Shelf Life

Tag: mystery

  • My Lovely Wife

    My Lovely Wife

             Sure, any marriage can—and probably will–hit a few lows here and there. Solutions to these hard times can vary—a romantic weekend away, couples therapy or long, long talks and walks. But for Millicent and her husband of 15 years who live in a posh Central Florida suburb with their two children, the spark comes from embarking upon a shared hobby—murder.

    Samantha Downing

             “It didn’t start off as a murder,” says Samantha Downing, whose bestselling first novel My Lovely Wife (Berkley Trade 2020, $16) was recently released in paperback. “The first death was accidental but not the second.”

             Downing’s inspiration came from a documentary about a couple who kidnapped a woman and held her captive for years.

              “Finally, the wife let her go and ended up testifying against her husband,” says Downing, who has been nominated for Best First Novel in the 2020 Edgar Awards.

    .        “I thought you never hear about women being the instigator in these kind of situations. It made me wonder if she was, what would she be like?”

             Her answer, she says, was an extreme version of the woman who has to be and do everything—a superwoman type.

             “Millicent is very controlled with a crazy outlet to relieve stress,” says Downing, who grew up reading psychological and legal thrillers.

             My Lovely Wife, as the title implies, is told in the voice of the unnamed husband.

             “Our love story is simple,” he says by way of introduction. “I met a gorgeous woman. We fell in love. We had kids. We moved to the suburbs. We told each other our biggest dreams, and our darkest secrets. And then we got bored.”

             It isn’t long before the husband longs for a return to boredom, but Millicent is on a roll and he’s along for the ride. But there are complications. When a second woman disappears, their community starts to wonder and worry. Their gilded suburb is on edge and suspicions arise. Maybe all these murders weren’t such a good idea after all.

             Though the subject is edgy, surprising the story isn’t bloody or  violent.

             “Though the subject matter is certainly dark, it’s not gory, there’s no sex, nothing graphic,” says Downing. “I didn’t want the book to be bleak, I like satire, I wanted this to be darkly comedic and for people to enjoy the story.”

             Downing seems to have her mark. Amazon Studios acquired the rights to the book and are partnering on the film version with Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films.

  • How Quickly She Disappears

    How Quickly She Disappears

                Intrigued by the tales his grandparents told of living in Tanacross, a small Alaskan village back in the late 1930s, Indiana author Raymond Fleischmann has woven a mystery set in that time frame and location.

                “I grew up hearing their stories about Alaska, the cold, the isolation, the long days and the long nights,” says Fleischmann, the author of the just released How Quickly She Disappears.  “So, the setting is very real though my characters are fictional and not based on my grandparents at all who were very much in love and married for over 60 years.”

                That part is probably good as Fleischmann’s novel is about Elisabeth Pfautz who is living in Alaska with her husband and young daughter. The marriage is joyless, but her daughter is her delight and, more forebodingly, a reminder and connection with her twin sister, Jacqueline, who when she was eleven, disappeared. No one has seen or knows what happened to her since then.

                  Haunted by her lost sister, experiencing reoccurring dreams of 1921 and the circumstances of the disappearance and saddened by the state of her marriage, Elisabeth is drawn to Alfred, a substitute mail pilot who lands in Tanacross. Elisabeth, who grew up a small German community in Pennsylvania, feels a kinship of sorts with Alfred, who is also of German heritage. But then things turn distinctly weird and terrifying. Albert murders another man, apparently in cold blood. But he also knows, he tells Elisabeth, what happened to her sister, something he will reveal to her at a cost.

                Fleischmann says he’s always been drawn to novels that are propelled by relatively simple, often violent acts, but do so in a way that’s careful, human, and deeply examined. From Alaska in 1941, Fleischmann takes us back to 1921 where we meet Jacqueline as well.

                “I thought it was important for people to know about her as well,” says Fleischmann, who earned an MFA from Ohio State University, “To me, at the time of her disappearance, Jacqueline is a lonely and somewhat stunted child who is having difficulty navigating the transition from adolescent to adult, just like many of us. So is Elisabeth and Jacqueline’s disappearance has left a big void in her life. As an adult she still feels very much alone without her sister and appears to suffer in many dysfunctional ways.”

