Mystery Writers of America Announces the 2022 Edgar Award Nominations https://flip.it/4wuPbl
Category: Fiction
-
Article: 10 Classic Crime Stories That Have Just Entered the Public Domain in 2022
10 Classic Crime Stories That Have Just Entered the Public Domain in 2022 https://flip.it/Pbeef_
Share this:
-
All Her Little Secrets
Most of us keep secrets from those we love—whether it’s simply misdirection about how much that new dress really cost or an outright lie like what really happened at the work party your partner couldn’t attend.
But in Wanda Morris’s All Her Little Secrets, attorney Ellice Littlejohn has taken it to a new level. Sure, she graduated from an Ivy League Law School and she’s extremely bright and hardworking. She’s also the only Black lawyer at the company where she works. Indeed, she is just one of a few Blacks working there at all. Which explains why there’s a constant stream of protestors outside the company’s building protesting their hiring practices.
But who is Ellice? She’s not from Atlanta, Georgia like she tells everyone. Instead, she grew up in a poverty-stricken small town where she lived with her alcoholic mother and sadistic stepfather. She did attend a prestigious boarding school, but it was as on an academic scholarship not because she was a rich kid like most of the other students. And no, she’s not an only child, but her brother Sam, who she dearly loves, has been in and out of jail. That’s not the kind of back story Ellice has created for herself. It doesn’t go with the fancy condo, expensive clothes and car that define her Atlanta lifestyle, one she’s perfected to keep others from finding out about her past including what exactly happened to her stepfather whose body has never been found.
All these falsehoods start to unravel when she takes the elevator up to the 20th floor to meet with Michael, her boss, for one of their all-too frequent early morning meetings. But Michael’s dead, an apparent suicide and Ellice instead of calling for help, leaves.
Michael is also her long-time lover. The problem, at least it would be for some women, is that he’s married. But Ellice isn’t sure if she loves him nor is she certain she wants to take over his job when offered that plum promotion. She’s been keeping secrets for too long to know what she wants or how she feels.
As complicated as all this is, it becomes even more so when the police discover Michael was murdered. To add to the stress, Ellice’s brother Sam was caught on camera using his sister’s ID to get past security at the office. Did Ellice have Sam kill Michael so she could get his job and his plush office (redecorated, of course), or did she kill him herself? And why won’t the police believe her when she tells them that Michael had discovered criminal activity on the 20th floor?
Morris, who has held positions as an attorney in several Fortune 100 companies, says she thinks both her work as Black female lawyer and her fascination with thrillers helped shape the story.
“Ellice’s experiences are an amalgam of what many women experience in their lives,” says Morris, who is married with three children and lives in Atlanta. “Think about it, you are the only women working in a predominantly white male space and your colleagues despise you simply because of your race and/or gender and put obstacles in front of you.”
A fan of mystery/thriller writers like Karin Slaughter, Lucy Foley, Walter Mosley and Joe Ide, Morris wants readers to see the distinctive viewpoint Black female writers can bring to the genre.
“I’ve always enjoyed books by other thriller authors like John Grisham and Joseph Finder, but I couldn’t find many books like theirs with female protagonists who liked me,” she says. “Black women should be able to find themselves in all types of books including thrillers with smart, sophisticated Black women chasing down bad guys through dark office towers at night without a gun or an ounce of regret.”
Share this:
-
The Attic on Queen Street by Karen White
Karen White and I are talking about ghosts, particularly the ghosts haunting Melanie Middleton Trenholm in White’s latest novel, The Attic on Queen Street, the last in the series set in haunted Charleston, South Carolina.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asks.
Not really, I reply, but I also don’t like staying in places that are supposedly haunted when I’m by myself.
White feels the same way because, as we both agree, you just never know.
It’s then that her phone goes dead.
“I don’t what happened,” says White when she calls back. “My phone was charged and everything.”
Coincidence? Most likely. But still, it makes you wonder.
But phones going dead are the least of the problems for Melanie, a Charleston real estate agent with young twins, a husband who is deciding whether he wants to stay in the marriage, and a teenaged stepdaughter whose room is haunted. Indeed, the entire house on Tradd Street is haunted. Some of the ghosts are helpful, some are evil, and one is the ghost of a dog—which is fine as it gives Melanie’s dog a companion to play with. And to make matters worse, Melanie’s young daughter is already showing signs of being able to see ghosts.
