Shelf Life

Category: mystery

  • The Witch Hunter

    The Witch Hunter

    Max Seeck

              When the Helsinki police arrive at the lakeside home of Maria Koponen, they find her dressed in a long black evening gown and high heels at the dining room table, her face contorted into a Joker-like smile. It’s an odd scene that turns eerie when they realize she is dead.

    Arriving at the scene, policewoman Jessica Niemi briefly talks to one of the techs processing the scene and then, as he’s leaving, discovers that he isn’t part of the team. She quickly runs after him, but he’s disappeared, seemingly into nowhere.

    As for Maria’s husband, Roger, he is hours away in Savonlinna giving a talk about his bestselling books, the Witch Hunt trilogy. The police chief in Savonlinna volunteers to drive him back to Helsinki and though it’s already late, they begin the long drive. At first all seems well, but then the Helsinki police lose contact with them and they never arrive at the station. A search along the road they were traveling turns up their burned bodies in the woods.

              But is Roger Koponen really dead? A security camera at a passenger station picks up his image. Indeed, he seems to want to be recognized as he boldly stares straight into the lens.

              “Basically the book tells a very creepy story about a murderous coven, that go after people they think are witches,” says Max Seeck, author of The Witch Hunter (Berkley 2020; $17), the first of his five books to be translated from Finnish to English. “All the murders are copied from a bestselling author’s trilogy.”

              Creepy indeed. Not only are the victims killed in the same manner as in Koponen’ s books, as Niemi leads the investigative team in trying to stop any further deaths, but she also has to deal with her own dark past. The only survivor of a car accident that killed her parents and brother, she’s inherited a fortune but doesn’t want anyone to know. She has gone so far as to establish a small apartment—commensurate with what a lowly paid policewoman could afford–that has a door leading to the sumptuous living quarters where she really resides. But being wealthy isn’t her only secret. Years earlier she killed her abusive lover and only one person knows. That’s her boss, who is like a father to her. But he now is dying, leaving her vulnerable. That vulnerability increases when the other investigators on the case note that all the dead women–dark haired and beautiful–are similar in looks to Niemi. 

              It looks like the killers may be targeting Niemi and she’s ordered to stay home. But that’s not easy for her as she’s determined to solve the case.

  • Thriller writer channels anger into her books

    Thriller writer channels anger into her books

    Layne Fargo

    Scarlet Clark, the lead character in Layne Fargo’s newest psychological thriller, “They Never Learn,” is not your typical English professor. While she takes her studies and students seriously, for 16 years she’s also been on a mission, to eliminate men at Gorman University she considers to be bad guys. By planning carefully and keeping the murder rate down to one a year, she’s managed to avoid discovery.

    That is until her last killing — the poisoning of a star football player accused of rape — doesn’t go so well. She posted a suicide note on the guy’s Instagram account, but it turns out you can’t kill a star athlete without some ramifications.

    Suddenly, the other suicide notes written by Scarlet are under review and her current project — dispatching a lewd department head who also is her competitor for a fellowship she desperately wants (not all of Scarlet’s killings are devoid of self interest). Trying to forestall discovery, Scarlet insinuates herself into the police investigation while under pressure to get away with this next kill.

    But it’s even more complex than this. After all, it is a Fargo book, and the Chicago author who wrote the well-received “Temper” likes the complexities and power struggles inherent in relationships.

    In this case, adding to the drama is the transformation of Carly Schiller, a freshman who has escaped an abusive home life and now immerses herself in studies as a way of avoiding life. But when Allison, her self-assured roommate, is sexually assaulted at a party, Carly dreams of revenge.

    Fargo, vice president of the Chicagoland chapter of Sisters in Crime and the cocreator of the podcast Unlikeable Female Characters, has a little bad girl in her too.

    “I love the sinister title of ‘They Never Learn,’” she said, adding that this, her second thriller, has everything she loves in a book — sexy women, Shakespeare references and the stabbing of men who “deserve” it.

