Barbara Peters and Patrick Millikin recently welcomed Leslie S. Klinger for a live appearance at The Poisoned Pen. Patrick questioned him about his latest book, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Complete Annotated Edition. Barbara talked with him about the Library of Congress Crime Classics because Klinger is the series editor. You can find Klinger’s books in the Web Store, including signed copies of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. https://bit.ly/3CgqPYU

It sounds funny to say here’s the description of the completed annotation edition.

 The definitive edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s immortal tale of depraved murder and unrelenting horror, introduced by Joe Hill, annotated by Edgar-winner Leslie S. Klinger, & illustrated with over 100 color images

There’s no question that The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of the most influential texts of all time. The now-iconic tale, which has confounded and thrilled readers for more than a century, was described by one scholar as the only detective-crime story in which the solution is more terrifying than the problem. And even as its plot gets continually reinterpreted and reimagined in literature, film, and theater, the main themes persist, as do the titular characters, now so familiar as to have become a part of the English language.

This new edition gives the classic tale of depraved murder and unrelenting horror its most complete and illuminating presentation yet. Heavily illustrated with over a hundred and fifty full color images from the history of this cultural touchstone—including reproductions of rare books, film stills, theatrical posters, and the true-life people associated with the adventure—and extensively annotated by Edgar Award winning editor and noted Victorian literature expert Leslie S. Klinger, this thorough and authoritative approach is both an invaluable resource for scholars and a sumptuous treat for fans of the text.

Introduced by a compelling and erudite essay from bestselling novelist and short story writer Joe Hill, this complete illustrated and annotated edition of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the ultimate tribute to an enduring classic, combining revelatory and surprising information and in-depth historical context with beautiful illustrations and photographs. It is sure to please anyone interested in the Victorian era, mystery fiction, and horror tales.

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Victorian author born in Scotland in 1850. He is best known for his novels Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He died in Samoa in 1894.

Leslie S. Klinger is considered to be one of the world’s foremost authorities on Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Frankenstein, and H. P. Lovecraft. Klinger is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars and Treasurer of the Horror Writers Association. His nonfiction works have won numerous awards.

Enjoy the conversation.

Hodder & Stoughton announces the death of Peter Robinson

Hodder & Stoughton are sad to announce that the crime writer Peter Robinson died suddenly on 4th October after a brief illness. He was best-known for his DCI Banks novels ““ first published 35 years ago, and brought to television by Left Bank Productions with Stephen Tompkinson as Banks ““ with 8.75 million books sold by his UK publishers Hodder & Stoughton and Pan Macmillan. A long-time Torontonian, Robinson was born in Leeds and much of his fiction was deeply rooted in a very contemporary Yorkshire, where the beauty of the Dales always co-existed with poverty and crime in his fictional town of Eastvale. Peter received the Grand Master Award from the Crime Writers of Canada in 2020, and won many prizes for his work from around the world, where his fiction has been translated and published in 20 countries and reached number one on the bestseller list numerous times.

Peter Robinson’s editor, Hodder Managing Director Carolyn Mays, said: “˜Peter was a combination of all the best bits of his detective Alan Banks ““ thoughtful and passionate about justice, he had fine taste and a totally down to earth view of the world. His humour was wry and very dry. He was a Yorkshireman to the core; much that he did was done without fanfare, like the scholarship he created at the University of Leeds, where he himself took his first degree, to sponsor students through an English Literature and Creative Writing course.

“˜Peter Robinson was an immensely talented writer over a very wide range, from poetry, to short stories, noir thrillers to more literary works. He was in fact Dr Robinson, with a PhD in literature, and we saw glimpses of that, and sometimes his poetry, in his novels ““ as well of course of his very eclectic love of music, shared by Banks. His novels are superbly plotted (one reviewer said he had the precision of Swiss watchmaker) and the settings are vivid and fully real, but it’s the richness and depth of his characters that keep the readers ““ including me ““ coming back for more.

“˜I’ve lost track of the very many happy meals the Robinson team, his agent and old friend David Grossman, and I have shared with Peter and his wife Sheila, putting the world to rights and trying to persuade him ““ always unsuccessfully ““ to give away a little bit more about what was going to happen next in Banks’s love life. The last of those was in May this year when we met for the first time since the pandemic. With typical generosity, Peter and Sheila drove around Yorkshire to feed and entertain me. Peter promised a delivery date for his new novel, and as he always did, kept to it. Standing in the Shadows is perhaps his finest work yet, and publishing it in March next year will be a bittersweet experience for a great many of us.

“˜Our hearts are with his family and friends, his agents David Grossman and Dominick Abel, the many thousands of fans who will miss his work so much, and most of all with his beloved wife, Sheila, to whom he dedicated every single book he wrote.’

