Great News about Spinetingler !

Many authors which have visited The Poisoned Pen have been interviewed by Keith Rawson. His interviews go up on Spinetingler Magazine's website. Thanks to a tweet from author Hilary Davidson, I was alerted to several things about Spinetingler Magazine...stories on their website can now win Edgar Awards, amongst other things like their measly 100,000 visitors in 7 months. Someday, poisonedfiction.blogspot....we'll be there too, but for now we're are just happy for them.

Spinetingler hits 100 thousand

Since the reboot in February, in just 28 weeks, Spinetingler has had 100,000 visitors.
To you, the 100,000th visitor and to all of the others we say thanks. Here’s to another 100,000.

Congrats Spinetingler! and thanks for the heads-up Hilary!  

Hilary Davidson will sign her debut novel The Damage Done at The Poisoned Pen November 2nd.

“Hilary Davidson makes a stunning debut with THE DAMAGE DONE. It’s a smart crime novel, peopled with sinister characters and clever twists you won’t see coming. Davidson grabs you by the throat with her opening, and doesn’t let go till the end.” — Linda Fairstein, New York Times bestselling author of Hell Gate and Lethal Legacy

New Signed Arrivals

Dear Money by Martha McPhee

India Palmer, living the cash-strapped existence of the writer, is visiting wealthy friends in Maine when a yellow biplane swoops down from the clear blue sky to bring a stranger into her life, one who will change everything. The stranger is Win Johns, a swaggering and intellectually bored trader of mortgage-backed securities. Charmed by India's intelligence, humor, and inquisitive nature - and aware of her near-desperate financial situation - Win poses a proposition: 'Give me eighteen months and I'll make you a world-class bond trader.' Shedding her artist's life with surprising ease, India embarks on a raucous ride to the top of the income chain, leveraging herself with crumbling real estate, never once looking back . . . Or does she?

With a light-handed irony that is by turns as measured as Claire Messud's and as biting as Tom Wolfe's, Martha McPhee tells the classic American story of people reinventing themselves, unaware of the price they must pay for their transformation.

Liar, Liar by K.J Larsen

Private Investigator Cat DeLuca and her Pants on Fire Detective Agency have a reputation for catching cheaters. It's a skill Cat mastered when married to her run-around ex, Johnnie Ricco. Armed with a camera, Cat scales balconies, dangles from hotel windows, and splashes the bare facts on 8X10 glossies. They tend to sweeten her clients' divorce settlements.

Life takes a strange turn when a reporter for the Chicago Tribune (Rita Polansky) masquerades as a client with a liar-liar husband. Rita retains Cat to follow Chance Savino, a steamy guy with a pocketful of smuggled diamonds. The detective is hot on his heels when an exploding building hurls her out of her sling-backs and into the hospital. The FBI claims Savino was killed in the fireworks but Cat isn't buying it. She escapes the hospital determined to find out.

When her client fails to show for a scheduled meeting, Cat finds her at home with a knife in her chest. She learns the reporter was researching a ball-buster story involving a gangster, gun smuggling, and a pocketful of diamonds. Cat discovers two clues in Rita's apartment; Starburst candy wrappers and Chance Savino rummaging through her drawers.

Meanwhile, no one believes Chance is alive, everyone thinks Cat's crazy, and Cat makes a murderer's 'must kill' list. A botched attempt puts ex husband, Johnnie Ricco on the short list of suspects. Can Cat solve this case before it is too late?

Holly Black, visiting AZ on 10/17 with SMART CHICKS!!!