Ghosts are such a problem that Melanie learned early on to sing ABBA songs loudly to drown out the sounds of the dead people trying to talk to her. But that only works sometimes and in this novel there’s plenty of evil for Melanie to deal with both living and dead. For starters there’s Marc Longo, who stole her husband’s manuscript and turned himself into a bestselling author. Longo is now heading a film crew in Melanie’s house while underhandedly trying to discover the diamonds he believes are hidden there. Melanie is also trying to aid a good friend in discovering who murdered her sister years ago—with the help of the cryptic messages the deceased sister keeps sending her way. And then there’s Jack, her handsome husband. They’re still in love but Jack is darned tired of Melanie always getting herself into deadly situations.
White first introduced us to Melanie in The House on Tradd Street in what was to be a two book series.
“But when it came out and was so popular, my publisher said let’s make it four,” says White. “This is the seventh and I’m really going to miss them.”
Well, kind of, as White is continuing the theme of a haunted city and the Trenholm family, only with Melanie’s stepdaughter in the key role who has to deal with her only supernatural beings when she move to New Orleans in a book due out this coming March called The Shop on Royal Street.
Interestingly, the Tradd Street series was originally going to be set in New Orleans. White went to Tulane University and in 2005 she was all set to go with her family back to New Orleans to do research for the first book when Hurricane Katrina hit.
“I knew that there was no way with all the catastrophic flooding, and deaths that I could write this story without having Katrina in it and this wasn’t that kind of book,” says White, who has authored 23 books,
Choosing Charleston made sense as White had ancestors who lived in Charleston in the late 1700s and family who had lived on Tradd Street. In ways, she says that when she visited, she felt the pull of genetic memory—a sensation of a past shared life.
“I smelled what they call pluff—which is rotted vegetation,” recalls White, “and I said oh doesn’t that smell so wonderful.”
Coincidence? Doubtful.
The Attic on Tradd Street is also available as an audiobook and electronically.
Share this:
-
Everything We Didn’t Say by Nicole Baart
Nicole Baart, who lives in Iowa and is the mother of five children from four different countries, is the author of several bestselling mysteries. Taking time out from her busy schedule—she’s already working on her next novel–Baart chatted with Jane Ammeson about her latest, Everything We Didn’t Say, which was selected as the Book of the Month October’s Most Popular Pick.
What initially drew you to writing mysteries?
I started out writing contemporary fiction, but I have always loved reading mysteries. In the beginning of my career, I think penning a compelling whodunit simply felt too complicated. Plotting a good mystery is no easy feat—and I feared I wouldn’t be able to skillfully juggle all the important elements (red herrings, believable foreshadowing, a twist or two, authentic motive, etc.). Mystery readers have very high expectations! But I started almost unconsciously weaving puzzles into my books, and by the time Little Broken Things came out in 2017 I had gotten over my hesitation. I love writing novels that center around a good mystery, and I’m thrilled that Everything We Didn’t Say has resonated with so many readers.
Can you give us a brief summary of Everything We Didn’t Say?
It’s the story of Juniper Baker, a special archives librarian in Denver, Colorado who returns to her small, Iowa hometown ostensibly to help an old friend. Really, she’s there to solve a fifteen-year-old double homicide and win back the daughter she left behind.
Was the book inspired by an actual event or events? If not, how did you come up with idea for the book?
I’ve been working on this book for nearly three years and so many different things contributed to the final story! It’s truly a sort of book soup: a bit of this, a little of that. But at the center of it all is a cold case in Iowa that I stumbled across several years ago. My heart went out to the family and friends who are still looking for answers, and that quest for resolution and hope in the midst of such brokenness is littered across the pages of Everything We Didn’t Say.
Juniper has such a sense of longing and displacement as well as an ambiguousness about her hometown. Are these feelings you’ve experienced? Do you share characteristics with June?
Absolutely. I love my small town (and the people in it) so very much, but I’m afraid sometimes that we think the line between good and evil runs around the outskirts of town. Us and them narratives are so simple and satisfying, but the truth is much more complicated. Small towns can be places of intimate community and belonging, but they are also filled with secrets, prejudices, and the same turmoil and tragedies that plague, well, everywhere. We aren’t perfect, we aren’t even always good, and I think we need to be honest about that. I want to have conversations about where we might be myopic and insular, and find ways to work through our own short-sightedness. I want to be candid about the ways that we fail, and try to be and do better instead of pretending we’ve got it all together.
