Clive Cussler Convention and more...

Many know that Clive Cussler has been doing signings at The Poisoned Pen for a long time. He was in the store just last night with his latest novel Lost Empire and will be back in November with the latest Dirk Pitt novel Crescent Dawn. I wanted to just take a moment to catch people up on all things Clive that are going on.

The Clive Cussler Collector's Society is proud to announce its sixth annual Convention. This years event will be held in Scottsdale, Arizona on September 10-11-12 of 2010.

Attendees Include, but are not limited to:
Clive Cussler
Jack Du Brul
Roland Dahlquist
Grant Blackwood
Justin Scott
Wayne Valero

There is a lot going on at this conference so be sure to check out their website. 

I dropped Mr. Blackwood an email about coming in and signing copies of Lost Empire which he kindly agreed to do. For a double signed copy of Lost Empire please email me will(at)poisonedpen.com. 

Additionally we have a couple limited edition Giclees 15x25 of the original artwork from the cover of Arctic Drift. They have been signed in silver ink by Clive and Dirk. Roland Dahlquist, the cover artist signed and numbered them. They are part of a limited run of 250. Please email me if you are interested. 

For anyone interested in reserving a double signed (read Dirk and Clive) copy of Crescent Dawn coming out in November you can do so on our website, or call in by phone. 

In this video from last year you can see a ship I built out of all the pre-order copies of Arctic Drift. I'm hoping they will let me do it in the store this year. 

Sue Remodeled and Moved and....

..in the process found multiple boxes of unsigned first edition copies of K, N, O, P and R as well as Kaufman and Kay's "G" Is for Grafton. She Signed them and asked that we sell them at list price to customers who otherwise might not get them, so we ask that you limit your order to one copy of each.

 Click on each picture to be taken to http://www.poisonedpen.com/

You can always call us 888-560-9919 and find out which other signed first edition copies of the Alphabet Series we may have on the shelf, or drop us an email at sales(at)poisonedpen.com

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).