Congratulations to the winners of the 2021 Agatha Awards, announced Saturday night at Malice Domestic. The awards were presented in 2022 for books published in 2021. Don’t forget to check the Web Store for copies of the books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Best Contemporary Novel
Cajun Kiss of Death by Ellen Byron
Best Historical Novel
Death at Greenway by Lori Rader-Day
Best First Novel
Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala
Best Short Story
“Bay of Reckoning” by Shawn Reilly Simmons (Murder on the Beach)
Best Non-fiction
How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America by MWA with editors Lee Child and Laurie R. King
William Maz’ debut thriller, The Bucharest Dossier, sold out of the signed copies at The Poisoned Pen. You can still order an unsigned copy, though. https://tinyurl.com/4r64bmx6 Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore welcomed Maz for many reasons, but she’s always happy to introduce readers to a debut author.
Here’s the summary of The Bucharest Dossier.
Chanticleer International Book Awards 2020 Grand Prize Winner in Global Thrillers
Bill Hefflin is a man apart—apart from life, apart from his homeland, apart from love
At the start of the 1989 uprising in Romania, CIA analyst Bill Hefflin—a disillusioned Romanian expat—arrives in Bucharest at the insistence of his KGB asset, code-named Boris. As Hefflin becomes embroiled in an uprising that turns into a brutal revolution, nothing is as it seems, including the search for his childhood love, which has taken on mythical proportions.
With the bloody events unfolding at blinding speed, Hefflin realizes the revolution is manipulated by outside forces, including his own CIA and Boris—the puppeteer who seems to be pulling all the strings of Hefflin’s life.
The Bourne Identity Meets John le Carre’s The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
Born in Bucharest, Romania, William Maz emigrated to the U.S. as a child. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Following a residency in anesthesiology at Yale, he practiced medicine, and during that time, he developed a passion for writing fiction. He studied writing at Harvard, the New School, and The Writer’s Studio in New York City, and is now writing full time. William is married to a surgeon and he divides his time between Pennsylvania and New York City. The Bucharest Dossier is his debut novel.
Meet William Maz, author of The Bucharest Dossier.
The Poisoned Pen is rounding out April with six more author events, including some live ones. Check out the list of authors. Then, check the Web Store for their books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/
Just look at the authors who are finishing out the month at the bookstore!
Rebecca RoanhorseDon WinslowAnna Lee Huber/A.M. StuartAdriana TrigianiJeneva Rose/May CobbAllison Brennan
Well, there’s a “Dream Team” for you, David Baldacci and Don Winslow. Don Winslow just hosted David Baldacci at The Poisoned Pen for Baldacci to talk about his new book, Dream Town. Dream Town is the third book in the Archer series. You can order signed copies of the book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3JZy6yg
Here’s the description of Dream Town.
Private investigator and World War II veteran Aloysius Archer heads to Los Angeles, the city where dreams are made and shattered, and is ensnared in a lethal case in this latest thriller in #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci’s Nero Award-winning series.
It’s the eve of 1953, and Aloysius Archer is in Los Angeles to ring in the New Year with an old friend, aspiring actress Liberty Callahan, when their evening is interrupted by an acquaintance of Callahan’s: Eleanor Lamb, a screenwriter in dire straits.
After a series of increasingly chilling events—mysterious phone calls, the same blue car loitering outside her house, and a bloody knife left in her sink—Eleanor fears that her life is in danger, and she wants to hire Archer to look into the matter. Archer suspects that Eleanor knows more than she’s saying, but before he can officially take on her case, a dead body turns up inside of Eleanor’s home . . . and Eleanor herself disappears.
Missing client or not, Archer is dead set on finding both the murderer and Eleanor. With the help of Callahan and his partner Willie Dash, he launches an investigation that will take him from mob-ridden Las Vegas to the glamorous world of Hollywood to the darkest corners of Los Angeles—a city in which beautiful faces are attached to cutthroat schemers, where the cops can be more corrupt than the criminals . . . and where the powerful people responsible for his client’s disappearance will kill without a moment’s hesitation if they catch Archer on their trail.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, referred to David Baldacci and Don Winslow as “giants”. Enjoy their discussion.