Tell us about One Body One Hope and what led you to co-founding the organization.
It’s a long and complicated story, but the simple version is that my husband and I met a Liberian man who became a friend while we were in Ethiopia adopting our second son. That connection led to a deep relationship with a couple in Monrovia, and lasting ties to the children’s home that they opened after the Liberian civil war. We call it the accidental ministry because we never intended for it to happen! What started with one church and 35 orphaned and at-risk kids has grown into three children’s homes that serve over 150 kids (and often their extended families), 27 churches, 6 schools, a micro-finance program with a 92% repayment rate, numerous community redevelopment projects, and a 160-acre commercial farm. Our passion is empowering indigenous leaders and then getting out of their way. Everything good that has happened through One Body One Hope has been because of the Liberian people and their enduring love for their country!
Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
I love interacting with readers on my Instagram page @nicolebaart, where I have worked hard to cultivate an uplifting, authentic community. We talk about much more than just books, and I seek to find ways to connect on a personal level as we discuss everything from parenthood to being a good neighbor to things that bring us joy. I’d love to see you there!
Share this:
-
A Line to Kill
Anthony Horowitz is plotting a murder.
That’s typical. After all, Horowitz has authored more than 40 mystery novels including several James Bond novels commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate. Oh, and did we mention he’s also screenwriter, adapting mysteries such as Midsomer Murders into a long running English television series.
That’s a lot of homicides and this week he’s adding a few more to the tally with the release of A Line to Kill, the third in his Hawthorne and Horowitz series–think former police detective Hawthorne as Sherlock Holmes with Horowitz writing himself into the role of the bumbling Watson.
Little wonder he’s always thinking of murders particularly when taking his dog for long walks, something he does several times a day.
Unfortunately, the murder under consideration right now is mine.
“I start with a bullseye,” he says explaining how he produces his plots. “That’s the murder.”
It turns out I’m the bullseye.
“Think about it, you say you’re in the U.S. and I say I’m in England, but we really don’t know where either of us really is,” says Horowitz during a Zoom call.
In other words, at any minute Horowitz could appear behind me while I’m thinking he’s an ocean away.
“But why would you want to kill me or why would I want to kill you?” he muses noting that takes him to the next step in his writing process—motive. “The secret for me is the motive. It needs to be original, beautiful, striking, and something out of the usual.”
“Maybe you think I’m going to write a critical review of your book,” I respond, foolishly offering a reason for the crime.
Murder is definitely Horowitz’s business and obsession but when he was ten and living at a boarding school, it was a way to survive.
“Are those English boarding schools really as bad as everyone says?” I ask.
“They were back then, now they’re stricter laws,” he says. “At the time it was a horrendously damaging place.”
To escape the harshness Horowitz delved deep into reading and began to spin yarns to keep his school mates entertained—many of which were about heroic kids escaping from the school. From there, he says, it wasn’t a big jump to write his tales down.
A Line to Kill takes place during a literary festival on Alderney, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of England. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Horowitz discovered the island when he attended a literary gathering there.
“It’s a beautiful small island with an awful past,” he says, noting that the Germans controlled it during World War II and built prisoner of war camps. For the fictional Horowitz, it’s a bloody place because of the many murders that occur while he and Hawthorne are staying there.
As for me, not to worry. Horowitz was in England while we were Zooming and I definitely recommend reading his book.
Share this:
-
How to Kill Your Best Friend by Lexie Elliott
A funeral at a posh island resort isn’t supposed to be fun, but in Lexie Elliott’s new mystery, How to Kill Your Best Friend, it’s more than sad, it’s deadly. And complicated.
Georgie, Bronwyn, and Lissa are close friends having swam competitively together in college. But there long have been undercurrents in the relationships particularly after Bronwyn had an affair with Lissa’s first husband now deceased.
“Lissa, the strongest swimmer of them all, has somehow drowned off the coast of the fabulous island resort she owned with her husband,” says Elliott, who tells the story through the eyes of Georgie and Bronwyn. The two are among a group of mourners—all with interconnecting ties going back to college. But beyond the grieving are questions—and soon violence. Georgie is attacked and both she and Bron begin receiving threatening messages. Plus, there are so many secrets including whether the posh resort is going bankrupt. But even more so, are questions about what really happened. After all, why would Lissa swim in an area known for its deadly currants and is she really dead? And why did Georgie believe that the only way to stop Lissa from murdering again was to figure out the best way to kill her.