                All this makes her vulnerable to Alfred’s cat and mouse game as does the voice she seems to hear, that of Jacqueline urging her to “come and find me.”

  • REPUTATION: Everybody’s got something to hide

    REPUTATION: Everybody’s got something to hide

                   Sitting in the bar of a posh hotel, Kit Manning-Strasser fumes that the Hawsers, the mega donors she flew into town to wine, dine and hit up for a huge donation to the university where she works, canceled at the last minute. Back at the offices of Aldrich University Charitable Giving, her subordinate Lynn Godfrey is also angry. She’s the one who spent hours and hours grooming the Hawsers for the big kill but it’s Kit who’ll get the credit when the check arrives.

    Sara Shepard

                   A text flashes on Lynn’s phone. Get ready, it reads and as she’s pondering its meaning and who sent it, every computer in the office goes dark. They’ve been hacked and their data stolen. But as disastrous as that is, there’s opportunity as well. For one quick moment a master list containing every file for every employee appears. Does Kit have secrets she might be able to use, Lynn wonders, as she click to open her file.

                   And so begins Sara Shepard’s latest novel, Reputation, a take on modern technology and the old fashioned premise that everybody’s got something to hide.

                   “Reputation is a book about different members of a university community and how they react to a school-wide email hack– and a subsequent murder,” says Shepard, author of the New York Times best seller, Pretty Little Liars. “There are a lot of different perspectives, a lot of scandals, and a lot of twists, but the crux of the novel deals with two estranged sisters, Willa and Kit, and how they come together again in a time of crisis. “

                   Willa is Kit’s younger sister, who scarred by an incident in her hometown, took off for California when young. Throughout the years, Willa has avoided returning to her college town or having any semblance of a real relationship with her older sister, who followed the more traditional path, remaining at home. Marrying, Kit had two daughters and then became a widow. But from the outside, anyway, she appears to have upgraded her life to a bigger house, great vacations and a cushy life, with her remarriage to a wealthy doctor.

                   “But maybe it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be,” says Shepard. “It’s Kit’s husband who ends up being murdered because of rumors about him that come out in the hack– and suddenly, all eyes are on Kit, wondering what she might have done. But did Kit kill her husband? And maybe Willa is hiding a dark secret no one in her family knows, too.”

                   Shepard conceived of this book at the newspapers were filled with stories about the Sony hack.

    “I couldn’t believe that people’s run-of-the-mill emails were suddenly broadcast everywhere for everyone to read,” says Shepard. “It got me thinking about what I’d do if my emails were on a similar server– or emails inboxes of people I knew. We all have things we aren’t proud of, you know. As for setting the novel in a college town, it seems like colleges are a big target for hackers– and for scandals. Try Googling “college scandal.” You’ll get so many varied results, your head will spin! And terribly, I remember pitching an idea of an unethical coach before the whole Larry Nassar / USA gymnastics scandal broke. It was eerie– and terrible– to see an imagined scenario come true.”

    Though she’s never had to deal with the intense scandals her characters have endured, Shepard says she tries to relate to how they feel.

    “We’ve all been betrayed,” she says. “We’ve all felt watched and judged. We’ve all felt lost and small and scared. We’ve all felt the complications of motherhood and marriage and, perhaps, being with a partner we don’t entirely trust– or, at the very least, someone who turns out differently than what we imagined.”

    Ifyougo:

    What: Sara Shepard in conversation with New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Mary Kubica.

    When: Thursday, December 5 at 7 p.m.

    Where: Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville, 123 W Jefferson Ave, Naperville, IL

    Cost: This event is free and open to the public. To join the signing line, please purchase the author’s latest book, Reputation, from Anderson’s Bookshop. To purchase please stop into or call Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville (630) 355-2665 or order online.