New Review of Holly Black's WHITE CAT 

Growing up in a family of curse workers, individuals who are feared and loathed and yet considered a necessity, Cassel finds it nearly impossible to imagine life without emotional, physical, and supernatural manipulation. He believes he has no gift himself, but he has learned how to use his “normal” abilities to read people, chameleon himself to be whatever folks want, and keep himself out of the spotlight that surrounds his family. Haunted by the assumption that he killed his best friend a few years ago, he finds that the discovery of what truly happened to her does little to alleviate his guilt—the truth about Lila’s fate and what it represents about Cassel’s nightmare family (each driven by complex, if mostly horrific motivations) will nearly kill him. The blithe nature with which most folks in the book use everyone around them (whether through actual curse work or regular manipulation) may be uncomfortably familiar to readers, even while the physical blowbacks (death curse workers lose a body part with every application, and all workers suffer to some degree) and slightly otherworldly descriptions provide a bit of distance. It is in fact this teasingly recognizable setting, the nearly current cultural elements, and Cassel’s concerted efforts at normalcy that Black elegantly contrasts with the magical details to make them even more unsettling. Fans of the author will revel in the sophisticated and slightly-more-realistic-than-usual approach, even while they recognize Black’s familiar clipped pace, fascinating and carefully developed characters, and lush setting descriptions.

Find out more about Holly's appearance at The Scottsdale Public Library by visiting www.smartchicksaz.blogspot.com

Two New UK's Just In

Tyler, LC. The Herring in the Library (Macmillan $39 Signed)

When literary agent Elsie Thirkettle is invited to accompany tall but obscure crime-writer Ethelred Tressider to dinner at Muntham Court, she is looking forward to sneering at his posh friends. What she is not expecting is that, half way through the evening, her host will be found strangled in his locked study. Since there is no way that a murderer could have escaped, the police conclude that Sir Robert Muntham has killed himself. A distraught Lady Muntham, however, asks Ethelred to conduct his own investigation. Ethelred (ably hindered by Elsie) sets out to resolve a classic ‘locked room’ mystery; but is any one of the assorted guests and witnesses actually telling the truth? And can Ethelred’s account be trusted?


In the process, we meet one of Ethelred’s own creations, the fourteenth-century detective Master Thomas, who is helped in his investigations of a mediaeval crime at Muntham Court by a small and rather pushy Abbess with a taste for honey cakes ...Is it possible that Master Thomas can shed some light on the twenty-first century case, and on Ethelred’s own motives for investigating Sir Robert’s death?” The Herring in the Library” is another ingenious outing  for crime fiction’s most mismatched double-act. ‘Tyler juggles characters, story, wit and clever one-liners with perfect balance.”  –The Times. The Herring Seller’s Apprentice ($15), up for a 2010 Edgar and a 2008 FMC Pick. Ten Little Herrings ($15 Aug.).

Forbes, Elena. Evil in Return (Quercus $43 Signed).

Bestselling novelist Joe Logan walks out into a hot summer’s evening in central London. The next day his body is found dumped in adisused Victorian crypt at the Brompton Cemetery. It was no ordinary murder: he’d been tied up, shot and castrated. Detective Inspector Mark Tartaglia is convinced that Logan’s personal life holds the key to his violent death, but unraveling his past proves difficult. Following the overnight success of his debut novel, Logan had become a recluse. Was Logan just publicity shy or did he have something to hide? Then the body of a second man is found in an old boathouse on the Thames - killed in an identical fashion. Can Tartaglia find the link between the two dead men before the killer strikes again? As he soon discovers, nothing in life or death is straightforward... Die with Me ($14).

New Collectible

Washington: A Lifeby Ron Chernow is coming in signed. These books don't arrive until late September, but reserve your copy soon. To order your copy either click on the title or call 480-947-2974. or email sales@poisonedpen.com

In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life of Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president.

Despite the reverence his name inspires, Washington remains a lifeless waxwork for many Americans, worthy but dull. A laconic man of granite self-control, he often arouses more respect than affection. In this groundbreaking work, based on massive research, Chernow dashes forever the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man. A strapping six feet, Washington was a celebrated horseman, elegant dancer, and tireless hunter, with a fiercely guarded emotional life. Chernow brings to vivid life a dashing, passionate man of fiery opinions and many moods. Probing his private life, he explores his fraught relationship with his crusty mother, his youthful infatuation with the married Sally Fairfax, and his often conflicted feelings toward his adopted children and grandchildren. He also provides a lavishly detailed portrait of his marriage to Martha and his complex behavior as a slave master.