James Rollins recently appeared at The Poisoned Pen to discuss his latest Sigma Force book, Kingdom of Bones. Kingdom of Bones is the twenty-second in the series, and it’s the current Hot Book of the Week at the bookstore. There are copies of signed books available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3Myph07
Here is the summary of Kingdom of Bones.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author James Rollins, the latest riveting, deeply imaginative thriller in the Sigma Force series, told with his trademark blend of cutting-edge science, historical mystery, and pulse-pounding action.
It begins in Africa . . .
A United Nations relief team in a small village in the Congo makes an alarming discovery. An unknown force is leveling the evolutionary playing field. Men, women, and children have been reduced to a dull, catatonic state. The environment surrounding them—plants and animals—has grown more cunning and predatory, evolving at an exponential pace. The insidious phenomenon is spreading from a cursed site in the jungle — known to locals as the Kingdom of Bones —and sweeping across Africa, threatening the rest of the world.
What has made the biosphere run amok? Is it a natural event? Or more terrifyingly, did someone engineer it?
Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force are prepared for the extraordinary and have kept the world safe, vigilance for which they have paid a tragic personal price. Yet, even these brilliant and seasoned scientific warriors do not understand what is behind this frightening development—or know how to stop it. As they race to find answers, the members of Sigma quickly realize they have become the prey.
To head off global catastrophe, Sigma Force must risk their lives to uncover the shattering secret at the heart of the African continent—a truth that will illuminate who we are as a species and where we may be headed . . . sooner than we know.
Mother Nature—red in tooth and claw—is turning against humankind, propelling the entire world into the Kingdom of Bones.
James Rollins is the author of international thrillers that have been translated into more than forty languages. His Sigma series has been lauded as one of the “top crowd pleasers” (New York Times) and one of the “hottest summer reads” (People magazine). In each novel, acclaimed for its originality, Rollins unveils unseen worlds, scientific breakthroughs, and historical secrets–and he does it all at breakneck speed and with stunning insight. He lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Enjoy the humor and the conversation between James Rollins and Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen.
Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Anna Downes for a virtual event from Australia. Downes discusses her latest novel, The Shadow House. You can order a copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3v2fOs1
Here’s the description of The Shadow House.
Extraordinarily tense and deliciously mysterious, Anna Downes’s The Shadow House follows one woman’s desperate journey to protect her children at any cost, in a remote place where not everything is as it seems.
A HOUSE WITH DEADLY SECRETS.
A MOTHER WHO’LL RISK EVERYTHING TO BRING THEM TO LIGHT.
Alex, a single mother-of-two, is determined to make a fresh start for her and her children. In an effort to escape her troubled past, she seeks refuge in a rural community. Pine Ridge is idyllic; the surrounding forests are beautiful and the locals welcoming. Mostly.
But Alex finds that she may have disturbed barely hidden secrets in her new home. As a chain of bizarre events is set off, events eerily familiar to those who have lived there for years, Alex realizes that she and her family might be in greater danger than ever before. And that the only way to protect them all is to confront the shadows lurking in Pine Ridge.
ANNA DOWNES was born and raised in Sheffield, UK, but now lives just north of Sydney, Australia with her husband and two children. She worked as an actress before turning her attention to writing and appeared in BBC TV shows such as Eastenders, Casualty, Holby City, and Dalziel and Pascoe, as well as a long-running stage production of “The Dresser” in London’s West End. She has degrees from both Manchester University (Drama) and RADA (Acting). She has been published in the Zodiac Literary Review, shortlisted for the Sydney Writers Room Short Story Prize and longlisted for the Margaret River Short Story Competition. The Safe Place was inspired by Anna’s experiences working as a live-in housekeeper on a remote French estate in 2009-10.
Enjoy the conversation with Anna Downes and Barbara Peters.