    FYI: 630-355-2665; andersonsbookshop.com

  • THE CHRISTMAS SPIRITS ON TRADD STREET

    THE CHRISTMAS SPIRITS ON TRADD STREET

    New York Times bestselling author Karen White’s iconic series about a quirky psychic realtor (yes, you read that right!), set in historic Charleston, continues this winter. A long-anticipated gift to her fans, this holiday season White released her first ever Christmas novel.

    Jane Ammeson, who writes the Shelf Life column for The Times of Northwest Indiana and shelflife.blog, interviewed Karen about THE CHRISTMAS SPIRITS ON TRADD STREET, the sixth book in her Tradd Street Series,

    With each new release, Karen’s national platform grows. Her previous installment in the series, The Guests on South Battery (2017), was a New York Times hardcover bestseller. Her books have been featured on Southern Living, Reese Witherspoon’s Draper James blog, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and more. The author of over twenty books and 12 New York Times bestsellers, she has almost two million books in print in fifteen different languages.

     JA: Since you’re not a realtor and you’re not seeing ghosts (we don’t think so, anyway!), do you have much in common with Melanie—like are you super-organized with lots of charts and spread sheets, etc.?

    KW: Let’s just say that people who know me who have also read the Tradd Street series seem to think that Melanie _is_ me.  I’m going to neither confirm nor deny, but let’s just say that I do love to be organized and I also adore sweets (although Melanie’s metabolism is simply something I aspire to).  She and I are both ABBA fans and neither of us can text without many alarming typos.

    JA: You grew up all over the world but started off in the south and think of yourself as a Southern girl. Why did you choose historic Charleston for the setting of your series?

    KW: My parents (and extended family) are all from the South—mainly Mississippi—which is where I get my Southern roots.  I went to college in New Orleans (Tulane) and actually planned to set the series there.  However, the year I started writing the first book was 2005, the year Katrina wreaked so much havoc on the city and her citizens.  I knew that in the series I was planning to write that this sort of natural disaster and its repercussions wouldn’t fit.  I would return to New Orleans and the storm for The Beach Trees, but for the series I needed to find another Southern city that had gorgeous architecture, lots of history, and plenty of ghosts.  Charleston was an obvious choice.

    JA: Your Tradd Street series novels seem to require a lot of research into older homes, renovations and history, can you tell us about that?

    KW: Since I was a little girl I’ve been obsessed with old houses.  They didn’t need to be grand or even well-maintained to make me beg my mother to pull the car over to the curb so I could get a better look.  When we moved to London, we were fortunate to live in an Edwardian building on Regent’s Park.  It had leaded glass windows, thick mahogany doors, and ceiling medallions to make a wedding cake envious.  Living in that flat made me believe that I truly could hold a piece of history in my hands.  My obsession continues with my daughter who holds a master’s degree in historic preservation from the College of Charleston and currently works as an architectural historian.  She actually appears in the last two Tradd books (as well as Dreams of Falling) as graduate student Meghan Black.

    JA: Can you give readers who may not have read any of your other books about Melanie and Jack a description of The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street?

    KW: In this penultimate installment (book #6) in the series, we find OCD Realtor (who also happens to be able to speak with dead people) Melanie Middleton and true crime mystery writer Jack Trenholm happily married and living with their toddler twins and teenage daughter, Nola, in their historic home on Tradd Street. Christmas is approaching and all seems to be going well for them—-except for a few money problems, Jack’s writing career taking a curveball, and an unpleasant specter seen haunting Nola’s bedroom that seems to be connected to the ancient cistern being excavated in their back yard.  Unwilling to burden Jack with one more problem and distract him from his writing despite promises that they wouldn’t hold secrets from each other, Melanie takes it upon herself to attempt to solve the mystery behind the ghostly presence—with unsettling results that Melanie may or may not be able to resolve.

    JA: Are your ghosts based upon real life (if you can call it that when it comes to ghosts) tales of hauntings in Charleston?

    KW: Growing up, my father loved to read true ghost stories to my brothers and me—usually right before bedtime.  I also had a grandmother who always spoke about conversations she’d had with dead relatives.  I suppose that’s the reason why I thought ghosts were like doilies on the backs of chairs—some people had them, some people didn’t.  I continue to enjoy ghost stories (I listen to several podcasts on the subject) and, even though I have never had an experience, my son has three times.  