    Fargo was enraged at what she saw as the injustice of the appointment of a man accused of rape into a high position.

    “I channeled that all-consuming anger into a story where men like that are stripped of their power, where they get exactly what they deserve,” she said.

    This are article also ran in the Books section of the Northwest Indiana Times.

  • They Never Learn

    They Never Learn

                  Scarlet Clark, the lead character in Layne Fargo’s newest psychological thriller, They Never Learn, is not your typical English professor. While she takes her studies and students seriously, for 16 years she’s also been on a mission, to eliminate men at Gorman University she considers to be bad guys. By planning carefully and keeping the murder rate down to one a year, she’s managed to avoid discovery. That is until her last killing—the poisoning of a star football player accused of rape—doesn’t go so well.

    She’d posted a suicide note on the guy’s Instagram account, but it turns out you can’t kill a star athlete without some ramifications. Suddenly, the other suicide notes written by Scarlet are under review and her current project—dispatching a lewd department head who also (not all of Scarlet’s killings are devoid of self-interest) is her competitor for a fellowship she desperately wants.  

    Trying to forestall discovery, Scarlet insinuates herself with the police investigation while under pressure to get away with soon with this next kill.

      But it’s even more complex than this, after all it is a Fargo book and the Chicago author who wrote the well-received Temper, likes the complexities and power struggles inherent in relationships.

     In this case, adding to the drama is the transformation of Carly Schiller, a freshman who has escaped an abusive home life and now immerses herself in studies as a way of avoiding life. But when Allison, her self-assured roommate, is sexually assaulted at a party, Carly dreams of revenge.

    Fargo, Vice President of the Chicagoland chapter of Sisters in Crime, and the cocreator of the podcast Unlikeable Female Characters, has a little bad girl in her too.

    “I love the sinister title of They Never Learn,” she says, adding that this, her second thriller, has everything she loves in a book—sexy women, Shakespeare references and stabbing men who deserve it.

    She was enraged at what she saw as the injustice of the appointment of a man accused of rape into a high position.

     “I channeled that all-consuming anger into a story where men like that are stripped of their power, where they get exactly what they deserve,” she says.

    It’s a timely topic and Fargo is excited that PatMa Productions optioned the TV rights for her book, and she’ll be writing the pilot. 

    That’s a form of sweet revenge.

    Layne Fargo Virtual Book Events

    When: Thursday, October 22; 6 to 7:30 p.m. CT

    What: Layne Fargo in conversation with Allison Dickson, author of The Other Mrs. Miller, to celebrate the release of her new novel, They Never Learn.

    This event is hosted by Gramercy Books in Columbus, Ohio, and will be livestreamed on their Facebook page, with participants able to ask questions of both authors in the latter portion of the program.

    For more information and to stream: https://www.facebook.com/GramercyBooksBexley/events/?ref=page_internal

    When: Sunday, October 25, 1 p.m. EST

    What: Fiction: Witches and Other Bad Heroines by Boston Book Festival

    To register: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/bad-heroines/register

  • The Nesting

    The Nesting

    No one ever listens to me. When I tell the heroine of a spooky movie not to open the cellar door, or a character in a book to avoid the shortcut through the forest, they always do so anyway.

    And so it is in “The Nesting,” by C. J. Cooke, when Lexi Ellis, after losing her job, her boyfriend, and her home, applies for a position to nanny two young girls. Don’t take that job, I try to tell Lexi.

    Why not, you might ask? After all, a job is a good thing and her employer, a noted architect, is building the show-stopping, eco-sensitive home where they’ll be living.

    The negatives, it turns out, are numerous. Lexi is an emotional wreck, having just attempted suicide, the home is in a different country — Norway — so she is far away from those she knows, and even more, it’s totally isolated.

    Oh, and did I mention that Aurelia, the girls’ mother, committed suicide on the property not long ago and that Lexi is pretending to be Sophie Hallerton, the woman who initially applied for the job?

