Arthur Ellis Award Winners
Oline H Cogdill

Many terrific crime fiction writers are based in Canada.

And each time I read the list of authors being honored at the Arthur Ellis Awards, I realize how little I know about Canadian authors.

Here is the list of the winners of the 2018 Arthur Ellis Awards for Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing, announced by the Crime Writers of Canada.

This list should inspire book sales among readers. Crime Writers of Canada was founded in 1982 as a professional organization designed to raise the profile of Canadian crime writers. The members include authors, publishers, editors, booksellers, librarians, reviewers, and literary agents, as well as many developing authors.

(The descriptions are courtesy of the Crime Writers of Canada; publishers listed are who published the novels in Canada. One of the winners is for best novel in French and the description is in French. We don’t speak French but many of our readers do.)

Best Novel
Sleeping in the Ground, by Peter Robinson (McClelland & Stewart):
What the judges said: “From the first few words in the beginning chapter the impact of Sleeping in the Ground was visceral—it packs a heck of a punch. Peter Robinson paints a stunning portrait of a horrific murder scene that makes you feel as shocked and horrified as if you were standing right there. Then you are plunged into a frolic to figure out the who and why. There are so many twists and turns that it is hard to catch your breath. You find yourself swept along by the great mystery of the murders as well as the intricacies of the inter-relationships of Banks and his fellow homicide detectives, and the suspects as well.”

Best First Novel
Full Curl, by Dave Butler (Dundurn Press):
What the judges said: “Dave Butler brings to life the most compelling and complicated protagonist that Canadian crime fiction has seen in a long time. Jenny Willson is one tough cookie whose hard-edged nature and sharp mind make her the perfect candidate to solve this very out-of-the ordinary mystery. With a realistic time-line, multiple murders, and intricate attention to detail, Butler keeps his readers guessing from beginning to end. Truly Canadian in every essence, the scenery practically leaps off the page, making it both a love letter to the Canadian wilderness and a compelling and fast-paced mystery.”

Best Novella: The Lou Allin Memorial Award
How Lon Pruitt Was Found Murdered in an Open Field with No Footprints Around, by Mike Culpepper, published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (Dell):
What the judges said: “Elegant. If there was a word out of place none of us noticed. This story and these characters transported us in time and space and by the end left us in tears.”

Best Short Story
The Outlier, by Catherine Astolfo, published in 13 Claws (Carrick Publishing):
What the judges said: “The Outlier grabs the reader's attention from the first sentence. There was good foreshadowing and tension, with a solid ending and good believability. Prose was well done (showed rather than told) and the dialogue moved the plot along well. The protagonist was interesting and original, as was the diabolical plot. An unexpected twist ending reveals a criminal familiar to many of us, and this time he’s getting away with murder.”

Best Book in French
Les tricoteuses, by Marie Saur (Héliotrope Noir):
What the judges said: “Avec Les tricoteuses, Marie Saur nous plonge dans une intrigue prenante et originale tout en nous amenant dans un pan d’histoire moins connu du militantisme féministe au Québec: les grèves déclenchées par les ouvrières dans les usines textiles pour améliorer leur condition de travail. Sans jamais tomber dans les pièges du genre et les stéréotypes, elle nous offre une galerie de personnages pittoresque et un texte d’une grande qualité littéraire, en particulier dans ses dialogues. Le récit policier intéresse, et Marie Saur l’ouvre au roman social en dénonçant les puissants, assurés de leur bon droit. Elle y écorche au passage le milieu des médias prêt à tout pour attirer l’audience. Le tout avec une sensibilité, une subtilité et une teinte d’humour noir qui font de Ses tricoteuses un polar incontournable.”

Best Juvenile/YA Book
Chase - Get Ready to Run, by Linwood Barclay (Penguin Random House Puffin Canada):
What the judges said: “The plot is inventive and captivating from the opening chapter where the reader is taken into the mind of a dog as Chipper, the Border Collie, escapes from a top secret, scientific facility. This is a highly imaginative but believable story exploring the potential of cyber crime using a dog to mask the nefarious goals of his handlers. The book has strong boy and girl characters with the girl, atypically, being the computer expert and the boy expressing well the emotions and difficulties of being an orphan. It quietly introduces an emerging boy girl relationship suitable for the juvenile age group. The author employs age appropriate language and uses humour to temper the more frightening aspects of the story. “

Best Nonfiction Book
The Whisky King, by Trevor Cole (HarperCollins):
What the judges said: “The Whisky King uses the lives of two protagonists to tell the history of prohibition and liquor smuggling in Canada. It combines the stories of a charming rum runner who became king of the bootleggers and the perennially underpaid Mountie who helped to shut him down. It captures the atmosphere of the 1920s and 30s in Hamilton and Toronto, a time when law enforcement didn't have the tools available today to bring about convictions and when the criminals told bold lies in court to enable them to, quite literally, get away with murder. The story-telling draws the reader in like a good novel. The book exhibits a high degree of professionalism in its research, writing, editing and presentation.”

Unhanged Arthur for Best Unpublished First Crime Novel
Destruction in Paradise, by Dianne Scott
What the judges said: “A unanimous choice, the judges were intrigued by the location of the book in both time and space. The choice of Toronto Island offers a relatively closed community providing a framework to contain the action. And the Island, along with its myriad engaging inhabitants, is well enough described to become a character in its own right. The choice of the 1960s as the timeframe furnishes an opportunity to set the book in an external milieu of social issues which integrate well with the main plot. The judges were impressed with the protagonist, finding her well-rounded with her own character arc and with an interesting subplot of her unusual family life. While not unduly complex, the plot hangs together well, with the ending growing organically out of what had gone before.”

