Fiction Review

Natasha Pulley, author of The Kingdoms, recently joined The Poisoned Pen from Bristol. She and Barbara Peters discussed Bristol and Gladstone’s Library in Wales before they discussed Pulley’s new book. The link to the Web Store shows both the American edition and the signed British edition, which will be arriving a little later. https://bit.ly/2RJSjCS

Here is The Kingdoms.

For fans of The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and David Mitchell, a genre bending, time twisting alternative history that asks whether it’s worth changing the past to save the future, even if it costs you everyone you’ve ever loved.

Joe Tournier has a bad case of amnesia. His first memory is of stepping off a train in the nineteenth-century French colony of England. The only clue Joe has about his identity is a century-old postcard of a Scottish lighthouse that arrives in London the same month he does. Written in illegal English-instead of French-the postcard is signed only with the letter “M,” but Joe is certain whoever wrote it knows him far better than he currently knows himself, and he’s determined to find the writer. The search for M, though, will drive Joe from French-ruled London to rebel-owned Scotland and finally onto the battle ships of a lost empire’s Royal Navy. In the process, Joe will remake history, and himself.

From bestselling author Natasha Pulley, The Kingdoms is an epic, wildly original novel that bends genre as easily as it twists time.

---

Enjoy the conversation between Natasha Pulley and Barbara Peters.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, said Brian Klingborg’s Thief of Souls is the store’s international pick for May. She also said she likes to introduce readers to settings that might not be familiar. You can order copies of the book through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3wm6s7W

Here’s the description of Thief of Souls.

In Brian Klingborg’s Thief of Souls, the brutal murder of a young woman in a rural village in Northern China sends shockwaves all the way to Beijing—but seemingly only Inspector Lu Fei, living in exile in the small town, is interested in justice for the victim.

Lu Fei is a graduate of China’s top police college but he’s been assigned to a sleepy backwater town in northern China, where almost nothing happens and the theft of a few chickens represents a major crime wave. That is until a young woman is found dead, her organs removed, and joss paper stuffed in her mouth. The CID in Beijing—headed by a rising political star—is on the case but in an increasingly authoritarian China, prosperity and political stability are far more important than solving the murder of an insignificant village girl. As such, the CID head is interested in pinning the crime on the first available suspect rather than wading into uncomfortable truths, leaving Lu Fei on his own.

As Lu digs deeper into the gruesome murder, he finds himself facing old enemies and creating new ones in the form of local Communist Party bosses and corrupt business interests. Despite these rising obstacles, Lu remains determined to find the real killer, especially after he links the murder to other unsolved homicides. But the closer he gets to the heart of the mystery, the more he puts himself and his loved ones in danger.

---

BRIAN KLINGBORG has both a B.A. (University of California, Davis) and an M.A. (Harvard) in East Asian Studies and spent years living and working in Asia. He currently works in early childhood educational publishing and lives in New York City. Klingborg is also the author of Kill Devil Falls.

---

Enjoy the conversation about China, trains, and Thief of Souls.

I’ve been waiting to share this virtual event with you since I stayed up to watch it the other night. Ellen Crosby hosted Stephen Mack Jones whose Dead of Winter is the Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. You can still order signed copies of the third August Snow novel. Check the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3nq12nD

Here’s Dead of Winter.

A shadowy Detroit real estate billionaire. A ruthless fixer. A successful Mexicantown family business in their crosshairs. Gentrification has never been bloodier.

Authentico Foods Inc. has been a part of Detroit’s Mexicantown for over thirty years, grown from a home kitchen business to a city-blocklong facility that supplies Mexican tortillas to restaurants throughout the Midwest.

Detroit ex-cop and Mexicantown native August Snow has been invited for a business meeting at Authentico Foods. Its owner, Ronaldo Ochoa, is dying, and is being blackmailed into selling the company to an anonymous entity. Worried about his employees, Ochoa wants August to buy it. August has no interest in running a tortilla empire, but he does want to know who’s threatening his neighborhood. Quickly, his investigation takes a devastating turn and he and his loved ones find themselves ensnared in a dangerous net of ruthless billionaire developers. August Snow must fight not only for his life, but for the soul of Mexicantown itself.