    It doesn’t get better. The young girls are overly energetic, leaving Sophie/Lexi exhausted by the end of the day, and the beauty of their location fades as a sense of eeriness seems to overtake the house as odd things begin happening.

    Cooke, an award-winning poet whose books have been published in 23 languages, also writes scholarly pieces on creative writing interventions for mental health. That fits Lexi, who before moving to Norway found that writing helped her cope with all her troubles.

  • Thriller tracks conspiracy’s twists and turns

    Thriller tracks conspiracy’s twists and turns

    Parental rage at kids’ sporting events is nothing new, but Maggie Russell takes it to a new level when, during her son’s last Little League game before the playoffs, she screams at the coach to give her son some playing time.

    L.C. Shaw

    Even Agatha, her good friend, thinks Maggie’s gone overboard, but it gets worse in L.C. Shaw’s second novel in her Jack Logan series, “The Silent Conspiracy” (Harper Paperbacks $16, 2020). Grabbing the knife Agatha is using to cut up apples for the team’s snack, Maggie marches down the bleachers and plunges it into the coach’s chest.

    As she watches his body slump to the ground, an inner voice urges her to remedy the situation by turning the knife on herself. And so, she does.

    It’s not your usual Little League confrontation. But to Logan, an investigative reporter, and Taylor Parks, a television producer, this isn’t just an isolated incident. There are news reports from around the country of mild-mannered, highly respected people committing murder and then suicide. It all seems to lead back to a case the couple had two years previously, when they were able to shut down a secret facility set up to brainwash political and media leaders.

    Investigating the murders, Logan and Parks discover that Damon Crosse, the man who tried to kill them two years ago when they stopped his indoctrination plot, may have faked his death and is now planning revenge. But it’s even more complicated than that. The show Park is producing about a class action suit against a national insurance company may also be connected to Damon, the murder/suicides, and his new fiendish plans.

    “’The Secret Conspiracy’ is a stand-alone book even though it ties back to ‘The Network,’ my first Jack Logan book,” said Shaw, the pen name for Lynne Constantine.

    In addition to her own books, she writes with her sister Valerie. The best-selling team writes thrillers under the pseudonym Liv Constantine. Their books include “The Last Mrs. Parrish,” “The Last Time I Saw You” and “The Wife Stalker.”

    The two are a prolific pair. Shaw said she’s just finished her fourth book with her sister and they already are plotting their fifth, while she is also at work on another book on her own.

    “The challenge,” she said, “is to have endings that are inevitable but unexpected. We like to be tricky and to catch readers by surprise but to also have it all make sense in the end.”

    For your information

    L.C. Shaw will be doing a series of virtual events. For a full list, visit her website, lcshawauthor.com/events/

    Here are several that are that are free and upcoming:

    • Fairfield University Bookstore, 6 p.m. Tuesday, http://www.facebook.com/FairfieldUBookstore/events/

    • Westport Public Library, 6 p.m. Wednesday, westportlibrary.org/storyfest-2020

    • Poisoned Pen book store, 1 p.m. Friday, http://www.facebook.com/thepoisonedpenbookstore/live

  • New mystery explores New York in the 1910s and 1990s

    New mystery explores New York in the 1910s and 1990s

    Deborah Feingold Photography

    Patience and Fortitude, the marble lions gallantly standing at the steps of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan, were only 2 years old when Jack Lyons, along with his wife and two children, moves into a large apartment hidden away on the library’s mezzanine floor. It’s all part of Jack’s job as superintendent, an intriguing fact that Fiona Davis uses in her latest historical mystery, “The Lions of Fifth Avenue,” which was selected as “Good Morning America’s” August Book Pick.

    “While researching, I discovered that when the library was built, the architects included a seven-room apartment deep inside, where the superintendent and his family lived for 30 years. I thought it would be the perfect setting for my book and I invented a fictional family — the Lyons — and decided to tell the story from the wife’s point of view in 1913, as well as from her granddaughter’s in 1993,” said Davis, who chose 1913 because that decade was when women made great strides, socially and economically. “What surprised me about the 1910s was just how actively women were involved in feminist causes, including the right to vote, the right to birth control, and the right to exert agency over their own lives. There was a huge movement forward in terms of the ‘New Woman,’ one who considered herself equal to men.”