Crime Writers of Canada Grand Master Award
Gail Bowen is being recognized by Crime Writers of Canada for her long and illustrious career as a crime fiction author. She has almost 20 books in her long running Joanne Kilbourn series, several of which were either nominated for or received awards, including the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel in 1994, for A Colder Kind of Death. She has also written four Rapid Reads novellas and several plays. She is well established in Canada, highly respected in the writing community and much sought after by readers. She is frequently a guest at literary events. Several of her Joanne Kilbourn books were turned into a TV series.

 

Oline Cogdill
2018-06-06 12:16:30
Brad Meltzer’s History Lesson
Oline H Cogdill

I often joke that everything I know, I learned from mysteries.

Well, that’s partly true.

A lot of things I learn start in a mystery book, thanks to detailed research that really good authors conduct.

Yes, it’s fiction and that means the author made it up. But that’s the plot, character, dialogue. Most authors are meticulous about making sure certain elements of a novel are based in reality.

I was always good in history and it was one of my favorite subjects. But history—at least the way most students learn it—is just a bunch of numbers. What brings history to life are the people behind those numbers.

Take Brad Meltzer. When you read about something in a Meltzer novel, you can pretty much take it to the bank that he is writing about something that is real. With no embellishments. He saves those embellishments for his plots and characters.

We should expect no less than the truth from the author who is the host of Brad Meltzer’s Lost History, on H2, and Brad Meltzer’s Decoded, on the History Channel.

Meltzer also is also responsible for helping find the missing 9/11 flag that the firefighters raised at Ground Zero, making national news on the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

And through the years, Meltzer has had unbelievable access to archives and several US presidents. I think that’s because Meltzer writes from the heart and respects history.

Meltzer’s latest novel, The Escape Artist, is chock with historical facts, and, yes, some seem hard to believe, but they are true. Such as:

In 1898, John Elbert Wilkie, appointed to be head of the US Secret Service, was a friend of magician Harry Houdini. Wilkie borrowed some of Houdini’s techniques to enhance the department’s surveillance techniques.

Dover Air Force Base in Delaware is where bodies of fallen soldiers, covert CIA operatives, and others who give their lives overseas on behalf of the United States are prepared for burial. The morticians here go to great lengths to prepare these heroes for burial and so families can, if ever possible, have an open casket.

But for me, the most astonishing fact—and most interesting—was the position of the Army’s artist-in-residence. Since World War I, the US Army has had an actual painter on staff who documents disasters. This person often sees, through the prism of being an artist, what others cannot. Even photographers haven’t captured aspects that the artist-in-residence has.

In the press materials for The Escape Artist, Meltzer states that these “war artists are one of our military’s greatest traditions and they have catalogued everything from the dead on D-Day, the injured at Mogadishu, and the sandbag pilers after Hurricane Katrina.”

He added, “After 9/11, they were the only artist allowed inside the security perimeter.”

During the recent Literary Feast panel of which I was the moderator, Meltzer was again telling this story, still amazed that while everyone else runs into battle, this artist only has paintbrushes.

“I said, ‘That’s the craziest person I’ve ever heard. I wanna meet him.’ And my male bias got the best of me because they quickly said to me, “You mean her. You want to meet her.” And I was like, “Yes, I want to meet her’,” Meltzer said during our panel, which was sponsored by the Broward Public Library Foundation.

And in The Escape Artist, readers do indeed meet her.


Photo of Brad Meltzer by Michelle Watson.


Oline Cogdill
2018-06-10 14:34:45
First Girls, Now Sisters
Oline H Cogdill

“I got all my sisters with me”—sung by Sister Sledge; writers: Nile Rodgers, Bernard Edwards


It seems like just yesterday—and it probably was—that we were overrun with mystery novels with the word “girl” in the title.

We’ve had girls who were on a train, gone, interrupted, in a spider’s web, waiting with a gun, in a maze, good, bad, running, walking, skating, in the woods, the other, wrong, or right.

Yes, each of those words were used in a title with the word “girl.”

I am not making a judgment about the quality of those novels—most of which were quite good.

But lately I am seeing many novels with the words “sister” or “sisters” in the title.

Is sister the new girl?

So here are some of the titles I’ve seen. Again, no judgment about the quality of those novels—most of which were quite good, many of which I’ve favorably reviewed.

So here’s the sisterly roundup:

What My Sister Knew, by Nina Laurin (Grand Central): Andrea “Addie” Warren hasn’t seen her twin brother, Eli, in 15 years, when he was convicted and sentenced to prison at age 12 for killing their mother and stepfather by burning down their house.

The Sister, by Louise Jensen (Grand Central Publishing): A grieving woman takes in a person claiming to be the half-sister of her late best friend.
 
The Other Sister, by Sarah Zettel (Grand Central Publishing): Two sisters have put up with their controlling father all their lives. Now, they have other ideas.

The Favorite Sister, by Jessica Knoll (Simon & Schuster): Two sisters join the cast of the reality TV series Goal Diggers. One won’t make it out alive.

Sister, by Rosamund Lupton (Broadway Books): A woman gets on a plane to London and receives a call that her sister is missing. Then she learns there are a lot of things she doesn’t know about her sister.
 
The Second Sister, by Claire Kendal (Harper): A woman’s obsession over the decade-old disappearance of her sister overwhelms her life and puts her at odds with her parents.

The Sisters of Blue Mountain, by Karen Katchur (Dunne Books/St. Martin’s): Estranged sisters reevaluate their relationship and deal with their father’s poor health.