    When visiting Charleston, I love going on haunted walking tours (especially the graveyard ones) and always pick up fascinating tidbits to be used later in my books.  I’ve never borrowed a ghost story for my books, but tend to pick and choose certain parts of favorites and mix them together to fit into my stories.

    JA: Do you live in an older home?

    KW: Sadly, no.  My husband isn’t a fan of old houses (and in my first book, the derogatory remarks Melanie makes about old houses came right from his litany of why he dislikes old houses—mostly having to do with the expense of heating them).  Every house I’ve lived in since the old Edwardian building in London has been brand new.  I’m hoping my daughter and I can get sway him to our side when it’s time to move again.  Hopefully to Charleston.

    JA: Besides a great story and enjoyable read, are there any other take-aways you’d like for readers to get from The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street?

    KW: This installment can be read on its own.  However, I do think that readers might enjoy the series more if read in order starting with the first book.  The books each have their own mystery to be solved, but the growing cast of characters and Melanie’s growth through the series is an important element and best understood if readers meet her in book .

    JA: Anything else you’d like our readers to know?

    KW:  Yes, there are ghosts and some spooky scenes in all of the books.  But these are not paranormal or thriller type books.  These are character-driven stories centered around Melanie Middleton and her relationships with family and friends and set in the gorgeous and historical city of Charleston, South Carolina.  This is Southern Women’s Fiction—with the added bonus of a few spirits who need Melanie’s help to solve a mystery.  

  • Author Catherine O’Connell in Chicago to Discuss Her Latest Books

    Author Catherine O’Connell in Chicago to Discuss Her Latest Books

              Northbrook native, mystery writer Catherine O’Connell who divides her time between Chicago and Aspen will be home this week and back to her old haunts including a book signing for her newest mystery, First Tracks, at Pippin’s Tavern when she managed the bar there in the 1980s.

              First Tracks, described by Booklist as “a compelling, Scandinavian noir–style thriller” that should appeal to readers of both Ruth Ware and Arnaldur Indridason, introduces a new character, Aspen ski patroller Greta Westerlind.

    Caught in an avalanche, Westerlind wakes in the hospital with no memory of what happened. She’s even more surprised to discover that her close friend, Warren McGovern was with her when the avalanche swept them up. But McGovern didn’t make it. Not only doesn’t she know what happened, but Westerlind, who knows mountain safety, can’t understand why either of them were even in such a dangerous area.

              While trying to regain her memory of events, Westerlind begins to realize she’s in danger as more and more frightening incidents start happening to her. With her life in danger, Westerlind knows if she is to live, she needs to figure out who wants her dead.

              “It’s the first in the series about Greta,” says O’Connell, who when she isn’t writing mysteries sits on the board of Aspen Words, a literary center whose aim is to support writers and reach out to readers. It’s also the literary arm of the prestigious the Aspen Institute.

              O’Connell, who is a skier, says that when her new published asked if she could come up with a series not being done yet, she immediately suggested a ski patrol woman who was an amateur sleuth.

              “I chose ski patroller because they have more autonomy than instructors plus they have dynamite and morphine type drugs for injured skiers which gives me a couple of ideas for other books,” she says. “Aspen is the perfect setting for all kinds of stories with billionaires and locals, celebrities and developers, mountain climbers and ski racers, visiting politicians and world class musicians. All set in one of the most beautiful settings on the planet. So, this series is a gift to me that I’ll be able to write plots set in this world so familiar to me.”

              First Tracks isn’t the only book O’Connell will be talking about.

              Her mystery, The Last Night Out, begins with a bachelorette party that goes very wrong. Not only does Maggie Trueheart, who is the bride to be, wake up in bed with a really bad hangover, there’s a strange man in her bed. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she gets more bad news when she learns that her best friend was murdered. As her wedding day draws closer, so does the police investigation. Of the five friends left from the party, at least one of them is lying and many have secrets to hide.