    Living in the library creates an opportunity for Jack’s wife Laura, who yearns to be more than a housewife, and is mentored by Jack’s boss, who encourages her to find her own writing voice and helps her win entry to the Columbia School of Journalism. But Laura soon learns that she doesn’t want to be relegated to writing housewife-like features for the women’s section as expected, and instead becomes a noted essayist and crusader for women’s rights.

    “It was wonderful to step back in time and imagine what it all was like then,” said Davis, noting that both she and Laura attended Columbia. “I earned my master’s degree there, so it was fun to draw on that experience.”

    Fast forward 80 years in time to when Laura’s granddaughter, Sadie Donovan, a curator at the New York Public Library, is chosen to step in at the last moment to curate the Berg Collection of rare books. Among the rare papers are those of Laura Lyons, who had been forgotten over time, but whose writings are now being celebrated again.

    At first proud of her connection to her grandmother and excited that Laura once lived at the library where she now works, Sadie hides their connection after discovering her grandmother and grandfather were caught up in a scandal about a rare book of Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry, typically stored under lock and key, that’s gone missing.

    Before long, history is repeating itself when Sadie finds that vital materials about her grandmother are also missing, and only a few people had the opportunity to take them, including Sadie herself. Soon Sadie, already shattered by her husband’s infidelity and the couple’s ultimate divorce, is the prime suspect of the theft. Her reputation is on the line as is her grandmother’s and solving the mystery is the only way to redeem them.

  • Love and Theft

    Love and Theft

             Starting fast—a motorcycle convoy roars through the lobby of the Wynn Las Vegas, staying only long enough to scoop up millions of dollars’ worth of stones from a classy jewelry store before riding away—Stan Parish’s latest novel “Love and Theft” (Doubleday 2020; $19.49 Amazon price) never slows down.

             Told from multiple points of view, we follow the police as they work to solve the crime as well as the thieves planning their next one last heist and not getting busted. We move with the action from Vegas to Jersey and then to the luxe vacation destination of Tulum, Mexico. Along the way there are weird stops such as one at the home of a doctor who injects willing subjects with a hallucinatory drug that helps them calm down while he and his wife, wearing wired masks, communicate their insights while taking notes.

             It’s all breathless but at the same time human. Neither cops nor bad guys are cartoon characters here. Parish makes them real while juggling the fast-paced plot.

             His interest in mystery-thrillers began when he was around 10 or 11 and pulled a copy of “Dog Soldiers” from his dad’s bookshelf. Parish was ordered to put it back, his father telling him it was full of sex, drugs and violence. Of course, the book only stayed on the shelf until his parents went to bed.

             Inspiration also comes from stories he hears from what he reads and hanging out.

             “In April 2007, two stolen Audi A8s smashed through the glass façade of the Wafi Mall in Dubai,” says Parish. “In a marble rotunda, the white car rammed the secure entrance of Graff Jewelers, while the black car spit out men in masks with automatic weapons.”

             It was the work of a successful gang called the Pink Panthers and became the basis for the opening sequence of “Love and Theft.” But the book is also fueled by what he calls being a diviner though instead of finding water he has “a sixth sense for strange subcultures, suspicious characters, and after-after parties.”

             A few years ago, in Marbella, Spain he was invited to a party at the home of several young bullfighters and during the evening “divined” that some of their income derived from storing drugs for a local cartel. That experience too became a plot point in the novel.

             The former editor-in-chief of The Future of Everything at The Wall Street Journal whose writings have appeared in the New York Times, Esquire and GQ, Parish earned a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and moved to Los Angeles from New York a few years ago. But now he’s living in Europe, waiting for the pandemic to end. He’s dedicated to his craft. Planning on finishing his thriller in Malaga, Spain, he accidentally left his computer, notes and outline behind at JFK International Airport in New York City and while calling lost and found everyday hoping it would turn up, tapped out sections his novel on his cell phone his while riding in cabs late at night. His life, in other words, seems to track his fast-paced novel.