The Night Sister, by Jennifer McMahon (Doubleday): A modern ghost story moves through three eras and revolves around a family’s murder, a hidden room, and the disappearance of a teenager.

The Good Sister, by Wendy Corsi Staub (Harper): A killer stalks his teenage victim after meeting them online.

Bad Sisters, by Rebecca Chance (Simon & Schuster): Three ambitious sisters with a deadly secret.



Oline Cogdill
2018-06-17 18:47:07
Gillian Flynn's “Sharp Objects” on HBO
Oline H. Cogdill

While Gillian Flynn remains best known for Gone Girl, many of us were fans long before that novel—and movie—about a marriage gone very wrong set against the background of economic turndown.

Flynn’s 2006 novel Sharp Objects is a terrifically terrifying story about a serial killer in Wind Gap, Missouri, and the reporter who returns to her hometown to cover it.

The reporter, Camille Preaker, has been living in Chicago and the trip home brings back far too many memories.

Camille had a breakdown following the death of her sister, Marian, who died young. Eventually, she was sent to a psychiatric hospital after years of self-harm.

You might guess that her family is quite dysfunctional.

That family includes Camille’s half sister, Amma, who acts like the perfect daughter at home while being as nasty as she can to others.

Mother Adora, is cold and distant to Camille, while doting on Amma. Adora comes from a wealthy family that owns many businesses. Wealth has brought her power but also misery.

(On a personal note, I love that Flynn, who grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, set two of her novels in the Show Me State, which is where I am from. Gone Girl was set in the southeast Missouri town of Cape Girardeau, about 30 miles from my hometown, and also parts of southwest Missouri.)

Sharp Objects won the Crime Writers’ Association’s New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Daggers awards and was nominated for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar for Best First Novel by an American Writer and the Crime Writers' Association's Duncan Lawrie award.

Sharp Objects now makes its way to television as a limited eight-episode series on HBO, adapted by Flynn and Marti Noxon. IndieWire described the series as "about as close to a summer blockbuster as 2018 TV will get."

Sharp Objects premieres July 8 on HBO.

The cast is top drawer, including Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Messina, Elizabeth Perkins, Eliza Scanlen, Madison Davenport, Matt Craven, and Taylor John Smith.

Here is a newly released trailer

This isn’t the first time that Sharp Objects was considered for a television project. According to sources, British director Andrea Arnold was reported to be directing an adaptation of the novel in 2008 for French production company Pathé. But the project never materialized.

Oline Cogdill
2018-06-13 12:52:44
Cynthia Riggs on Living in a House of Books
Cynthia Riggs
Author Cynthia Riggs

"I am surrounded by books. Every room, every space in my large, sprawling 1750s house is full of books..."

I am surrounded by books. Every room, every space in my large, sprawling 1750s house is full of books, including the upstairs hall, the downstairs hall, and four bathrooms. Occasionally I make a pale attempt to weed out unwanted books to make room for the sacks of books I’ve just acquired at the West Tisbury Library’s summer book sale, but the attempts end up with more piles of books on the floor.

There are no unwanted books.

It is apparently genetic. My father built bookcases suspended cleverly from the ceiling to hold books, of course. My great aunt Alvida, a maiden lady, lived in this great house alone for many years in the late 1800s and early 1900s, surrounded by books with inscriptions like, “To Miss Cleaveland, in hopes she will read my latest book on Christian Ethics.” How can I get rid of that, or others like it? The books Aunt Alvida cherished, the books my father collected on biography, history, and Indians, the books my mother collected on King Arthur and the Arthurian legend, on poetry, on Turkey and travel and. . . oh, everything!

These are not my reading choice, but how can I separate them from this book-welcoming house? I’ve got shelves and more shelves of my very own of mysteries and fiction. My poor kids, and the generations who come next into this house of books, will probably want places to stack their sci-fi and romance and techie books. I warn my B&B guests, “This is an old house. The floors creak, the doors don’t shut, shared bathrooms, no television, and books, books, books, everywhere. . .” The guests I haven’t scared away have become warm friends.

Author Cynthia Riggs with just a few of the books housed in her family home, which is also a B&B.

I do have a daughter who believes in simplifying life. Getting rid of useless things. She keeps quoting Thoreau: “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” I can’t argue with her. She’s right. But she classifies books as “useless details” by which her life is frittered away. “It’s all on the internet, Mama! Why collect all these dust catchers, when you can simply log on?” She has a point. My well-worn upstairs dictionary (there are three more downstairs) is truly gathering dust, because when I need the right word defined for a spot in my latest manuscript, what do I do? I click on that image on the side of my computer screen that leads me to Google and a bunch of definitions pop up, just like that.

Nevertheless, my thousands (really, thousands?) and thousands of books are here to stay. I tell my daughter they are decorative. She says a plain white wall is more attractive. I tell her they’re good insulation, blocking the Island’s cold winter winds. She points out that the 350 windows in this house, most dating from the 1700s, are where the cold winter winds are breezing in. I tell her . . . oh, forget it. Someone gave me a gift certificate to Bunch of Grapes Bookstore and I know just the book I want to buy.

Cynthia Riggs, a thirteenth-generation Islander, lives on Martha's Vineyard in her family homestead, now a bed-and-breakfast catering to poets and writers. She has a degree in geology from Antioch College, an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College, and holds a US Coast Guard Masters License (100-ton). Cynthia has five children, and 13 grandchildren.

