KEN MERCER DELIVERS DOUBLE THRILLS

A SHADOW REVIEW

                  Ken Mercer recently visited the Poisoned Pen (his second trip) for what became a wide ranging and free-wheeling discussion/interview about his new book.  He proved to be one of the most open and engaging novelists to ever brighten the store.  On his first trip here in 2010, he and Barbara Peters, the owner, partook in an exchange on the ins and outs of editing and publishing.  It was an exciting and very interesting presentation.  Coming to see both your favorite and new authors often leads to insights into their works.  Come to a signing and see for yourself.

                  Mercer's first book, "Slow Fire", came out last year.  It tells the story of Will Magowan, an ex-undercover Los Angeles narcotics detective whose life is left in ruins after a series of horrific events.  As a last chance at redemption he accepts an offer to become a police chief in a tiny town in northern California.  He arrives in Haydenville to find an Edenic paradise in the midst of a meth nightmare.  With only an inexperienced deputy for help and a mayor who has him on a short leash, he attempts to figure out what is going on and to stop it.  His main nemesis and suspect is an ex-con, and now famous writer, named Frank Carver. Carver is an amalgam of William Burroughs, Norman Mailer, and Jack Abbott.  Mercer does a brilliant job in not only creating this all too vivid character but, through him, channeling all the rampant paranoia that encircled and permeated the 1960's.  Having lived through and been heavily involved in the era's turbulence I found his evocation of these times to be extremely well done.  The author, too young to have been around then, somehow manages to capture the feelings of those years in a very profound and meaningful way.

                 As the past effects and illuminates the present Will struggles to find answers to the drug scourge.  The story chugs along at the pace of a page-turning tornado and runs headlong into a thrilling and unexpected conclusion.  This was one of the best debuts of 2010.

                  Will Magowan is an often self-destructive, extremely flawed and obsessed man.  This is his curse and his salvation.  In his new book, "East On Sunset", Mercer continues Will's story and returns him to Los Angeles.  This sequel came as a surprise to me as I did not see the character as part of a series.  However Mercer uses all of Will's present and past problems as a springboard for a fast paced and very exciting novel.

                  Will, now back with his wife, is at loose ends after leaving Haydenville.  He finds a job as a security guard for the L.A. Dodgers but a visit from an ex-con drug dealer he busted years ago sets off a chain of events that take him back into the life he so desperately fought to escape.

                  The ex-con, Erick Crandell, wants  money for the drugs he thinks Will and his partner, Ray Miller, stole from him when he was arrested.  This leads to a cat and mouse tale of police corruption, political payoffs, and non-stop action.  Crandell is a delusional body-builder and a very twisted individual. As Will's stubborn personality butts heads with Crandell's single-minded desire to get what he believes is his, a perfectly executed and violent dance ensues. Will's wife, now pregnant, becomes a pawn in the battle.

                   Both Will and Erick have an appeal that makes them sympathetic in a very strange way.  This speaks to the narrative skills of the author.

Signed copies are still available from
The Poisoned Pen. Click here. 

                   The novel is written in a compelling style that grabs the reader and makes it very hard to put down.. The final scenes of the book are truly riveting as this neatly twisted tale corkscrews to a breathless finale.  In these two novels Ken Mercer has g iven the master page-turner, Michael Connolly, a run for his money.  Both books mark an auspicious start of  what I hope will be a long career.

                 
 For further reading I suggest Dave Zeltserman and his Ex-con trilogy.  These three books, "Small Crimes", "Pariah", and "Killer", are modern masterpieces of neo-noir writing. (Click to order)  They may serve as a primer on the ongoing power and possibilities inherent in the genre.


                                   - STEVE SHADOW SCHWARTZ

An Amish-Country Mystery

Harmless as Doves
An Amish-Country Mystery

By P. L. Gaus

In Harmless as Doves, P. L. Gaus’s seventh Amish-Country Mystery, a murder investigation originates in the chilly autumn of Holmes County, Amish country. As the mystery of Glenn Spiegle’s death unfolds, the search for answers veers south, to the sunshine and white sands of Florida, where clues are sought near an established Amish community. Before long, a tense search explodes into spectacular action in the turquoise waters of Sarasota Bay.

As always, Gaus—who has been called the “Tony Hillerman of the Amish”—balances the crime narrative with insights into Amish culture. In Harmless as Doves, the subjects of depression, remorse, and sexism are issues the characters struggle to come to terms with as the story progresses.

The Poisoned Pen will be carrying signed copies of the 7th in PL Gaus' series. If you missed him at the store last time, fret not, we shot some video. 

A Shadow Revurb (think...review+blurb = revurb)

MEGAN ABBOTT'S  'THE END OF EVERYTHING' 

Click to order a signed copy($23.99)
 from The Poisoned Pen 

    

 Megan Abbott's new book is quite a departure from her previous four novels.  Her first three novels, "Die a Little", "The Song is You", and "Queenpin" were much praisedstories told in the Hollywood 40's and 50's noir tradition.  They stand out from the genre in their detailed depiction of the lead characters, their sense of time and place, and in the way she uses the language of the day. The fact that they are told from a woman's point of view only enhances their unique voice. In her fourth novel, "Bury Me Deep", Abbott fictionalizes the famous Winnie Ruth Judd case and in so doing retrieves the feel of Phoenix in the 1930's in an enthralling and compelling manner.  All four of these beautifully realized books are available and are must reading for any fan of Chandler, Cain, or classic film noir.