              Besides her book signings, O’Connell also be discussing her books on After Hours with Rick Kogan on Sunday, September 15 from 9 to 11 a.m. on WGN Radio.

              “It’s always great to be back in the city,” says O’Connell, who is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime and is already at work on her next mystery.

    For more about Catherine O’Connell

    Ifyougo:

    What: Catherine O’Connell has three Chicago area book events.

    When & Where:

    Sunday, September 15 at 2 p.m.

    The Book Stall, 811 Elm St., Winnetka, IL

    Page to Published: Piercing the Literary Firewall. Talk and signing of First Tracks 

    FYI: 847-446-8880; thebookstall.com

    Tuesday, September 12, 4:30 to 6:00

    Pippin’s Tavern, 806 N. Rush St., Chicago, IL

    Signing of The Last Night Out 

    FYI: 312-787-5435; pippinstavern.com/

    Friday, Sept 20, 7 p.m.

    Centuries and Sleuths Bookstore, 7419 Madison St. Forest Park, IL

    Discussion and signing of The Last Night Out

    FYI: 708-771-7243; centuriesandsleuths.com/

  • Hope Rides Again: An Obama Biden Murder

    Hope Rides Again: An Obama Biden Murder

                  Barack Obama and Joe Biden return to solving crimes in Hope Rides Again: An Obama Biden Mystery, the second in the series written by Andrew Shaffer and starring the former president and vice president.

                  “It’s a totally separate mystery from the first book,” says Shaffer while sitting at a table where a long line had formed waiting for him to autograph copies of his novel at a two-day book fair in Lexington, Kentucky. “The first was set in Wilmington, Delaware and this one is set in Chicago on Obama’s turf and takes place in the spring around St. Patrick’s Day which is certainly a holiday they take seriously there.”

                  Indeed, Shaffer, who at one time lived in Chicago, says he revisited old haunts and new places for background as the two BFFs hunt for Obama’s Blackberry and the murderer of the their who originally stole it.

                  Though the premise of the two joining together as detectives is somewhat zany, Shaffer describes his book as dealing with serious topics as well.

    “But I try to do it in a lighthearted way,” he says. Also, fun are the covers for both books including the first in the series, Hope Never Dies. Harkening back to the vivid colors of 1960s, the first shows Biden driving a convertible while Obama stands in the front seat pointing out the way as they chase their quarry. In the latest, Obama leans down from a swaying rope ladder tethered to a helicopter, his arm outstretched to help Biden up.

    One person who thinks the mysteries are fun is the former vice president. When Biden was campaigning in Kentucky (Shaffer and his wife, a romance writer, live in Louisville), he was contacted by the campaign who set up a meeting.

                  “I didn’t know whether he liked the book or not or what he was going to say,” says Shaffer adding that the Biden hadn’t read either book but signed his copies. “It was really kind of different to have a character in your book sign your book. I found out later that people have been bringing my books to his campaign stops and asking him to sign them, so he was probably thinking who’s the guy who wrote this?”

                  It’s tricky writing about people we know publicly but not in person says Shaffer.

                  “I think in ways I know them too well because I know their history and what I think they would do and say, because I’ve written about them and I’ve seen and read about them for eight years,” he says. “When I heard Biden speak in Kentucky, I was like my Biden wouldn’t say that.”

                  Shaffer’s book might have garnered a few votes for the vice president.

                  “I met one person who said I can’t wait to vote for them again because now they’re detectives,” he says.

    Ifyougo:

    What: Andrew Shaffer book signing

    When: Tuesday, July 9 at 6 p.m.

    Where: The Seminary Co-op Bookstore, 5751 S Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL

    Cost: Free but RSVP is suggested

    FYI: 773.752.4381; semcoop.com

    What: Andrew Shaffer book signing

    When: Wednesday, July 10 at 7 p.m.

    Where: Anderson’s Bookshop, 123 W Jefferson Ave., Naperville, IL

    Cost: This event is free and open to the public. To join the signing line, please purchase the author’s latest book, Hope Rides Again, from Anderson’s Bookshop. To purchase, stop in or call Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville.