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, had the chance to talk with Peter Robinson in May 2020. Here’s the conversation.

Check the Web Store if you’re looking for Peter Robinson’s books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/browse/filter/t/peter%20Robinson/k/keyword

May he rest in peace.

Malice House is Megan Shepherd’s first book for an adult audience. She’s known for her “gothic vibe” with young adult books. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, talked with Shepherd, and said Malice House is the store’s Notable New Fiction book for October. There are signed copies of the book in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3fS5UnG

Here’s the description of Malice House.

From New York Times bestselling author Megan Shepherd comes a complex tale of dark magic, family secrets, and monsters that don’t stay on the page.

“A propulsively charming nightmare, pooling like spilled ink across your imagination.” — Kiersten White, New York Times bestselling author of Hide

“Haunting and beautifully written . . . an exploration of the mysterious power of stories.” —Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls and The Last to Vanish

“One step away from our world lies another: a land of violent fantasies, of sharp-toothed delights. . . .”

Of all the things aspiring artist Haven Marbury expected to find while clearing out her late father’s remote seaside house, Bedtime Stories for Monsters was not on the list. This secret handwritten manuscript is disturbingly different from his Pulitzer-winning works: its interweaving short stories crawl with horrific monsters and enigmatic humans that exist somewhere between this world and the next. The stories unsettle but also entice Haven, practically compelling her to illustrate them while she stays in the house that her father warned her was haunted. Clearly just dementia whispering in his ear . . . right?

Reeling from a failed marriage, Haven hopes an illustrated Bedtime Stories can be the lucrative posthumous father-daughter collaboration she desperately needs to jump-start her art career. However, everyone in the nearby vacation town wants a piece of the manuscript: her father’s obsessive literary salon members, the Ink Drinkers; her mysterious yet charming neighbor, who has a tendency toward three a.m. bonfires; a young barista with a literary forgery business; and of course, whoever keeps trying to break into her house. But when a monstrous creature appears under Haven’s bed right as grisly deaths are reported in the nearby woods, she must race to uncover dark, otherworldly family secrets—completely rewriting everything she ever knew about herself in the process.

Enjoy the conversation about Malice House, bookstores, bibliomysteries, and gothic novels.

Yesterday, I mentioned The Poisoned Pen Bookstore was celebrating thirty-three years in business. Barbara Peters opened the bookstore then. It’s worth showing photos of the bookstore to those of you who might not have had a chance to visit.

That’s the welcoming front door of the bookstore. For more photos, and a nice article, check out the piece in “Only in Your State”. https://bit.ly/3e6GWjI

It was the 33rd anniversary of The Poisoned Pen Bookstore itself. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, welcomed John Sandford as guest author. It truly was a celebration. John Sandford appeared with his latest book that unites Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers. Righteous Prey is the Hot Book of the Week at the bookstore, and signed copies of the book are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3SwXArI

Here’s the summary of Righteous Prey.

Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers are up against a powerful vigilante group with an eye on vengeance in this stunning new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author.

“We’re going to murder people who need to be murdered.”

So begins a press release from a mysterious group known only as “The Five,” shortly after a vicious predator is murdered in San Francisco. The Five is made up of vigilante killers who are very bored…and very rich. They target the worst of society—rapists, murderers, and thieves—and then use their unlimited resources to offset the damage done by those who they’ve killed, donating untraceable Bitcoin to charities and victims via the dark net. The Five soon become popular figures in the media …though their motives may not be entirely pure.

After The Five strike again in the Twin Cities, Virgil Flowers and Lucas Davenport are sent in to investigate. And they soon have their hands full–the killings are smart and carefully choreographed, and with no apparent direct connection to the victims, the killers are virtually untraceable. But if anyone can destroy this group, it will be the dynamic team of Davenport and Flowers.

John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of thirty-one Prey novels; four Kidd novels; twelve Virgil Flowers novels; three YA novels coauthored with his wife, Michele Cook; and three other books.

If you’re a fan of John Sandford, you’ll enjoy this conversation.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Adam Hamdy, author of The Other Side of Night, along with guest host Peng Shepherd, author of The Cartographers. There are signed copies of both books available in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the direct link to the signed copy of The Other Side of Night, https://bit.ly/3SQBY9r, followed by the description of the book.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about the story’s incredible twist…like no crime novel I’ve ever read.” —James Patterson

For fans of Matt Haig and Anthony Horowitz, an “intriguing and thought-provoking” (Liv Constantine, author of The Last Mrs. Parrish) novel in which the lives of a disgraced police officer, a prolific author, and an upstanding citizen are inextricably bound together by a series of mysterious deaths.

The Other Side of Night begins with a man named David Asha writing about his biggest regret: his sudden separation from his son, Elliot. In his grief, David tells a story.