  • Virtual Book Event: Ask Me Anything with True Crime Authors

    Virtual Book Event: Ask Me Anything with True Crime Authors

    Log on to Reddit on Saturday August 22nd at 4:30 p.m. for “Ask Me Anything with True Crime Authors,” featuring four best selling authors who will be answering your questions live!

    Submit your question about writing, work, real-life crimes, cover-ups, covert operations, all-time favorite snacks, and anything in between and read through responses as the authors write them!

    Registrants will receive a direct link to the Ask Me Anything hosted on Reddit.com; in order to ask a question, please note you will need access to a free Reddit account.

    This text-only event will be hosted on a specific Reddit page. You can access this event by clicking the orange “GO TO ONLINE EVENT PAGE” button in your Eventbrite email confirmation or by following the direct link that will be shared via email about 10 minutes before scheduled start time.

    Visit BookYourSummerLive.com for more information!

    Maureen Callahan, author of American Predator, is an award-winning investigative journalist, author, columnist, and commentator. She has covered everything from pop culture to politics. Her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, New York, Spin, and the New York Post, where she is currently critic-at-large. She lives in New York.

    Amaryllis Fox, author of Life Undercover, had a CIA career in the field and now covers current events and offered analysis for CNN, National Geographic, Al Jazeera, the BBC, and other global news outlets. She speaks at events and universities around the world on the topic of peacemaking. She is the co-host of History Channel’s series American Ripper and lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.

    Dr. Lee Mellor Ph.D. is a criminologist, lecturer, musician, and the author of seven books on crime including Behind the Horror. He received his doctorate from Montreal’s Concordia University after specializing in abnormal homicide and sex crimes. As the chair of the American Investigative Society of Cold Cases’ academic committee, he has consulted with police on cold cases in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Ohio, and London, Ontario. He resides in Ontario, Canada.

    Ariel Sabar, is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, The Washington Post, and many other publications. He is the author of My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He also authored Veritas: A Harvard Professor, A Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife.

  • The Request: We All Have a Friend We’d Rather Forget

    The Request: We All Have a Friend We’d Rather Forget

    “We all have a friend from our past who is a lot of fun when we’re young but when we get older
    and get settled that person is someone you want to leave behind,” says David Bell, explaining the idea behind his latest mystery-thriller The Request (Berkley 2020; $11.99—Amazon price). “And I wondered what would happen if that friend showed up and even more if that friend knew something about you that one else knows.”

    That’s what happens to Ryan Francis. Years ago, Ryan was involved in a car accident that left a
    young girl seriously injured. It was his fault his best friend Blake Norton tells Ryan after he wakes up in the hospital, the memory of the accident completely gone.

    Since that time, Ryan has rebuilt his life, marrying, starting a successful business and is now the
    father of a young child. He also carries the guilt of knowing he’s harmed someone and has stealthily left large sums of money in the girl’s mailbox to help with her ongoing medical expenses.

    But things are coming undone. The girl’s sister confronts Ryan, demanding a large amount of
    cash or else she’ll reveal the truth. But she’s not the only one wanting something from Ryan. Blake is
    back and he needs a big favor—break into his ex-girlfriend’s home and steal letters Blake wrote her that she’s threatening to show his current fiancé. And though Ryan refuses, Blake won’t take no for an answer. If Ryan won’t get those letters then Blake will reveal the truth of what happened all those years ago.

    It’ll be easy, Blake assures him. But, of course, it’s not. Letting himself into the house when
    Blake’s ex is supposed to be at yoga class, Ryan can’t find the letters—they’re not where Blake said
    they’d be. But much, much worse, the Blake’s ex never left the house to go to yoga. Ryan stumbles across her body—she’s been murdered. And at the same instant, his phone lights up, the woman lying dead at his feet has just asked him to become her Facebook friend.