This “Writers on Reading” essay was originally published in “At the Scene” enews June 2018 as a first-look exclusive to our enewsletter subscribers. For more special content available first to our enewsletter subscribers, sign up here.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-16 13:25:55

Cynthia RiggsI am surrounded by books. Every room, every space in my large, sprawling 1750s house is full of books...

Summer Issue #155 Contents

155 Summer cover, Anthony Horowitz

Features

Anthony Horowitz: The Word Is Murder

Few authors have ever tackled such a wide range of genres, and so sucessfully, including novels for children and young adults, mysteries, graphic novels, plays, film, television, and journalism. He’s even written two Sherlock Holmes novels and two James Bond novels.
by Oline H. Cogdill

Whistle an Eerie Tune: Radio’s The Whistler

The enigmatic, omniscient figure known only as The Whistler presented deviously clever tales of mystery and mayhem in the ’40s and ’50s.
by Michael Mallory

Emily Arsenault

This writer’s goal is not only entertainment but the creation of an emotional bond with the reader.
by John B. Valeri

The Soaring Crime Rate

TSales of crime novels in the UK have soared, overtaking general fiction for the first time.
by Sophie Hannah

Bosch: Everybody Counts or Nobody Counts

One of fiction’s most iconic characters, Michael Connelly’s LA cop Harry Bosch, took a tortuous path from page to screen and TV greatness.
by Craig Sisterson

My Book: Broken Ground

“Life imitates art. And sometimes the other way around, too.”
by Joe Clifford

Chronicles of Detection: Historical Authors Turning to Crime

Five novelists travel through the ages in criminality.
by Barry Forshaw

James W. Ziskin

The seductive world of Saratoga horse racing is the setting for Ziskin’s newest award-nominated novel.
by John B. Valeri

The Hook

First lines that caught our attention.

“M Is for Missed” Crossword

by Verna Suit

Departments

At the Scene

by Kate Stine

Mystery Miscellany

by Louis Phillips

Hints & Allegations

Reviews

Small Press Reviews: Covering the Independents

by Betty Webb

Very Original: Paperback Originals Reviewed

by Hank Wagner

Short and Sweet: Short Stories Considered

by Ben Boulden

Sounds of Suspense: Audiobooks Reviewed

by Dick Lochte

What About Murder? Reference Books Reviewed

by Jon L. Breen

Mystery Scene Reviews

Miscellaneous

The Docket

Letters

Advertiser Info

Teri Duerr
2018-06-16 14:17:09
At the Scene, Summer Issue #155

155 Summer cover, Anthony Horowitz

Hi Everyone,

There’s something particularly delicious about summer reading. The bees buzz by, the grass gets longer, and you linger inside the pages of a good book while the world slows down around you. We feature lots of great books in this issue; I’m sure you’ll find something here for those long summer afternoons.

Anthony Horowitz is something of a renaissance man. Not only does he have one of the hottest books of summer—The Word Is Murder—but he also has created classic crime TV, including one of my all-time favorites, Foyle’s War. He’s written estate-approved and bestselling James Bond and Sherlock Holmes novels, and is the creator of the teenage spy Alex Rider series for young adults. In his new novel, he not only sets the plot whirling, he jumps in himself as a Watson to his new series detective, Daniel Hawthorne. Being part of the action puts “a different spin on everything. I could do all the fun things of a murder mystery—the clues, suspects, alibis, the red herrings, the twists, the plot from different angles,” Horowitz tells Oline Cogdill in our interview.

“...I know many things, for I walk by night.” So began one of radio’s classics, The Whistler. Michael Mallory offers a look at this long-running show, which even had a few film spin-offs.

As a child Emily Arsenault didn’t speak much—except for the dialogue in her stories. “I think at the time I was trying to create the kind of conversations I wished to have. Decades later, dialogue is still the heart of my stories,” says Arsenault, who has an interesting chat with John B. Valeri in this issue.

The sales of crime novels in the UK have soared, overtaking general fiction for the first time. Writer Sophie Hannah isn’t surprised at all—and offers a few thoughts on crime fiction’s ascent.

One of mystery fiction’s most iconic characters, Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, took a tortuous path from page to screen greatness. The Harry Bosch on the page and the screen is “very much the same character, he’s just on a different timeline,” says Connelly. What hasn’t changed is Harry’s essence. According to actor Titus Welliver, the L.A. cop is “an attainable character, a human character. For me, as an actor, it’s the richest character I’ve ever been able to play in my career.” Craig Sisterson takes a look at the series and chats with some of the principals.

Barry Forshaw surveys historical authors who have turned to crime in their writing. In this issue, he travels the centuries with Bernard Knight, Lindsey Davis, Andrew Taylor, Imogen Robertson, and Michael Jecks.

James W. Ziskin’s latest novel to feature 1960s journalist Ellie Stone, A Stone’s Throw, has just been nominated for the 2018 Anthony Award for Best Paperback. Valeri catches up with the author in this issue.

Enjoy!

Kate Stine
Editor-in-chief

Teri Duerr
2018-06-16 14:31:00
Summer Issue #155
Teri Duerr
2018-06-16 15:10:48
The Quaker
Craig Sisterson

Fifty years ago, an unknown killer terrorized Glasgow. His clean-cut visage, an artist’s impression from witness statements, stared from newspaper front pages. ‘Bible John’ butchered three women who’d been enjoying nights out at a local dance hall and left the police chasing smoke. He was never caught.