A sudden storm hits the island, cutting them off from the mainland and leaving the friends to figure out whether Lissa is really dead or not and who can they trust as the winds crash through windows and turn glass and roofing into weapons while the rains pelt down.
Like the characters in her book, Elliott says her life has always been steeped in chlorine.
“I swam competitively through my school years and represented Oxford University in both swimming and water polo,” she says. “I first dabbled in open water swimming whilst at Oxford and won the Scottish Open Water Championships in the year 2000. Post university, I switched across to triathlons, but after I had my first child, I dipped my toe back into the open water swimming scene and ultimately swam solo across the English Channel in 2007. It took me twelve and a half hours and it was very cold and very far; whilst I’m delighted to have done it, I have no intention of ever doing it again.”
Elliott may be the last person one would expect to be writing mystery-thrillers. She holds a doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford and had worked as an investment banker with her husband and two children in London. But when she was downsized during the Global Financial Crisis, she decided to pursue writing—a long time dream. This is her third novel and though now she’s back at work, she is already finishing up the next. She can’t divulge the plot except to say it involves Oxford and the French Alps.
Share this:
-
VIRTUAL EVENT: Mary Adkins author of Palm Beach on Zoom
This Tuesday, join Mary Adkins in a free Zoom event at 6 p.m. (CDT) as she is joined in conversation with Lucas Schaefer to discuss her latest book, Palm Beach (Harper 2021).
As described by BookPeople, this thought-provoking page-turner from the author of When You Read This and Privilege is a powerful novel that uniquely captures the painful divide between the haves and have-nots and the seductive lure of the American dream, and is perfect for readers of Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney and Emma Straub.
Living in a tiny Queens apartment, Rebecca and her husband Mickey typify struggling, 30-something New Yorkers—he’s an actor, and she’s a freelance journalist. But after the arrival of their baby son, the couple decides to pack up and head for sunny, comfortable Palm Beach, where Mickey’s been offered a sweet deal managing the household of a multimillionaire Democratic donor.
Once there, he quickly doubles his salary by going to work for a billionaire: venture capitalist Cecil Stone. Rebecca, a writer whose beat is economic inequality, is initially horrified: she pillories men like Stone, a ruthless businessman famous for crushing local newspapers. So no one is more surprised than her when she accepts a job working for Cecil’s wife as a ghostwriter, thinking of the excellent pay and the rare, inside look at this famous Forbes-list family. What she doesn’t expect is that she’ll grow close to the Stones, or become a regular at their high-powered dinners. And when a medical crisis hits, it’s the Stones who come to their rescue, using their power, influence, and wealth to avert catastrophe.
As she and Mickey are both pulled deeper into this topsy-turvy household, they become increasingly dependent on their problematic benefactors. Then when she discovers a shocking secret about the Stones, Rebecca will have to decide: how many compromises can one couple make?
EVENT GUIDELINES
- Digital Doors Open at approx. 5:50PM CDT on August 10, 2021
- Event Begins at 6:00PM CDT.
- Cost: Free
NOTE: Because this is a virtual event that will be hosted on Zoom, you will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing and sufficient Internet access. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.
To register, click here.
Reviews
“Mary Adkins’ PALM BEACH is a rare page-turner that gives you all the fun and decadence of a beach read while exploring the relevant issues around wealth inequity. I opened it up and could not stop reading!”
–Jessica Anya Blau, author of Mary Jane“A look inside the world of the ultra-rich, PALM BEACH offers up moral complexity, page-turning plotting, and deep insight into motherhood and family. Delicious, addictive, whip-smart and full of heart.”