At the same time, Washington is an astute and surprising portrait of a canny political genius who knew how to inspire people. Not only did Washington gather around himself the foremost figures of the age, including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, but he also brilliantly orchestrated their actions to shape the new federal government, define the separation of powers, and establish the office of the presidency.

In this unique biography, Ron Chernow takes us on a page-turning journey through all the formative events of America's founding. With a dramatic sweep worthy of its giant subject, Washington is a magisterial work from one of our most elegant storytellers.

New Arrivals for Upcoming Signings

Dog Tags by David Rosenfelt signing on August 24th at 7PM

A German Shepherd police dog witnesses a murder and if his owner--an Iraq war vet and former cop-turned-thief--is convicted of the crime, the dog could be put down. Few rival Andy Carpenter's affection for dogs, and he decides to represent the poor canine. As Andy struggles to convince a judge that this dog should be set free, he discovers that the dog and his owner have become involved unwittingly in a case of much greater proportions than the one they've been charged with. Andy will have to call upon the unique abilities of this ex-police dog to help solve the crime and prevent a catastrophic event from taking place.

Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs signs on August 31 at 7PM

John Lowery was declared dead in 1968

- the victim of a Huey crash in Vietnam, his body buried long ago in North Carolina. Four decades later, Temperance Brennan is called to the scene of a drowning in Hemmingford, Quebec. The victim appears to have died while in the midst of a bizarre sexual practice. The corpse is later identified as John Lowery. But how could Lowery have died twice, and how did an American soldier end up in Canada?

Tempe sets off for the answer, exhuming Lowery's grave in North Carolina and taking the remains to Hawaii for reanalysis - to the headquarters of JPAC, the U.S. military's Joint POW/ MIA Accounting Command, which strives to recover Americans who have died in past conflicts. In Hawaii, Tempe is joined by her colleague and ex-lover Detective Andrew Ryan (how 'ex' is he?) and by her daughter, who is recovering from her own tragic loss. Soon an

other set of remains is located, with Lowery's dog tags tangled among them. Three bodies - all identified as Lowery.

And then Tempe is contacted by Hadley Perry, Honolulu's flamboyant medical examiner, who

needs help identifying the remains of an adolescent boy found offshore. Was he the victim of a shark attack? Or something much more sinister?

A complex and riveting tale of deceit and murder unfolds in this, the thirteenth thrilling novel in Reichs's 'cleverly plotted and expertly maintained series' (The New York Times Book Review). With the smash hit Bones now in its fifth season and in full syndication - and her most recent novel, 206 Bones, an instant New York Times bestseller - Kathy Reichs is at the top of her game.

The Thousand By Kevin Guifoile signs September 8th

Kevin Guilfoile's riveting follow-up to Cast of Shadows ('Spellbinding' - Chicago Tribune;'A masterpiece of intelligent plotting' - Salon) centers on an extraordinary young woman's race to find her father's killer and to free herself from the crossfire of a centuries-old, clandestine civil war in which she has unknowingly become ensnared.
In 500 B.C. a mysterious ship appeared off the coast of what is now Italy. A man disembarked to address the frightened crowd along the shore. He called himself Pythagoras and when he was done speaking a thousand men and women abandoned their lives to follow him; his disciples would influence western philosophy, science, and mathematics for all time.
Chicago, the present. Solomon Gold has tapped into valuable and dangerous secrets while composing his magnum opus: the Gold Completion of Mozart's infamous unfinished requiem. After he is murdered, his brilliant daughter - a girl whose uncanny mental gifts have left her both powerful and troubled - finds herself racing to understand his composition, his murder, and, as violence erupts all around her, a fractured, ancient cult descended from the original disciples of Pythagoras.
The Thousand is ringing confirmation of Guilfoile's enormous talent.

Sophie Littlefield

Keith Rawson of Spinetingler Magazine just sent us his latest interview with author Sophie Littlefield. Her first novel Bad Day for Sorry was nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, Mccavity and Barry Awards for best first novel.

Sophie Littlefield interviewed by Keith Rawson from Damon Cap on Vimeo.