Patrick Millikin from The Poisoned Pen has been a fan of Gary Phillips’ books for years, so he was the perfect host when Phillips appeared to talk about One-Shot Harry. Signed copies of the latest novel are available through the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/mwcktbyv
Here’s the description of One-Shot Harry.
Race and civil rights in 1963 Los Angeles provide a powerful backdrop in Gary Phillips’s riveting historical crime novel about an African American forensic photographer seeking justice for a friend—perfect for fans of Walter Mosley, James Ellroy, and George Pelecanos.
LOS ANGELES, 1963: African American Korean War veteran Harry Ingram earns a living as a news photographer and occasional process server: chasing police radio calls and dodging baseball bats. With racial tensions running high on the eve of Martin Luther King’s Freedom Rally, Ingram risks becoming a victim at every crime scene he photographs.
When Ingram hears about a deadly automobile accident on his police scanner, he recognizes the vehicle described as belonging to his good friend and old army buddy, a white jazz trumpeter. The LAPD declares the car crash an accident, but when Ingram develops his photos, he sees signs of foul play. Ingram feels compelled to play detective, even if it means putting his own life on the line. Armed with his wits, his camera, and occasionally his Colt .45, “One-Shot” Harry plunges headfirst into the seamy underbelly of LA society, tangling with racists, leftists, gangsters, zealots, and lovers, all in the hope of finding something resembling justice for a friend.
Master storyteller and crime fiction legend Gary Phillips has filled the pages of One-Shot Harry with fascinating historical cameos, wise-cracks, tenderness, and an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride of a plot with consequences far beyond one dead body.
Gary Phillips has published novels, comics, novellas, short stories and edited or co-edited several anthologies, including the Anthony-winning The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir. Almost 30 years after its publication, his debut, Violent Spring, was named one of the essential crime novels of Los Angeles. He also was a story editor on Snowfall, an FX show about crack and the CIA in 1980s South Central, where he grew up.
Gary Phillips talks about previous books, and One-Shot Harry. Enjoy the conversation.
Anne Perry recently appeared for The Poisoned Pen to discuss her fifth Daniel Pitt novel, Three Debts Paid. She and Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, discuss this story of murder and plagiarism. You can order copies through the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/2sfa9a6e
Here’s the description of Three Debts Paid.
A killer is on the loose, targeting victims with a mysterious connection that young barrister Daniel Pitt must deduce before more bodies pile up, in this intricately woven mystery from New York Times bestselling author Anne Perry.
A serial killer is roaming the streets of London, and Daniel Pitt’s university chum Ian, now a member of the police, is leading the search. The murders happen on rainy nights, but Ian knows the victims must have something in common beyond the weather. He turns to Miriam fford Croft, Daniel’s good friend and now officially one of the first female pathologists in London, to tap her scientific know-how to find details he and Daniel have missed.
With Miriam involved in the murder investigation, Ian passes Daniel the case of Nicholas Wolford, their former university professor. Charged with assault after reacting violently to an accusation of plagiarism, Wolford, a proud, boastful man, is loath to admit he was in the wrong. But Daniel must defend him—whether he likes him or not.
As the murders continue with no clue as to who is committing them, Miriam, Daniel, and Ian find themselves questioning everything. Is the “Rainy-day Slasher,” as the newspapers have dubbed the killer, really just one person? Or have the investigators stumbled into a more complicated web of deceit? The answer may lie closer than anyone could have expected.
Anne Perry is the bestselling author of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England: the William Monk novels and the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels. She is also the author of a series featuring Charlotte and Thomas Pitt’s son, Daniel, including Death with a Double Edge and One Fatal Flaw, as well as the Elena Standish series, including A Darker Reality and A Question of Betrayal; a series of five World War I novels; nineteen holiday novels (most recently A Christmas Legacy); and a historical novel, The Sheen on the Silk, set in the Byzantine Empire. She lives in Los Angeles.
Enjoy the conversation between Anne Perry and Barbara Peters.