    Blake disappears, stealing Ryan’s laptop, a strange man tries to break into their home while his
    wife and baby are there by themselves and the police zero in on Ryan—and his wife–as a possible
    suspects. It seems that others besides Ryan and Blake have their secrets as well.

    “Even the person closest to you has a secret they don’t want you to know,” says Bell. “I think
    we’ve all had the experience of thinking we know someone really well but people can still surprise us, no matter what.”

    DAVID BELL is a USA Today bestselling, award-winning author whose work has been translated into multiple foreign languages. He’s currently an associate professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he directs the MFA program. He received an MA in creative writing from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a PhD in American literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. His novels include Layover, Somebody’s Daughter, Bring Her Home, Since She Went Away, Somebody I Used to Know, The Forgotten Girl, Never Come Back, The Hiding Place, Cemetery Girl, and The Request.

    The Times of Northwest Indiana Entertainment.

  • Scott Turow: The Last Trial

    Scott Turow: The Last Trial

                  Sandy Stern is a fragile 85 after surviving several devastating bouts of cancer, dealing with several other ailments and the deaths of his two wives. But when his longtime friend Kiril Pafko asks Stern, a noted defense lawyer to represent him on charges of inside trading and murder. Stern though doubtful as to whether he has the physical strength and mental acuity to do so. But Stern owes Pafko, a brilliant medical doctor, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and one of the creators of g-Livia, touted as an amazing breakthrough in cancer treatment.  Stern knows the latter firsthand as Pafko successfully treated him with g-Livia putting his aggressive cancer into remission.

                  But Stern was one of the lucky ones. g-Livia also can have deadly side effects, a fact that Pafko is said to have tried to hide by altering test data. He also sold off great amounts of stock in his company that is making the drug, hence the insider trading charge.

                  And so begins the opening of The Last Trial (Grand Central Publishing), Scott Turow’s latest courtroom thriller. Turow, who is retiring from his legal practice next month, has worked as a lawyer in Chicago for decades. He also is the bestselling author of Presumed Innocent, The Burden of Proof, Innocent and other novels, several of which have been made into movies and in all have sold more than 40 million copies.  Turow, who isn’t afraid to throw his characters into dark places where all appears lost, is also credited with inventing the modern legal thriller and it’s easy to see why when reading this absorbing story which delves into drug research, development, testing and FDA approval of pharmaceutical drugs.  Though none of these subjects sound fascinating, Turow, who did what he calls a “daunting amount of research,” writes about it in such a way that the process becomes a page turner.

                  “It also obviously has a weird relevance about rushing pharmaceuticals to market like we are today,” he says, referring to the vaccines said to be on the horizon to treat COVID-19. This being a Turow novel, there are twists and turns, ups and downs and surprises. Even when you think you’re keeping up with the plot twists, he usually manages to stay a step or more ahead. And yet in the end, it all makes sense.

                  “If you want to get philosophical about it, some of twists and turns stems from graduate school,” says Turow who received an Edith Mirrielees Fellowship to Stanford University’s Creative Writing Center where he attended for two years before entering Harvard Law School where he graduated cum laude. “I’ve always been aware of the artifice of the novel where there is, to some extent game playing with the reader—cat and mouse—which I enjoy doing. I also enjoy reading those stories too.”

                  Though Turow is retiring he’ll still do a lot of pro bono work, always a passion for him.  And he is currently working on another novel. This one is centered around Pinky, Sandy Stern’s granddaughter and paralegal, a bright but erratic young woman who is working at solving the hit and run accident that severely injured Stern several months earlier. Was it an attempt to kill him? Unfortunately, Pinky also has penchant for indulging in illegal drugs. A definite break-out personality, Turow says he’s committed himself to Pinky as his major character but he worries about recreating her inner voice. But it’s a problem he will solve.

                  “I looked at Pinky from the outside in this book,” he says. “I’ll find my way inside in the next.”