---

Stephen Mack Jones is a published poet, an award-winning playwright, and a recipient of the prestigious Hammett Prize, Nero Award, and the Kresge Arts in Detroit Literary Fellowship. He was born in Lansing, Michigan, and currently lives in the suburbs of Detroit. Dead of Winter is his third novel.

---

More than one of us is infatuated with Stephen Mack Jones’ voice, if the comments in the chat the other night were any indication. Enjoy the conversation as he and Ellen Crosby discuss Detroit, food, and, of course, August Snow.

Recently, Amanda Quick (aka Jayne Ann Krentz) has hosted several authors for virtual events at The Poisoned Pen. This time, though, John Charles hosted Amanda Quick for a discussion of her latest book, The Lady Has a Past. Signed copies are available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3u5rhmE

Here’s The Lady Has a Past.

Beauty and glamour meet deception and revenge in this electrifying novel by New York Times bestselling author Amanda Quick. 

Investigative apprentice Lyra Brazier, the newest resident of Burning Cove, is unsettled when her boss suddenly disappears. Lyra knows something has happened to Raina Kirk, and tracks down her last known appearance at an exclusive hotel and health spa. The health spa is known for its luxurious offerings and prestigious clientele, and the wealthy, socialite background Lyra desperately wanted to leave behind is perfect for this undercover job. What Lyra lacks in investigative experience she makes up for in gut instinct, and her gut isn’t happy that she’s saddled with a partner by Luther Pell, Raina’s dangerous lover, who wants to bring in someone with more experience to help.  

Instead of the suave, pistol-packing private eye she expected, though, Simon Cage is a mild-mannered antiquarian book dealer with a quiet, academic air, and a cool, remote gaze. Lyra suspects that Simon is much more than what he seems, and her instincts are confirmed when they arrive at the spa and pose as a couple: Simon has a unique gift that allows him to detect secrets, a skill that is crucial in finding Raina. 

The unlikely duo falls down a rabbit hole of twisted rumors and missing socialites, discovering that the health spa is a façade for something far darker than they imagined. With a murderer in their midst, Raina isn’t the only one in grave danger—Lyra is next.

---

Amanda Quick is a pseudonym for Jayne Ann Krentz, the author of more than fifty New York Times bestsellers. She writes historical romance novels under the Quick name, contemporary romantic suspense novels under the Krentz name, and futuristic romance novels under the pseudonym Jayne Castle. There are more than 35 million copies of her books in print.

---

Enjoyed the conversation, and, if you’re a writer or hope to be a writer, you might want to listen to Amanda Quick’s advice.

Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, author of The Girls Are All So Nice Here, recently hosted May Cobb, author of The Hunting Wives for a Poisoned Pen virtual event. You can order a signed copy of the book, signed with a drawn martini glass, through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/33UPDoG

Here’s The Hunting Wives.

“[A] sharply observed thriller.”—Pop Sugar
 
“Sultry, salacious and utterly unpredictable….You’ll devour it.”–Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of Home Before Dark

The Hunting Wives share more than target practice, martinis, and bad behavior in this novel of obsession, seduction, and murder.

Sophie O’Neill left behind an envy-inspiring career and the stressful, competitive life of big-city Chicago to settle down with her husband and young son in a small Texas town. It seems like the perfect life with a beautiful home in an idyllic rural community. But Sophie soon realizes that life is now too quiet, and she’s feeling bored and restless.

Then she meets Margot Banks, an alluring socialite who is part of an elite clique secretly known as the Hunting Wives. Sophie finds herself completely drawn to Margot and swept into her mysterious world of late-night target practice and dangerous partying. As Sophie’s curiosity gives way to full-blown obsession, she slips farther away from the safety of her family and deeper into this nest of vipers.