Literary professor and award-winning novelist Liam McIlvanney explores the effect of those killings on his home city in The Quaker, a novel with strong echoes of Glasgow’s real past. He shows a deft touch for character and setting throughout this absorbing, atmospheric read. Duncan McCormack is the man tasked with sorting out the long-stalled investigation into the murders of three women. He’s parachuted into the Quaker investigation from the elite Flying Squad, with instructions to work out what’s gone wrong and why the Quaker hasn’t been caught. It’s a test for the fast-rising copper from the Highlands, and a poisoned chalice. His new colleagues are tired, frustrated, and dislike him on sight, the bosses are demanding certain outcomes for political purposes, and he’s harboring dangerous secrets of his own.

McIlvanney has crafted a superb tale with a vivid sense of time and place. 1960s Glasgow was a different era, but he also brings some modern sensibilities by giving the female victims a voice, rather than being inert props for the male cops and criminals. The Quaker is an evocative slice of the past that’s populated with an array of intriguing characters, tough issues, and some nuanced interplay between them.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-16 17:01:18
The Death of Mrs. Westaway
Ariell Cacciola

Harriet Westaway, better known as Hal, finds herself down on her luck. She’s a Brighton Pier tarot card reader who is behind on her rent and owes money to less than reputable men, and then add to her situation the fact that her mother was rundown in a horrific auto accident three years prior. When she’s about to reach her lowest, Hal receives a mysterious letter in the mail from a lawyer representing her grandmother in Cornwall, who has recently passed away. A promise of an inheritance dangled in front of her, Hal feels relieved that some of her money issues might be alleviated.

However, there is one small thing: Hal’s grandparents died years before and she has no clue who this Mrs. Westaway could be.

With her perceptive skills as a tarot reader, Hal packs her bag and hops a train for the Cornish estate with the intent of misleading the Westaway family into believing she is one of their own.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway is Ruth Ware’s fourth novel and with her newest addition, the author keeps getting better. She channels the spirit of an Agatha Christie novel: estranged members of a wealthy family are recalled to their childhood estate, each with a complicated opinion of their late mother. They are isolated with a cranky housekeeper named Mrs. Warren who might be just as old as the house itself, plus foreboding warnings, and bad weather and circumstances that keep drawing Hal back to the home every time she tries to get away. Ware ramps up the tension as Hal attempts to hide her true identity from the Westaway clan while digging for truths and clarity that she didn’t even know she was looking for. It would be easy to say that layers of mystery are peeled away, but Ware offers something much more: a maze with crooked halls and unknown corners. With The Death of Mrs. Westaway, Ware doesn’t disappoint. It is a novel that will pull you in with its enigmatic charm and intriguing mysteries.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-16 17:05:50

The Death of Mrs. Westaway is Ruth Ware’s fourth novel and with her newest addition, the author keeps getting better.

The Real Michael Swann
Oline Cogdill

It’s become an all too familiar scenario—a terrorist attack kills hundreds of people with just as many lost in the chaos. Bryan Reardon uses this new normal for a thoughtful novel about misidentification, family bonds and marriage.

Julia Swann is talking on the phone to her husband, Michael, who’s waiting for a train at New York City’s Penn Station to bring him home to their suburban Philadelphia home when a bomb goes off. Hundreds are killed, but Julia believes, against the odds, that Michael is alive. With her two young sons in the care of her mother and close friends, Julia sets off for New York to find him.

In a kind of modern version of the Odyssey, Julia is up against closed roads, police and throngs of people as she goes from ferries, bus stops, and freeways to find Michael. But during her quest, a new set of theories emerge. Grainy videos suggest that Michael is the terrorist and he is trying to disappear.

The Real Michael Swann alternates between Julia’s frantic search to Michael, who appears to have amnesia, trying to find his way. In trying to find Michael, Julia reminisces about her seemingly perfect marriage, which she begins to doubt. Julia’s fully formed personality enhances the plot while Michael’s rather vague persona is in keeping with a character who does not know who he is.

Without using car chases or overt violence, Reardon keeps the suspense high as the reader is deeply invested in Julia’s search.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-16 18:05:52
Linwood Barclay on His Childhood Bookshelf

I’d love to tell you I grew up hooked on Dickens and Tolstoy. But that would be a fiction.

Whenever I’d see a book I wanted, and asked my dad if he’d buy it for me, he’d invariably say, “You already have a book.”

It was the dad joke that never got old. The thing was, he never said no. This was even true for comic books. It was possible that my father, a commercial artist, also appreciated the value of a story told with pictures.

I don’t, however, recall him being a big reader. Given his occupation, we had plenty of coffee-table art books, many of them about advertising, several on architecture. He read the occasional nonfiction book. Mom, when she wasn’t reading U.S. News & World Report or Trailer Life (her interests covered a rather diverse spectrum), would pick up a novel, but she wasn’t a voracious reader, either.


And yet, somehow, I loved books. I wanted to acquire them as much as read them. The adventures of Frank and Joe Hardy were an early obsession. When I finished one, I would put it on the shelf next to my other Hardy Boys mysteries, the number on the spine allowing me to quickly place it in the right order. They looked so good on the shelf, all lined up like soldiers. Those blue spines, a double portrait of the brothers in a small circle halfway down, and just below that, “The Hardy Boys Series” in white letters on a black background.

Tom Swift had to fight for spaceon that shelf. The stories about his Flying Lab and Jetmarine and Rocket Ship and Ultrasonic Cycloplane were exciting enough, but they never offered the same level of suspense as The Missing Chums or The Secret of the Old Mill or The House on the Cliff.

Then, a television show called The Man from U.N.C.L.E. came along and I became obsessed not only with watching it every week, but collecting all the novels based on it. It seemed like every other month, there was a new Ace paperback: The Doomsday Affair, The Dagger Affair, The Copenhagen Affair. My mom thought they were inappropriate for my age, and would tuck them on the top shelf of the hall closet. When she was out, I’d grab a chair, retrieve them, and devour them.