                               

 In her new book (Due on July 7, 2011), Abbott moves to a contemporary setting.  The novels action takes place in a midwestern suburb but carries us to the farthest shores of the human heart.  Megan Abbott's brilliant control over her material is breath-taking.  This is writing of the highest order:  Not a word out of place, not a word unnecessary.  In this book she goes way beyond her neo-noir roots and brings forth an American masterpiece.  Her thirteen year old protagonist, Lizzie Hood, speaks to us with a voice so authentic its precociousness and vulnerability shine like a beacon.  When Lizzie's best friend, Evie Verver, goes missing she takes it upon herself to solve the mystery.  The events that ensue take us into the molten core of the American nuclear family in the 21st century.

Megan Abbott visits The Poisoned Pen
July 19th at 7pm. See event here. 

    As with all great writing the levels of sub-text reveal themselves slowly.  As a mystery the book is a tight, fast moving grabber; It will not let go and it is hard to put down. However this is but a framework upon which Abbott explores, in the most subtle of fashions, the yearning to belong and to be loved.  She shows us how fine the line is between proper parental love, sibling rivalry, and our deepest desires and the consequences when these emotions boil out of control.

    With each new book Megan Abbott's skill and talent have grown.  In "The End of Everything", she takes herself to the top of modern American literature.This is as close to a perfect book as I have read this year.  Poisoned Pen will have signed copies when it comes out.  Buy it. 

                     

     For another view of a similar subject told in a vastly different but very effective way, I suggest Laura Lippman's "Every Secret Thing".

   

 STEVE SHADOW SCHWARTZ

Tess Gerritsen at The Pen

A sellout crowd came to The Poisoned Pen to meet Tess Gerritsen as well as have their books signed. She discussed a number of things, one of which, how the TNT hit show Rizzoli and Iles  matches up to her books.  There were several "Team Jane" or "Team Maura" T-Shirts she gave away.

An interview below gives more in depth info about Tess and Rizzoli and Iles. To watch the full event from last night click the webcast tab.

Click to order a signed, first edition copy
of The Silent Girl. 

A handful of Tess' latest book, The Silent Girl, of which Barbara said could be the 'book of a lifetime' are still available. To order a signed copy click here.

To see more upcoming events at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore, click here.

Music Video for Meg Gardiner's The Liar's Lullaby

A nice little video. Meg will be signing at the store July 24 at 2pm. For those that attend there will be CD's given out which include this video, as well as several more songs.

To order a signed first edition copy email sales@poisonedpen.com.

Caleb's Crossing - A Review by Judith Starkston

The Caleb of the title of Geraldine Brook’s latest novel is the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College, a feat he accomplished in 1665. In a mind-boggling transformation he left behind life among his people, adopted the English style of clothes and cut hair, language, foods and manners, abandoned the training he was undergoing to become a spiritual and political leader of his tribe, and instead studied Latin, Greek and Hebrew amidst the earliest Colonial scholars. To be inside that mind as he “crosses” from one culture to another seems too great a leap, and indeed Brooks cleverly narrates the novel through another’s eyes—a young Colonial woman, Bethia Mayfield. In the creation of this narrative voice, Brooks has outdone herself, and given the brilliance of the narrative voices of March (which won a Pulitzer) and Year of Wonders, that is saying a great deal.

So, while the title and the blurbs suggest that Caleb is the focus of the novel—and he certainly plays a pivotal role—I find the book to be about Bethia, and that doesn’t bother me at all. Brooks has an extraordinary facility for creating language that sounds and feels like the way people spoke and thought in that distant period. I know she is a careful researcher, so perhaps she picks up the rhythms and vocabulary from the works of that period she has read, but it is certainly more than that—an innate talent for language. Too often writers sound hokey and ridiculous when they attempt to create an older sounding language and ideas, but Brooks submerged me so seamlessly and believably that when her young narrator blames herself for accidents and tragedies that we moderns (or most of us anyway) would never chalk up to punishment for our sins against God, I could not abandon poor Bethia to the foolishness of her Calvinistic beliefs. Instead I stayed within her framework, vivid and painful as that is at times and lived her life with her. I’ve taught Colonial American literature and history at various times in my career, but I found a new depth of understanding in Caleb’s Crossing.

Along with the difficulties and pain in the story, Caleb’s Crossing is full of the beauty of Martha’s Vineyard. This portrayal of setting is as masterly and loving as her development of Bethia. It is almost as though the natural beauty of Martha’s Vineyard becomes a character in the novel, and the vile stench and unhealthy damp of Cambridge a contrasting villain. Given the harm life in Cambridge does some of the characters, place as villain does not seem an exaggeration.

Some people have objected to the sweeping conclusion of Year of Wonders in which Brooks lifted her character Anna into a new place and life that seemed to solve all her problems while ignoring a range of issues. In Caleb’s Crossing there is no deus ex machina setting switch, but Brooks does wrap up Bethia’s life in quick fashion. This provides satisfaction with no loose threads at the end, but it does change the pace and rhythm of the book. I think it provided a good closing to the novel. I’ll be interested to see if other reviewers agree.

For Brook’s ability to allow us to live within a young Puritan woman’s mind and peer into the complex issues arising from the clash of Native American and Colonial world views, Caleb’s Crossing is definitely worth reading. Once again, a masterful work of historical fiction by one of America’s best contemporary writers.

The Poisoned Pen has a few signed first edition copies of Caleb's Crossing left, if you are interested email sales@poisonedpen.com.  For more reviews by Judith visit her site www.judithstarkston.com