody Knows, as well as Robert Anglen from The Arizona Republic, for an event at The Poisoned Pen. Millikin recommends Everybody Knows for a description of Los Angeles as it is today. You can find signed copies in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3XVQGPe

Here’s the description of Everybody Knows.

A fearless black-bag publicist exposes the belly of the L.A. beast in “one of the best LA noir novels I’ve ever read” (Attica Locke) from Edgar Award-winning author Jordan Harper.

A NYTBR Editors’ Choice Selection

“Ingenious… I’d like to think Chandler himself might get a kick out of Everybody Knows. . . the LA hardboiled mystery form he largely created continues to chronicle a world even more fatally obsessed with images and false gods than he could ever have envisioned.”?Maureen Corrigan, NPR/Fresh Air
Welcome to Mae Pruett’s Los Angeles, where “Nobody talks. But everybody whispers.” As a “black-bag” publicist tasked not with letting the good news out but keeping the bad news in, Mae works for one of LA’s most powerful and sought-after crisis PR firms, at the center of a sprawling web of lawyers, PR flaks, and private security firms she calls “The Beast.” They protect the rich and powerful and depraved by any means necessary. 

After her boss is gunned down in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel in a random attack, Mae takes it upon herself to investigate and runs headfirst into The Beast’s lawless machinations and the twisted systems it exists to perpetuate. It takes her on a roving neon joyride through a Los Angeles full of influencers pumped full of pills and fillers; sprawling mansions footsteps away from sprawling homeless encampments; crooked cops and mysterious wrecking crews in the middle of the night.

Edgar Award-winner Jordan Harper’s EVERYBODY KNOWS is addicting and alarming, a “juggernaut of a novel” and “an absolute tour de force.” It is what the crime novel can achieve in the modern age: portray the human lives at the center of vast American landscapes, and make us thrill at their attempts to face impossible odds.

Recommended by New York Times Book Review • NPR/Fresh Air • Wall Street Journal • Washington Post • LA Times •CrimeReads• Alta Online • Lit Hub• Kirkus Reviews• Publishers Weekly• NBC/TODAY and many more!

• An ABA January 2023 Indie Next List Pick •

“The book everybody’s been waiting for” —Michael Connelly
“An absolute tour de force”—S. A. Cosby
“The best mystery novel I’ve read in years” —James Patterson

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Jordan Harper is the Edgar-Award winning author of She Rides Shotgun and Love and Other Wounds. Born and educated in Missouri, he now lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a writer and producer for television.

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Enjoy the conversation about LA noir.