Before long I graduated to Agatha Christie and Rex Stout, and in my teens discovered the writer who’d mean more to me than any that had come before: Ross Macdonald.

I’d love to tell you I grew up hooked on Dickens and Tolstoy. But that would be a fiction.

Linwood Barclay is the author of 17 previous novels and one thriller for children, including the international bestseller No Time for Goodbye. A New York Times bestselling author, his books have been translated into more than two dozen languages. He wrote a screenplay adaptation for his novel Never Saw It Coming and his book The Accident has been made into a television series in France. A native of Connecticut, he lives near Toronto with his wife, Neetha.

This “Writers on Reading” essay was originally published in “At the Scene” enews July 2018 as a first-look exclusive to our enewsletter subscribers. For more special content available first to our enewsletter subscribers, sign up here.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-18 19:22:58
Death at the Selig Studios
Betty Webb

First some bad news. The cover of Frances McNamara’s Death at the Selig Studios, depicting a lion killing someone, is wrong. The good news? The dead guy was actually killed by a human-chomping leopard pack set free from the Chicago movie set of Hunting Big Game in Africa. Here’s some more bad news. Protagonist Emily Cabot, a wealthy Chicago matron, is a controlling busybody. Again, the good news: Emily’s out-of-bounds behavior is not only an asset here, it’s hilarious. If a relative or a friend has a problem—unrequited love, financial woes, etc.—she rushes right in to solve it. Film history buffs will have a ball with this entertaining historical mystery set in 1909, the early days of filmdom, when movie theaters were still being called nickelodeons, and when even Emily herself describes actors as “loathsome film people.” Those were the dark days when self-righteous censors could make or break an actress’s career by refusing to allow their films to be shown to the public. In Death at the Selig Studios, censor George Hyde seems bent on sabotaging the career of beautiful Kathlyn Williams, until he’s found shot dead on set (don’t worry, the aforementioned leopard pack is waiting in the wings to chomp down on a different victim). When Alden, Emily’s trouble-prone brother, is tagged for the crime, his big sis rushes to the rescue, aided by her friend Detective Henry Whitbread. Emily doesn’t really care about the censor’s death; she’s just irritated that her brother’s arrest will interfere with the family’s yearly retreat to their Woods Hole summer cottage. As it turns out, her high-and-mighty attitude helps break the case, because being wealthy herself, she’s not in the least intimidated by the new movie magnates. Author McNamara’s penchant for research shines brightly here. To populate this rollicking tale of early 20th-century greed, lust, and hypocrisy, she brings in the real-life personas and properties of Colonel William N. Selig, Thomas Edison (who invented motion pictures), Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz, cowboy stars Tom Mix and Bronco Billy, and Olga Celeste, better known as the Leopard Lady. But Death at the Selig Studios isn’t only a historical who-did-what-and-when; it’s a dead-on psychological dramedy where rapidly changing social mores play merry hell with old-fashioned virtues. Seen in that light, Emily’s protective, if controlling, behavior with her ditzy younger brother is not only forgivable, it’s understandable. Like busybody Emily herself, Death at the Selig Studios is pure delight.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-26 19:07:20
Last Ferry Home
Betty Webb

Life isn’t fair in Kent Harrington’s Last Ferry Home. On his first day back at work after his wife was killed in a horrific boating accident, San Francisco PD detective Michael O’Higgins encounters a case which threatens to make his already well-entrenched PTSD even worse. A wealthy businessman from India has been slashed to death, along with his children’s nanny, and the gore reminds O’Higgins of the slaughter he’d seen in Vietnam. The murdered businessman was involved in an international business deal that has both the Indian and American governments demanding O’Higgins be tossed from the case, and at the same time his psychiatrist refuses to renew his Valium prescription. The detective’s situation becomes even worse when he finds himself falling in love with the prime suspect in the case—Asha, the murdered man’s widow. There is a lot to like in Last Ferry Home, the sympathetic protagonist, the noirish plot, and the foggy San Francisco setting. At times the plot nudges into magical realism, which can be a risky tactic for a genre which relies heavily upon logic. Thus the reveal might not be as believable as some mystery readers would like.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-26 19:13:37
Broken Ground
Betty Webb

Joe Clifford’s Broken Ground is a doozy of a tale. After a fine start in an AA meeting, where Jay Porter, our hero, admits to all sorts of churlish behavior, the book takes us on a roller-coaster ride through a small town in New Hampshire, where an unusually high number of young people are dying. Some die from overdoses but a rare form of cancer has cropped up, too. Amy, a recovering heroin addict, hires “estate clearer” Porter to find her sister Emily, who hasn’t been seen since leaving rehab. Emily, a budding journalist, had been investigating the possible causes of those cancer cases. There might appear to be too many addicts in this book, but after reading Clifford’s chilling descriptions of the New Hampshire winter, one can almost sympathize with their desire to surrender to heroin’s warm embrace. Porter’s own recovery is rocky, too. At one point he says, “Beer kept the snarling wolves away,” and no matter how hard he tries, the wolves keep chewing on his leg. Not even his lorazepam prescription eases his suffering after Emily is found murdered. With all Porter’s faults, and he has many, he remains a sympathetic character until the book’s last few pages. Instead of giving us a climax worthy of his protagonist, author Clifford delivers a rather disappointing non-ending.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-26 19:20:06
Dark Side of the Loon
Betty Webb