When the body of a teenage girl is discovered in the woods where the Hunting Wives meet, Sophie finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation and her life spiraling out of control.

---

May Cobb earned her MA in literature from San Francisco State University, and her essays and interviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the Rumpus, Edible Austin, and Austin Monthly. Her debut novel, Big Woods, won multiple awards. A Texas native, she lives in Austin, Texas, with her family.

---

Toxic friends. The path to publication. Check out the conversation between May Cobb and Laurie Elizabeth Flynn.

Readers and authors may be interested in Jean Hanff Korelitz’ latest novel, The Plot. Joseph Finder recently hosted the virtual event in which they talked about her book. You can still order autographed copies through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3wfNuzV

Here’s The Plot.

“Insanely readable.” —Stephen King

Hailed as “breathtakingly suspenseful,” Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot is a propulsive read about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it.

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he’s teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what’s left of his self-respect; he hasn’t written—let alone published—anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot.

Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker’s first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that—a story that absolutely needs to be told.

In a few short years, all of Evan Parker’s predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.

As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his “sure thing” of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?

---

Jean Hanff Korelitz is the author of the novels You Should Have Known (which aired on HBO in October 2020 as The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, and Donald Sutherland), Admission (adapted as a film in 2013 starring Tina Fey), The Devil and Webster, The White Rose, The Sabbathday River and A Jury of Her Peers, as well as Interference Powder, a novel for children. Her company BOOKTHEWRITER hosts Pop-Up Book Groups in which small groups of readers discuss new books with their authors. She lives in New York City with her husband, Irish poet Paul Muldoon.

---

Enjoy the conversation with Jean Hanff Koreliltz and The Plot.

The current Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen is Stephen Mack Jones’ Dead of Winter, and he’ll be the guest author for a virtual event on Facebook Wednesday, May 19 at 6:15 PDT (9:15 EDT). Ellen Crosby is the special guest host. You’ll want to order a signed copy before it disappears from the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3nq12nD

Here’s Dead of Winter.

A shadowy Detroit real estate billionaire. A ruthless fixer. A successful Mexicantown family business in their crosshairs. Gentrification has never been bloodier.

Authentico Foods Inc. has been a part of Detroit’s Mexicantown for over thirty years, grown from a home kitchen business to a city-blocklong facility that supplies Mexican tortillas to restaurants throughout the Midwest.

Detroit ex-cop and Mexicantown native August Snow has been invited for a business meeting at Authentico Foods. Its owner, Ronaldo Ochoa, is dying, and is being blackmailed into selling the company to an anonymous entity. Worried about his employees, Ochoa wants August to buy it. August has no interest in running a tortilla empire, but he does want to know who’s threatening his neighborhood. Quickly, his investigation takes a devastating turn and he and his loved ones find themselves ensnared in a dangerous net of ruthless billionaire developers. August Snow must fight not only for his life, but for the soul of Mexicantown itself.

---

Stephen Mack Jones is a published poet, an award-winning playwright, and a recipient of the prestigious Hammett Prize, Nero Award, and the Kresge Arts in Detroit Literary Fellowship. He was born in Lansing, Michigan, and currently lives in the suburbs of Detroit. Dead of Winter is his third novel.

Somehow, I missed sharing Bonnie MacBird’s appearance at The Poisoned Pen. MacBird’s latest Sherlock Holmes adventure is The Three Locks. Leslie Klinger, another Sherlockian, hosted her for the virtual event. Unfortunately, copies of the book are currently out of stock, so readers will have to reserve a copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3eRbKmk

Here’s a hint of The Three Locks, but you’ll have to watch the event to learn more about Bonnie MacBird’s books.

A heatwave melts London as Holmes and Watson are called to action in this new Sherlock Holmes adventure by Bonnie MacBird, author of “one of the best Sherlock Holmes novels of recent memory.”