Next, we step into the life of Harriet Kealty, a police officer trying to clear her name after a lapse of judgment. She discovers a curious inscription in a secondhand book—a plea: Help me, he’s trying to kill me. Who wrote this note? Who is “he”?

This note leads Harri to David Asha, who was last seen stepping off a cliff. Police suspect he couldn’t cope after his wife’s sudden death. Still, why would this man jump and leave behind his young son? Quickly, Harri’s attention zeroes in on a person she knows all too well.

Ben Elmys: once the love of her life. A surrogate father to Elliot Asha and trusted friend to the Ashas.

Ben may also be a murderer.”‹

The Other Side of Night is a thought-provoking, moving “head-spinner of a novel” (John Connolly) with intriguing narratives and plot swerves that will leave you reeling. By the end, you’ll be shaken as each piece slots satisfyingly into place.

Adam Hamdy is a bestselling British author and screenwriter who works with studios and production companies on both sides of the Atlantic. Together with David Headley, Adam founded Capital Crime, one of the UK’s largest literary festivals. He teaches creative writing in the UK and US and is on the board of the International Thriller Writers Organization.

Enjoy the conversation. It will tempt you to order a copy of Hamdy’s The Other Side of Night.

Archer Mayor brings back Joe Gunther in his latest book, Fall Guy. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently talked with him about the 23rd book in the series. There are signed copies of Fall Guy available in the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/4sw2ahcz

Here’s the summary of Fall Guy.

In Archer Mayor’s Fall Guy, a body found in the trunk of a stolen car leads Joe Gunther and his team to crucial evidence in an infamous unsolved case from years past.

A high-end stolen car is discovered in Vermont. A car filled with stolen items from a far-flung two stage burglary spree. But it’s what is in the trunk that brings Joe Gunther and his team from the Vermont Bureau of Investigation. In the trunk is the body of burglar in question – one Don Kalfus. Complicating matters, while the body was found in Vermont, it appears he was probably killed in the next state over, New Hampshire.

The task force charged with finding out why Kalfus is murdered soon faces another problem. Within the pile of stolen cell phones found in the car is evidence of a notorious unsolved child abduction case from years earlier.

Now the seemingly simple case has become more complicated and deadly, leading Gunther’s team to be pulled from the New Hampshire coast to near the Canadian border as they attempt to find and capture the psychopath responsible for a tangled, historical web of misery, betrayal, and loss.

ARCHER MAYOR, in addition to writing the New York Times bestselling Joe Gunther series, is an investigator for the sheriff’s department, the state medical examiner, and has twenty-five years of experience as a firefighter/EMT. He lives near Brattleboro, Vermont.

Enjoy the conversation with Archer Mayor and Barbara Peters.

Marcia Clark recently appeared for The Poisoned Pen, interviewed by Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen. Her latest legal thriller is The Fall Girl. Signed copies of The Fall Girl are available through the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/3kmmwfa9

Here’s the summary of The Fall Girl.

Lives and lies are inextricably linked by a high-profile murder trial in The Fall Girl, the latest exhilarating legal thriller from bestselling author Marcia Clark.

When Charlie Blair left Chicago behind—and her old life as Lauren Claybourne—for a gig in the Santa Cruz DA’s office, things were supposed to be easier. Or at least nothing that a couple of Xanax and a tumbler of vodka couldn’t handle. The plan had been working, until the murder of a local bail bondsman Shelly Hansen.

Enter: hot-shot prosecutor Erika Lorman, she of the stellar record and unfailing touch with juries, a veritable legend in her own right. Fresh off the prosecution of celebrity chef Blake Steers, the newest resident of California’s penitentiary system and perhaps its most high profile, she’s thrust back into action alongside her new co-chair from the windy city and ready to do anything to put criminals behind bars.

But as the fevered search for answers intensifies and the hunt for a killer continues, secrets from the past threaten to undo not just the case—but Erika and Charlie, too. Expertly plotted and relentlessly paced, The Fall Girl will keep readers guessing until the very end.  

California native Marcia Clark is the author of Guilt by Association, Guilt by Degrees, Killer Ambition, and The Competition, all part of the Rachel Knight series. A practicing criminal lawyer since 1979, she joined the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office in 1981, where she served as prosecutor for the trials of Robert Bardo, convicted of killing actress Rebecca Schaeffer, and, most notably, O. J. Simpson. The bestselling Without a Doubt, which she cowrote, chronicles her work on the Simpson trial. Clark has been a frequent commentator on a variety of shows and networks, including Today, Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, and MSNBC, as well as a legal correspondent for Entertainment Tonight.

Enjoy the conversation with Marcia Clark as she talks about books and podcasts.