Four New Signed UK Editions in This Week

The Chalice of Blood - Peter Tremayne
$45.00

From Amazon.co.uk: "Ireland AD 670. When an eminent scholar is found murdered in his cell in the abbey of Lios Mór, fear spreads among his brethren; his door was secured from the inside, with no other means of exit. How did the murderer escape? And what was the content of the manuscripts apparently stolen from the scholar's room? Abbot Iarnla insists on sending for Sister Fidelma and her companion Brother Eadulf to investigate the killing. But even before they reach the abbey walls, there is an attempt on their lives. As the mystery deepens, Fidelma and Eadulf must also wrestle with problems of their own, which threaten to separate them for ever..."

About Peter Tremayne: "Peter Tremayne is the fiction pseudonym of a well-known authority on the ancient Celts, who has utilised his knowledge of the Brehon law system and 7th-Century Irish society to create a new concept in detective fiction."

 

The Woodcutter - Reginald Hill
$41.00

From Amazon.com: "A fast-moving, stunning new stand-alone psychological thriller from the award-winning author of the Dalziel and Pascoe series.

Wolf Hadda's life has been a fairytale. From humble origins as a woodcutter's son, he has risen to become a hugely successful entrepreneur, happily married to the girl of his dreams. But knock on the door one morning ends it all.

Universally reviled, thrown into prison while protesting his innocence, abandoned by friends and family, Wolf retreats into silence. Seven years later prison psychiatrist Alva Ozigbo makes the breakthrough. Wolf begins to talk and under her guidance gets parole, returning to his rundown family home in rural Cumbria. But there's a mysterious period in Wolf's youth when he disappeared from home and was known to his employers as the Woodcutter. And now the Woodcutter is back, looking for the truth — and with the truth, revenge. Can Alva intervene before his pursuit of vengeance takes him to a place from which he can never come back?"

About Reginald Hill: "[Hill] is a brilliant and witty observer of whatever social order he happens to look at."
- The Globe and Mail

The Long Glasgow Kiss - Craig Russell
$45.00

From Amazon.co.uk:"Glasgow in the 1950s - not somewhere you'd choose to be unless you were born to it. Yet Lennox, a private investigator, finds it oddly congenial. Lennox is a man balanced between the law and those who break it - a dangerous place where only the toughest and most ruthless survive. Glasgow bookie and greyhound breeder, Jimmy 'Small Change' MacFarlane, runs one of the biggest operations at Glasgow's dog-racing track. When MacFarlane is bludgeoned to death with a bronze statue of Danny Boy, his best racer, Lennox has a solid gold alibi - he had spent the night with MacFarlane's daughter. Lennox is quickly drawn into hunting MacFarlane's killer, where he soon discovers that 'Small Change' was into a lot more than dog racing. Worse, crime boss Willie Sneddon, one of Glasgow's notorious Three Kings, is clearly involved and he's not a man Lennox wants to cross. But somewhere out there in the shadows lurks a really big player, an elusive villain who makes the Three Kings look like minnows. Lennox is the only man who can track him down."

About Craig Russell: "Craig Russell served for several years as a police officer in Scotland, before becoming an advertising copywriter and later creative director. He has been a full-time novelist since 2004. His Hamburg-based crime series featuring Jan Fabel has sold worldwide. His first thriller in this series, Lennox, was published to widespread acclaim. Craig won the 2008 CWA Dagger in the Library. He lives in Perthshire, Scotland."

 Bad Boy - Peter Robinson
$34.00

From Publishers Weekly: "Robinson tries something different in his excellent 19th novel to feature Det. Chief Insp. Alan Banks (after All the Colors of Darkness) by keeping the Yorkshire policeman offstage for the first half of the book. Banks's daughter, Tracy, knows that her friend, Erin Doyle, is dating a bad boy. But she doesn't know how bad Jaff McCready is until the recovery of a gun at Erin's parents' home results in a fatal accident. Before Tracy knows what's happening, Jaff whisks her on an adventure, eventually hiding out at Banks's house while her father is on holiday in America. As Det. Insp. Annie Cabbot searches for Jaff, Tracy's infatuation turns sour when she finds Jaff's suitcase of drugs, money, and a gun, and becomes his hostage. When Banks returns to Yorkshire, he has to balance his roles as a cop and a father. Robinson deftly integrates Banks's personal life with an acute look at British attitudes about police, guns, and violence in this strong entry in a superb series."