Michael Barson recently interviewed Jeffrey Siger for Bookreporter.com, and he allowed me to share that interview here. Here’s the link if you’d like to check out the article, and the site itself. https://bit.ly/3Ek4CKb. But, with Michael’s permission, here’s the interview with Siger, author of One Last Chance.
ONE LAST CHANCE is the 12th installment in Jeffrey Siger‘s mystery series starring Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis. It’s set upon the mountainous rugged Greek island of Ikaria, against its storied past of exploitation, exiles and lives spent in hiding from conquerors, slavers and pirates, and its current worldwide reputation for the longevity of its people. In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, Siger explains why he chose Ikaria as the setting for his latest book, names the one character whose development throughout the course of the series has been the most unexpected for him, and discusses his latest project, which is a huge departure from his Kaldis novels.
Question: I must admit that I had never heard of Ikaria before reading ONE LAST CHANCE, and the colorful history you provide about it (and its population of 8,500) explains why this Aegean isle is relatively obscure. Did you made an expedition there in the recent past for the purpose of researching the fascinating details in this book?
Jeffrey Siger: I’ve been to Ikaria on several occasions, always with locals, and generally ended up in remote places that were charged with wild natural beauty and steeped in Ikaria’s millennia-long history of successfully enduring and overcoming the most brutal of times. When I thought about writing Kaldis mystery/thriller #12, the world was in the raging throes of the pandemic. I wanted a storyline that neither ignored nor emphasized the effects of the pandemic, yet at its core was enmeshed in its consequences. To achieve that, I needed to find the ideal setting.
That’s when the writing gods smacked me upside my head and pointed their collective fingers at Ikaria. With its unique history of persevering through punishing, impoverishing challenges and its modern-day international fame for the longevity of its people — described by theNew York Times as “the place where people forget to die” — I realized I’d found the perfect setting for ONE LAST CHANCE.
Q: In the years that have gone by since the Inspector Kaldis series debuted, who would you select as the character whose development over that time has come to surprise you the most?
JS: What never fails to surprise me is how many of my characters have their own dedicated fan base, each demanding more storyline play for its favorite! In ONCE LAST CHANCE, I gave fan-favorite Maggie a lead role; after so many years of dedicated public service and endless repartee with Andreas, I thought she deserved it. But as Andreas’ administrative assistant, Maggie has also developed in ways I never anticipated. She’s led me to discover the inestimable value of her many hidden strengths, deeply held faith and loyal corps of front-line bureaucratic staffers.
Q: This is the 12th entry in this acclaimed series. If I am correct, Ikaria is the 11th part of Greece to receive the spotlight treatment, with your second home of Mykonos being featured twice. How many more locations around Greece are available for you to feature in future novels?
JS: I’ve set a trilogy on Mykonos, the first, fifth and 10th novels, and in some books the central locale (such as Patmos) shares the spotlight with another (Mount Athos). Though that’s whittled away at my available venues — with approximately 2,000 islands in Greece, of which 170 are inhabited — plus the storied mainland, I’d say I have a pretty good inventory left to work with.
Q: Kaldis heads the Special Crimes Unit of GADA, the Athens-based General Police Headquarters of Greece. How does an American such as yourself get the inside information needed to portray the workings of GADA accurately?
JS: To protect the innocent (and some of the guilty), let’s just say it’s all fiction. Having said that, any time I need to verify potential facts or settings, there’s a cadre of in-the-know Greek officials and friends ready, willing and able to help me get and keep things straight.
Q: I’ve always seen your Kaldis series as a more exotic version of Ed McBain’s legendary 87th Precinct series, which debuted way back in the 1950s. Can you recall who the biggest influences on you were among crime writers before you began writing your own books?
JS: Being compared to Ed McBain is quite an honor. Thank you for that. Among crime writers, I’d say (in alphabetical order) Tom Clancy, K.C. Constantine, Arthur Conan Doyle, Frederick Forsyth, Dick Francis and Cormac McCarthy (if you count him as a crime writer). But in truth, I believe playwrights, such as August Wilson, in their use of dialogue had a greater influence on my writing.