Every now and then I enjoy delving into mystery anthologies, especially those published by various crime writers’ associations. This time out I enjoyed the wonderfully titled Dark Side of the Loon, edited by Sheyna Galyan, Christina Glendenning, and Timya Owen, with a forward by Ellen Hart. Like many of these anthologies, it has a theme, and in this case, the theme is the history of Minnesota. Lori L. Lake’s “Kindred Spirits,” set in 1830, is a fascinating study of a Two-Spirit (lesbian) Indian woman’s interaction with Elizabeth Evelyn Cousineau, a tough female trapper. Also appearing in the story is mapmaker/illustrator Seth Eastman, who is staying at Fort Snelling when someone tries to kill Howahkan, the Two-Spirit woman. This intriguing story is unique in that it sheds light on a seldom-discussed element of Indian life, as well as Cousineau’s unusual—for the time—lifestyle. Taking a more humorous look at history, Michael Allan Mallory’s partially fabricated “Not So Legendary Outlaws” chronicles the hilarious story of an aging band of train robbers who decide to switch to bank-robbing. As Chester, the leader of this creaky trio, tells one of his train-robbing buddies, “You said you were getting too old for jumping on and off trains. Banks don’t move.” Unfortunately, their big plans come to naught, when they arrive at the Northfield Bank just as Jesse James and Cole Younger are shooting their way out. This deftly written tale will give you a serious case of the giggles. Two different writers—M. E. Bakos and Greg Dahlager—chose the big blizzard of 1971 as the setting for their stories. Like Mallory’s caper, Bakos’ “Perfect Storm...Perfect Murder,” also has some fun with a poorly planned murder, only this time it’s the weather, not competing criminals, that ruins a wannabe-murderer’s plans. Dahlager’s “Misty” takes a more serious look at a female deputy stranded alone in the middle of the blizzard with a fresh corpse and a killer on the loose. While the story in and of itself is interesting, Dahlager’s poetic style adds a richness and psychological depth that isn’t always seen in cops-and-killers run-ins. Deeply moving, “Misty” is among the best in a very good collection.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-26 19:27:08
Follow Me Into the Dark
Betty Webb

The psychopathology of killers can be a dangerous road to take for authors, and because of that, Felicia C. Sullivan’s Follow Me Into the Dark is often a tough read. Not because of the quality of the writing—which remains stellar throughout—but because the plot about a serial killer is so stuffed with messed-up people that it’s pretty much impossible to find someone to like. We may start off rooting for protagonist Kate, and loathing Gillian, the “other woman,” but by the time the book is finished, our character loyalties have probably flip-flopped. Among her other faults, Kate’s self-pity becomes wearying as she continues to blame others for messes she herself has created. As for Gillian, at least we can feel sorry when someone sets her hair on fire. Kate’s brother is as crazy as a mean-spirited loon, and yet another character gets his kicks by strangling his sex partners. The quality of the writing keeps this menagerie of monsters afloat until the end, where the identity of the serial-killing “Doll Collector” is revealed, but only the strong-stomached will stick with it that long.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-26 19:32:08
The Perfect Mother
Vanessa Orr

First off, if this is what motherhood is like, I’m glad I never had kids. Watching the May Mothers, a group of new moms who gave birth in the same month, deal with the stress, judgment from other mothers, lack of sleep, constant worry, and panic that they’re doing things wrong is overwhelming—and that’s before one of the babies is stolen from his crib while the moms are taking a much-needed break.

When baby Midas goes missing, the women of Winnie’s group attempt to help her find out what happened to her son, even as some of them can’t help but wonder if she could have had a part in his disappearance. Each woman approaches the problem differently, and author Aimee Molloy does a great job of revealing who each of her characters is through this plot device. All have their secrets, and once the media gets hold of the missing baby saga, the dirty laundry is aired and the public is quick to judge the parents’ abilities—and find them wanting.

This story is spot-on for the times, not only are all of the mothers expected to be perfect parents without losing their own identities, but they are also under constant scrutiny from others who believe they know best. This is perfectly captured in occasional memos at the beginning of chapters geared toward the May Mothers from “Your Friends at the Village,” whose seemingly helpful advice on everything from a toddler’s independence to co-sleeping would be almost funny if it weren’t so condescending.

The story will keep you guessing until the very end about where Baby Midas has gone, but even more than a mystery, this is an impressive statement about the pressure that society puts on women as a whole, and especially the crushing expectations that they have to deal with when they become parents.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-26 19:40:23

Even more than a mystery, an impressive statement about the pressure that society puts on women and the crushing expectations of motherhood.

Star of the North
Jay Roberts

The disappearance and presumed death of her twin sister Soo-Minn left a lasting effect on Jenna Williams. While she has gone on to become an assistant professor at Georgetown University, she’s haunted by the loss and closed off from most of the world. Her regular therapy sessions don’t seem to be helping much either. But all that changes when Charles Fisk, an old family friend and CIA agent, shows her proof that her sister might be alive,the victim of a sinister North Korean plot. Fueled by a desire to know the truth, Jenna quits academia and enrolls in CIA training.

While that might make for a compelling story all by itself, D.B. John’s Star of the North ups the ante by presenting not only Jenna’s story, but two other main characters and their stories as well.

Colonel Cho is a mid-level functionary in the North Korean military, a man devoted to his country and its leaders. When he discovers that his background is not what he once thought, he knows that he needs to make a daring and desperate attempt to escape to the West or he will be killed by those he once thought of as friends and allies.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Moon is a North Korean peasant. When she finds contraband from South Korea in a downed balloon sent over the border, instead of turning it over to the secret police she is emboldened to begin a career as a black marketeer as a means to a better life for her and her husband.