    FYI: 630-355-2665; andersonsbookshop.com

  • The Mykonos Mob

    The Mykonos Mob

                  In The Mykonos Mob, the tenth book of the Greece-based mystery-thriller series written by New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Siger, Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis finds himself face-to-face with the nation’s top crime bosses, all of whom are as perplexed as he is about who’s responsible for the murder of a corrupt former police colonel who ran the island’s protection rackets. In the meantime, Kaldis’ s wife, Lila, is trying to find an identity for herself beyond wife and mother and teams up with an ex-pat with a shady side. The two decide to mentor exploited young island girls, a charitable act that unknowingly negatively intersects with her husband’s investigation.

                  Siger, who left a lucrative career as a partner in a Wall Street law firm to write mysteries, says that Greece provides an inexhaustible source of material for the two central elements of his series–the serious, modern-day issues his characters need to confront and overcome, and a perspective on those issues found in the ancient past.

    “There is no place on earth more closely linked to the ancient world than Greece,” he says. “It is the birthplace of the gods, the cradle of European civilization, the bridge between East and West. Spartan courage, Athenian democracy, Olympic achievement, Trojan intrigue—all sprung from this wondrous land.”

    It’s also a place he knows very well.

    “Each year I live on Mykonos longer than any other place on earth, and have for about a dozen years,” says Siger, noting that he first visited the island 35 years ago at a friend’s suggestion who thought he’d love Greece. “She was right. From the moment I stepped onto the tarmac at the Mykonos airport, I felt as if I were home. That very first day I happened to pass by a jewelry shop on my way into town from my hotel, though I forget how the proprietor lured me inside. Unbeknownst to me, I’d stumbled upon the most loved man on Mykonos.  A consummate gentleman and fervent booster of the island, he had an extraordinary circle of local, national and international friends, all of whom made a point of regularly stopping by to say hello to him.”

    Becoming an insider almost immediately has helped him craft stories about the workings of the islands both from a political and social viewpoint.

    “My ideas come from the strangest sources, often unexpected,” says Siger. “More bizarre than where they come from is how often my fictional plots have an unnerving tendency to come true. For example, my second novel in the series, Assassins of Athens featured a character in the mold of Greece’s current Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras years before his rise to power; my third book, Prey on Patmos, anticipated by seven years the current turmoil involving Mt. Athos, the Russian government, and the Patriarch in Constantinople, and many of the details surrounding the fictional assassination serving as the backstory latest book, were just reported by the Greek press as key details of an actual assassination that occurred long after The Mykonos Mob was written.”

    For more about Jeff Siger and his books, visit jeffreysiger.com/

  • The Lost Night by Andrea Bartz

    The Lost Night by Andrea Bartz

                  In Andrea Bartz’s mystery novel, The Lost Night, Lindsay Bach believes she remembers the night her once-best friend Edie committed suicide. It’s seared into her brain. Or so she thinks. Over dinner, a long ago friend who has just moved back to New York suggests that she wasn’t with the group like she believes. Could that be true? Getting a friend to hack into her old email account, Bach backtracks a decade ago to when she and her group of friends were post graduates starting jobs, consuming too much alcohol, partying too hard and falling in love—often.

    (Photo by Kate Lord)

                  With each new revelation about that time and her part in the days leading up to Edie’s death, Bach has to employ the skills she uses to fact check magazine articles for her job to do the same in her life. The questions are many, but the most important ones are did the captivating and beautiful Edie really commit suicide or was she murdered? And did Bach have something to do with her death that she can no longer remember.

                  Bartz, who earned her master’s degree at Northwestern University and the author of Stuff Hipsters Hate, her blog turned book, says she wanted to write a book like those she likes to read—tomes by female mystery writers like Tana French, Gillian Flynn and Jessica Knoll. For inspiration, she turned to a time in her life—New York City in 2009. Like her favorite writers, the novel struck a note and even before the book was published at the end of February, it had already been optioned by Cartel Entertainment as a limited series with actress Mila Kunis’ Orchard Farm set to produce.