---

Bonnie MacBird is a produced screenwriter and playwright as well as an accomplished stage actor and writing teacher. She holds degrees from Stanford in music and film, and when she’s not writing Sherlock Holmes, moonlights as a theatre director and audiobook reader. She divides her time between Los Angeles and London. Visit her at www.macbird.com.

---

I think you’ll enjoy the conversation between Bonnie MacBird and Leslie Klinger.

Jake Tapper’s latest novel, The Devil May Dance, is the Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. He recently joined Barbara Peters on release day for a virtual event. You can still order a signed copy of The Devil May Dance through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/3tJf9HL

Here’s the summary of The Devil May Dance.

Charlie and Margaret discover the dark side of Hollywood in Jake Tapper’s follow-up to New York Times bestseller The Hellfire Club—an “excellent”cocktail of corruption and ambition (Publishers Weekly). Charlie and Margaret Marder, political stars in 1960s Washington DC, know all too well how the tangled web of power in the nation’s capital can operate. But while they long to settle into the comforts of home, Attorney General Robert Kennedy has other plans. He needs them to look into a potential threat not only to the presidency, but to the security of the United States itself.

Charlie and Margaret quickly find themselves on a flight to sunny Los Angeles, where they’ll face off against a dazzling world of stars and studios. At the center of their investigation is Frank Sinatra, a close friend of President John F. Kennedy and a rumored mob crony, whom Charlie and Margaret must befriend to get the inside scoop. But in a town built on illusions, where friends and foes all look alike, nothing is easy, and drinks by the pool at the Sands and late-night adventures with the Rat Pack soon lead to a body in the trunk of their car. Before they know it, Charlie and Margaret are being pursued by sinister forces from Hollywood’s stages to the newly founded Church of Scientology, facing off against the darkest and most secret side of Hollywood’s power.

As the Academy Awards loom, and someone near and dear to Margaret goes missing, Charlie and Margaret find the clock is not only ticking but running out. Someone out there knows what they’ve uncovered and can’t let them leave alive. Corruption and ambition form a deadly mix in this fast-paced sequel to The Hellfire Club.

---

Jake Tapper is the author of The Hellfire Club, which is being turned into a TV series by HBO Max, and The Outpost, which became a celebrated film released in 2020. An award-winning anchor for CNN, he joined the network in January 2013. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, daughter, and son.

---

Jeffery Deaver launched his latest Colter Shaw novel, The Final Twist, at The Poisoned Pen, and he also gave fans hints as to the future books coming out in his Lincoln Rhyme and Colter Shaw series. You’ll want to watch the video to find his plans for his future books. As to his present books, you can find signed copies of The Final Twist in the Web Store. https://bit.ly/30e1laZ

Here’s The Final Twist.

“The master of ticking-bomb suspense” (People) returns with a devilishly good thriller, and reward seeker Colter Shaw’s most personal case to date.

Just hours after the harrowing events of The Never Game and The Goodbye Man, Colter Shaw finds himself in San Francisco, where he has taken on the mission his father began years ago: finding a missing courier bag containing evidence that will bring down a corporate espionage firm responsible for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deaths.

Following the enigmatic clues his father left behind, Shaw plays cat and mouse with the company’s sadistic enforcers, as he speeds from one gritty neighborhood in the City by the Bay to another. Suddenly, the job takes on a frightening urgency: Only by finding the courier bag can he expose the company and stop the murder of an entire family–slated to die in forty-eight hours.

With the help of an unexpected figure from his past, and with the enforcers closing the net, Shaw narrows in on the truth–and learns that the courier bag contains something unexpected: a secret that could only be described as catastrophic.

Filled with dozens of twists and reversals, The Final Twist is a nonstop race against time to save the family…. and to keep the devastating secret Shaw has uncovered from falling into the wrong hands.

---

Jeffery Deaver is the #1 international bestselling and award-winning author of more than forty novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages. A former journalist, folksinger, and attorney, he was born outside of Chicago and has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University.

---

Enjoy the recent virtual event.