Q: The Kaldis series is celebrated by the media in Greece on a whole other level than it has been here in the States. Has anyone from the Greek film and/or television industry ever approached you about wanting to produce a dramatization of your books?
JS: I regularly receive overtures from Greece and elsewhere to dramatize my work. Interest at times has led to contractual arrangements, but not as yet to production. Stay tuned.
Q: A number of mystery authors have a second series alternating with their original one. Has that possibility ever tempted you, or at least crossed your mind? Or does Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis take up all of your creative powers?
JS: Funny you should ask. I recently completed the first book in a new series, a story I’ve been meaning to write for years. It’s based in New York City and features an eccentric protagonist resembling a unique composite of George Smiley, Sherlock Holmes and the Equalizer. I’m currently ruminating on which publishing house might be the right home for it.
Here’s the summary of One Last Chance. Signed copies are available through The Poisoned Pen’s Web Store. https://bit.ly/3uaPUSh
When Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis’s longtime assistant, Maggie, returns to her ancestral home on Ikaria for her 104-year-old grandmother’s funeral, she quickly realizes not only was Yiayia likely murdered, but that a series of other long-lived Ikariots had recently died under the same suspicious circumstances. Back in Athens, Andreas and his chief detective Yianni pursue a smuggling and protection ring embedded in the Greek DEA, and its possible involvement in the assassination of an undercover cop.
But then Maggie and Yianni uncover a connection between their respective leads in the elder-killings on Ikaria and the DEA corruption case, and they realize that there are international intrigues far more dangerous at play than anyone had imagined.
I’m going to agree with John Charles from The Poisoned Pen that Kim Fay’s Love & Saffron was a wonderful book. Charles had the chance to talk with the author at the bookstore with a live audience. There are signed copies of the book available in the Web Store. https://tinyurl.com/antbc2kz
Here’s the description of Love & Saffron.
The Instant National Bestseller and #1 Indie Next Pick
In the vein of the classic 84, Charing Cross Road, this witty and tender novel followstwo women in 1960s America as they discover that food really doesconnect us all, and that friendship and laughter are the best medicine.
When twenty-seven-year-old Joan Bergstrom sends a fan letter–as well as a gift of saffron–to fifty-nine-year-old Imogen Fortier, a life-changing friendship begins. Joan lives in Los Angeles and is just starting out as a writer for the newspaper food pages. Imogen lives on Camano Island outside Seattle, writing a monthly column for a Pacific Northwest magazine, and while she can hunt elk and dig for clams, she’s never tasted fresh garlic–exotic fare in the Northwest of the sixties. As the two women commune through their letters, they build a closeness that sustains them through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the unexpected in their own lives.
Food and a good life—they can’t be separated. It is a discovery the women share, not only with each other, but with the men in their lives. Because of her correspondence with Joan, Imogen’s decades-long marriage blossoms into something new and exciting, and in turn, Joan learns that true love does not always come in the form we expect it to. Into this beautiful, intimate world comes the ultimate test of Joan and Imogen’s friendship—a test that summons their unconditional trust in each other.
A brief respite from our chaotic world, Love & Saffron is a gem of a novel, a reminder that food and friendship are the antidote to most any heartache, and that human connection will always be worth creating.
Born in Seattle and raised throughout the Pacific Northwest, Kim Fay lived in Vietnam for four years and still travels to Southeast Asia frequently. A former bookseller, she is the author of Communion: A Culinary Journey Through Vietnam, winner of the World Gourmand Cookbook Awards’ Best Asian Cuisine Book in the United States, and The Map of Lost Memories,an Edgar Award finalist for Best First Novel. She is also the creator/editor of a series of guidebooks on Southeast Asia. Fay now lives in Los Angeles.
Turn up the volume, and enjoy Kim Fay’s discussion of writing and Love & Saffron.