                  “It was a crazy time and we were partying while the world was burning,” she says of her time as a 23-year-old.   “I thought of this time and how bizarre it all was and then interlaid it with a mysterious death. It opens up a certain subculture that I hope is interesting to readers, it certainly was introspective for me.”

                  The novel, atmospheric, intense and intriguing, reflects an interest in psychology and memory that has always interested Bartz—and Bach, the character Bartz describes as being most like her. In an early chapter, Bartz tells a lover how drunk blackouts mean that the incidents that occurred never were recorded in our memories. They don’t exist and yet they happened.

                  “We’ve all had those incidents where someone will describe an event and say you were there and you don’t remember it,” says Bartz, noting there’s something both creepy and disorienting about how there’s no hard and fast truth just different memories

                  So, it is with Bach, who is shaken out of her of complacent lifestyle by having to grapple with the truth—as elusive as it is.        

    Ifyougo:

    What: Author Andrea Bartz will be answering questions about her new novel The Lost Night, and magician Jeanette Andrews will be wowing the audience with a short performance.

    When: Wednesday, March 13 at 7-9 pm

    Where: The Book Cellar, 4736-38 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago, IL

    Cost: Free

    FYI: (773) 293-2665; words@bookcellarinc.com

  • Brian Gruley’s Bleak Harbor

    Brian Gruley’s Bleak Harbor

                Life is indeed bleak for many of the town’s residents in Bryan Gruley’s newest mystery, Bleak Harbor (Thomas & Mercer 2018; $24.95). Carey Peters’ autistic son is missing, lured away by the offer of a milkshake and his mother and stepfather need to come up with $5.145 million to get him back.  Carey, frantic about her son, also has other secrets. After receiving a promotion to executive assistant, finance, at Pressman Logistics in Chicago, she ends up in bed with her boss, Randall Pressman, after the two share a celebratory dinner. It gets even more complicated. She turns down future intimate opportunities with Randall– she is married, after all. When Randall retaliates by harassing her at work, Carey steals incriminating documents proving his involvement in illegal activities and blackmails him for their return. 

                But that’s just part of the many ominous doings in Bleak Harbor. Pete, Carey’s husband, runs a medical marijuana dispensary and was buying cheap supplies from a Detroit drug ring. Besides her blackmail scheme, Carey’s mother, the malevolent family matriarch, Serenity Meredith Maas Bleak, has her own hidden past. Yes, Carey is related to the founder of the town which Gruley based upon a darker version of Saugatuck, a lovely waterfront destination in southwest Michigan.

                Gruley, who shared in the Pulitzer Prize awarded to the Wall Street Journal in 2002 for its coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and is now a staff reporter for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek, draws upon his investigative journalism for ideas.

                “As a journalist, I’ve written stories from a lot of small towns,” says Gruley. “What I often discovered was that, whatever the larger theme of the story I was writing, be it an antitrust investigation or telecom deregulation, the real story was rooted in small ‘p’ politics—vendettas, rivalries, and grudges between the locals.”

                Gruley took a liking to Saugatuck as a model for Bleak Harbor while reporting a story there for The Wall Street Journal some years ago. Part of the interest is because of the lost village of Singapore, a boom town near Saugatuck during the rebuilding of Chicago after the Great Fire.

    “I learned about Singapore when I was reporting that WSJ story, and it fascinated me. A timber town buried in the dunes—what’s not cool about that,” says Gruley. “As for Pete and Carey, I started from a premise that they each had secrets they were hiding from each other and that those secrets might have put their son in danger. I had no idea at the start what those particular problems might be, but they came to me as I wrote. In Pete’s case, his struggles with the legal marijuana business stemmed in part from my reporting on a medical marijuana entrepreneur for a Bloomberg Businessweek story.”

    Gruley added mystery writing to his resume with his Starvation Lake trilogy (also based in Michigan). His first, Starvation Lake won the Strand Magazine Critics Award and was an Edgar Award nominee and his second, The Hanging Tree not only was the No. 1 IndieNext Pick for August 2010, a Michigan Notable Book for 2011 and a Kirkus Reviews Best Mystery of 2010 but has also optioned for a movie by writer-director John Gray. Even before its December 2018 release, Bleak Harbor became a bestseller through the Amazon First Reads program.