About Peter Robinson: “Robinson once again achieves the high bar he’s set in all his previous Inspector Banks books: gut-wrenching plotting alongside heart-wrenching portraits of the characters who populate his world, not to mention the top-notch police procedure. This one will stay with you for a long time.” (Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author of Roadside Crosses)

The Murder Room by Michael Capuzzo

The Murder Room will be available for pick-up on August 10th. Michael Capuzzo and Leslie Klinger will be signing at The Poisoned Pen on August 17th at 7PM

Despite journalist Capuzzo's obvious reverence for the crime fighters he profiles, his account of the formation of the legendary Vidocq Society is as scattered as many of the cold case files they wade through. Based in Philadelphia, the Vidocq Society was the brainchild of three wildly different men brought together by their desire to speak for the dead: freewheeling exboxer turned forensic sculptor Frank Bender; FBI and U.S. Customs agent William Fleisher; and pre-eminent forensic psychologist and profiler Richard Walter. What began as an informal meeting of colleagues in 1990 evolved into an expansive international think tank of sorts modeled and named after France's famed criminal-turned-sleuth EugeÌÇne Vidocq, a model for Sherlock Holmes. The cases--ranging from Philadelphia's long-festering "Boy in the Box" murder to the "Butcher of Cleveland," a serial killer who taunted Elliot Ness in the 1930s--are fascinating, but Capuzzo (Close to Shore) loses much of his narrative momentum by abruptly shifting between the founding members' individual backstories and homicides the society investigates. Yet there is no denying that the 82 "VSMs"(Vidocq Society Member) do an immeasurable service in the name of justice.

New Books in stock

Star Island by Carl Haaisen

Twenty-two-year-old pop star Cherry Pye is attempting a comeback from her latest drug and alcohol disaster. Ann DeLusia is Cherry's 'undercover stunt double,' portraying Cherry whenever the singer is too wasted to go out in public. But, one night, Ann-as-Cherry is mistakenly kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by an obsessed paparazzo named Bang Abbott. Now the challenge for Cherry's handlers (über-stage mother; horndog record producer; nipped-and-tucked twin publicists; weed-whacker-wielding bodyguard) is to rescue Ann while keeping her existence secret from the public - and from Cherry herself.

A further complication: Ann has had a bewitching encounter with Skink, the unhinged former governor of Florida, and now he's heading for Miami to find her.

Will Bang achieve his fantasy of a private photo session with Cherry? Will Cherry sober up in time to lip-synch her concert tour? Will Skink track down Ann before Cherry's posse does?

All will be revealed in Carl Hiaasen's hilarious spin on life in the celebrity fast lane.

Hemingway Cutthroat by Michael Atkinson

Set in civil war–torn Spain in 1937, Atkinson's solid sequel to 2009's Hemingway Deadlights finds the celebrated author feeling like a fraud, a three-dollar bill, a charlatan everyone treated like a messiah. With the occasional help of fellow writer John Dos Passos, Hemingway looks into the execution of José Robles, a medical volunteer and accused Marxist spy, with whom he was acquainted years earlier in Italy, after Robles's body lies in the hills outside Valencia for more than three weeks before it's discovered. Hemingway's base in Madrid, the hectic Hotel Florida, sees the likes of Errol Flynn, Eric Blair (aka George Orwell), various prostitutes, and annoying socialite Mordaunt Worsleighson, who becomes Hemingway's unwelcome assistant through much of his determined search for Robles's killers. Plenty of sex and violence help move the action along, but the underlying reasons for Hemingway's obsessive quest never become fully clear.

From Poisoned Pen Press Author Jeffrey Siger

Author Jeffrey Siger sends quite a bit of email back and forth from his home in Greece. We always like to hear from him, in the last email he attached a great review on his latest novel. Check it out...

f