–Rufi Thorpe, author of The Knockout Queen
“Delves into the world of Florida’s wealthy excess. . . . it’ll keep readers turning the pages.” -Publishers Weekly
“A smart page-turner.” –Palm Beach Daily News
ABOUT MARY ADKINS
Mary Adkins is the author of When You Read This and Privilege. A native of the American South and a graduate of Duke University and Yale Law School, her writing has appeared in the New York Times and The Atlantic. She also teaches storytelling for The Moth. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
ABOUT LUCAS SCHAEFER
Lucas Schaefer’s work has appeared in The Baffler, Slate, One Story, Off Assignment, and elsewhere. He has been a fellow at the Vermont Studio Center, and a writer-in-residence at the Corsicana Artist & Writer Residency, where he was the recipient of a GW Jackson Multicultural Society grant, given to artists invested in exploring race in their work. He lives with his husband in Austin, where he is at work on a novel. Find him on Twitter @LucasESchaefer.
About BookPeople
BookPeople has been the leading independent bookstore in Texas since 1970. Located in the heart of downtown, BookPeople has been voted best bookstore in Austin for over 20 years. BookPeople was voted Bookstore of the Year by Publisher’s Weekly in 2005. With visits from some of the most interesting and important authors of the past 50 years, as well as by Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, BookPeople is the destination bookstore in Texas.
Location
BookPeople is located at the corner of 6th & Lamar. We’re right across the street from Waterloo Records and in the same complex as REI & Anthropologie.BookPeople
603 N. Lamar
Austin, TX 78703
512-472-5050By purchasing a book from BookPeople, you are not only supporting a local, independent business, but you are also showing publishers that they should continue sending authors to BookPeople.
Thank you for supporting Mary Adkins, Lucas Schaefer, and your local independent bookstore!
Share this:
-
National Book Lovers Day: Celebrate By Learning to Download Books for Free
August 9 is National Book Lovers Day, a celebration for book worms everywhere. And lucky for us, our public library has its own collection of ebooks and audiobooks that we can download for free.
Libby, the leading library reading app by OverDrive, lets users download ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, comics, and more at no cost. All you need to get started is a library card—and even if you don’t have one, an Instant Digital Card can be yours in 30 seconds with just a phone number.Besides being able to borrow digital titles, OverDrive launched a new monthly blog series this July showing June’s top ten most popular books that had been borrowed digitally from the public library on Libby. Now in August, they’re sharing July’s top ten. On the list, you’ll find frequent New York Times bestsellers including Daniel Silva and Danielle Steel. Also among the Top Ten is T.J. Newman with their stunning instant #1 bestselling debut title, Falling.
As a reminder, Professional Book Nerds podcast always previews the upcoming month’s buzziest new books as well, and you can listen to their August episode right here. You can find July’s most popular new releases in the list below.
The top ten new books from July
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
It’s Better This Way by Debbie Macomber
While We Were Dating by Jasmine Guillory
The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel
Share this:
-
The Other Passenger: A Mystery-Thriller by Louise Candlish
After a spectacular burnout that caused him to lose his high-paying job, Jamie Buckby has found work as a coffee shop barista, a job that pays much less than his previous career.
But money really isn’t an issue for him. He lives with his girlfriend, a wealthy, successful businesswoman, in her wonderful historic home in a tony London neighborhood. The two have had a long and compatible relationship, but in keeping with the saying there’s no fool like an old fool, Jamie risks it all when he falls for the beautiful, manipulative and much younger Melia.
This being a mystery by bestselling British novelist Louise Candlish, there are plenty of other complications as well in “The Other Passenger.” We watch the story unfold through the eyes of Jamie, who commutes to work by riverboat with his neighbor Kit, who is married to Melia.
Kit and Melia are living well beyond their means, wracking up credit card debts and obviously envious of Jamie’s lifestyle. Then, one day, Kit doesn’t turn up at the boat, and when Jamie arrives at his stop, the police are there waiting for him. Kit’s been reported missing, and another passenger saw Jamie arguing with him on the boat just before he disappeared.
But it’s way too time consuming and difficult for Melia to wait and work hard to achieve her dreams. It’s much better to convince Jamie with promises of money and a life together to help her get rid of her husband. Jamie is foolish enough to believe that’s what Melia really wants. With the police closing in, he soon realizes that Melia has outwitted him and has much different plans in mind.
“There were several inspirations, and that’s how my books are usually conceived — I’ll find a way to marry multiple obsessions,” Candlish said. “I wanted to do a commuter mystery, I wanted to create a ‘Double Indemnity‘ for the 2020s, I was eager to explore the generational warfare between Gen X and millennials. Finally, I felt the need to write a love letter to London life around the River Thames, to capture its dangerous allure.”
Share this:
Shelf Life 