    Gruley, who lives in Chicago, says Bleak Harbor isn’t quite as nice as the Saugatuck he and his wife enjoy visiting.

    “But that’s OK, because I’m writing about dark deeds and dark people, and I think the title should indicate that,” he says.” I don’t think of myself as a dark person–except, perhaps, when the Red Wings aren’t playing well. But I do gravitate to the sad, the brooding, the melancholy, the menacing, in the stuff I read, watch, and listen to: for instance, Lehane’s Mystic River, the film “Manchester on the Sea,” the twisted lyrics of Richard Thompson. I love the Star Wars movies, but my favorite is probably the darkest, “The Empire Strikes Back.”

    Given that penchant and the doings in Bleak Harbor, Gruley says the name Happy Harbor just wouldn’t have worked.

    Ifyougo:

    What: Bryan Gruley book events

    When & Where:

    Book Signing & Meet and Greet

    January 8 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

    Cook Memorial Library

    Cook Memorial Library

    413 N. Milwaukee Ave.

    Libertyville, IL

    (847) 362-2330; cooklib.org

    Authors on Tap

    In conversation with Jonathan Eig

    Wednesday, January 16 @ 7 pm

    The Beer Shop

    1026 North Blvd

    Oak Park, IL

    (847) 946-4164; beershophq.com

    Conversation with Gregg Hurwitz

    Friday, February 1 @ 7:00 pm

    Volumes Bookcafe

    1474 N. Milwaukee Ave.

    Chicago, IL

    (773) 697-8066; volumesbooks.com

  • Who Murdered the Supreme Court Candidate: Mental State, a mystery novel by Law Professor M. Todd Henderson

    Who Murdered the Supreme Court Candidate: Mental State, a mystery novel by Law Professor M. Todd Henderson

    The murder of a good friend and fellow law professor inspired M. Todd Henderson to write Mental State (Down and Out Books 2018; $17.95), his first mystery novel.

    “He was a professor at Florida State University and had just dropped of his kids and was pulling out of the driveway when he was shot,” says Henderson who teaches at the University of Chicago’s law school. It turns out the friend, Dan Martel, was murdered by two hitmen hired by his ex-wife’s family to gain full custody of their children. Henderson considers himself a storyteller and using those skills he channeled his feelings into an immensely readable mystery involving the deadly political machinations put in place to hide the past of a sexual predator in order to secure a place on the  Supreme Court. It’s an interesting premise and certainly timely though this book was written well before the Brett Kavanaugh nomination and besides, Henderson’s judge is liberal.

    “My interest in law at a policy level is about power and what people are willing to do to achieve their ends,” says Henderson.

    photo-m-todd-henderson-1000x1400px-300dpi (1)

    In Mental State, Professor Alex Johnson, a professor at a renowned law school on Chicago’s southside (think University of Chicago) is murdered before he can reveal that the man being considered for the Supreme Court sexually abused him when they were both young. The death is first thought to be a suicide but FBI agent Royce Johnson, the victim’s brother, doesn’t believe his self-centered, narcissistic sibling would do such a thing. Once Royce proves it was murder, the next frame-up goes into place (the bad guys are good at backup plans) pinpointing the murder on one of the professor’s law students. But Johnson’s inability to quit trying to solve the crime soon puts himself on the wrong side of the law,  his comrades at the FBI and an array of federal officials determined to make sure the president’s pick for the highest court in the land goes through without a hitch. If that means a few murders and ruined lives to achieve this, well, it’s for the greater good.

    Ifyougo:

    What: M. Todd Henderson discusses “Mental State.” He will be joined in conversation by Jeff Ruby. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion.

    When: Thursday, October 18, 2018 – 6:00pm – 7:00pm

    Where: 57th Street Books, 1301 E 57th St., Chicago, IL

    Cost: Free

    FYI: (773) 752-4381; events@semcoop.com