Using real-life events and people, the author intertwines the lives of these three characters over months and years as the story unfolds in stunning yet utterly believable ways. From Jenna’s training to Cho’s attempts to save the lives of his family and himself and Mrs. Moon’s adventures as a criminal in one of the most ruthless empires in history, there is so much going on here that you might think it would leave you overwhelmed. Instead, you will find yourself captivated by the story and sympathetic toward its characters. Readers will not only root for them, but will miss them long after the story comes to its explosive conclusion. Part electrifying spy tale, part exposé of a country and its practices to exercise complete domination of its citizenry, Star of the North is a starkly ambitious thriller that will leave readers both emotionally spent and satisfied.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-26 19:50:29

An ambitious character-driven thriller takes readers on a journey to  "The Hermit Kingdom."

Countdown
Sharon Magee

In this, the second and last in the Jesse Sutherlin Mystery series, it’s 1928 and Jesse is home from the Great War. He’s come down from Appalachia’s Buffalo Mountain and its moonshine industry to live in the small town of Floyd, Virginia, where he’s foreman at R.G. Anderson’s sawmill. He is married to the money-savvy Serena, who intuits the turmoil of the Great Depression to come, and they have four small children.

Jesse is shocked when his father’s long-dead body is found in a nice house undergoing demolition. Shocked because 18 years before, a man told his mother that her husband had died during the Spanish fever epidemic in Norfolk. Missing is his father’s heirloom watch, called The Onion for its size and shape, and a military medal attached to the watch chain. When Jesse asks the local sheriff to investigate, the sheriff seems lukewarm about taking on a the old murder, but at the same time forbids Jesse from doing so. Going only on the knowledge that the man who gave his mother the news was named Brownie and had a glass eye, Jesse decides to investigate anyway. When he’s shot at three times in the course of his investigation, Jesse figures he must be getting close to the guilty party and becomes even more determined to track down a killer.

Unfortunately this is the final book from prolific (19 books in 13 years) author Fred Ramsay, who passed away in 2017. Bestselling author Dana Stabenow stepped in to ready Ramsay’s final novel for publication. Countdown is filled with interesting details of life in the hardscrabble Appalachia area in the time leading up to the Great Depression and has an interesting plot. The book is dedicated to Ramsay’s grandfather, J.B. Ramsay, whose life inspired many of the author’s stories. Ramsay and his wonderful characters and stories will truly be missed.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-26 19:58:12
Island of the Mad
Joseph Scarpato, Jr.

The latest Mary Russell, aka Mrs. Sherlock Holmes, mystery is not only entertaining, it’s informative as well. Here, the odd-but-well-matched couple are asked by one of Mary’s best friends to discover what happened to her beloved aunt, who had spent most of her adult life in asylums for the mentally ill and has recently gone missing from Bedlam. Apparently the aunt, Lady Vivian Beaconsfield, was deemed well enough to attend a party at her ancestral home, accompanied by a nurse.The following day, she, her nurse, and a very valuable piece of jewelry were no longer in attendance, much to the chagrin of Lady Beaconsfield’s penny-pinching half-brother, Edward, who has title to the full estate.

After determining that the pair may have gone to Venice, one of the aunt’s favorite places as a young girl, what follows is a tour de force exploration, steeped in both history and mystery, of that wondrous location circa 1925. Can the odd couple detectives discover the whereabouts of the missing pair before the avenging Edward can locate and possibly harm his half-sister? Will the rise of Benito Mussolini and his black-shirted thugs not only interfere with the duo’s search, but put them in mortal danger as well? And how does an incongruous combination of Cole Porter on the piano and Sherlock Holmes on the violin help bring the case to a successful conclusion?

In this latest Mary Russell novel, we learn more about this unusual-but-successful marriage, and how the pair’s individual talents complement one another in solving the case and in strengthening their life partnership. If you like learning more about one of the most fascinating places in the world, along with an intriguing mystery, you’ll thoroughly enjoy this entertaining novel.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-26 20:03:09

The latest Mary Russell, aka Mrs. Sherlock Holmes, mystery from King hits all the right notes.

Everything That Follows
Erica Ruth Neubauer

Kat makes a living as a glassblower on touristy Martha’s Vineyard. Having just sold a large piece to a wealthy client, a night of celebration is in order as the locals gather in their favorite watering hole. After everyone else has gone home, Kat, Kyle, and Hunter head out on Hunter’s boat for one final drink despite the gathering storm. But the night turns sinister when Kyle goes overboard, and instead of contacting authorities, Hunter and Kat decide to sober up first. Hunter is a senator’s son and can’t afford another accident on his record—especially not during his father’s re-election campaign—and he convinces Kat to wait.

But the morning comes, and neither go to the police. Days pass, the body is found, and Kat and Hunter struggle with their consciences over what happened that night. When they bring Kat’s boyfriend in on the secret, they unintentionally spark the interest of an erosion scientist on the island who is convinced the three are hiding a secret and know more about Kyle’s death than they will admit to. Doubt and fear creep into their lives and threaten to break their relationships and their lives apart.

In many respects this is a meditation on the damage that secrets—shared or hidden—can do to the people keeping them. It also shines light on the cracks in relationships that were previously hidden, but that become widening gaps when there is a true problem.

But the stakes in this story are low, the pace is slow, and readers will find little reason to be invested in whether Kat and Hunter go to the police or are found out. It was, after all, an accident. Likewise, the reader may not find themselves interested in whether or not Kat and her boyfriend’s relationship will survive the secret—neither of the characters evokes enough emotion from readers. The setting of Martha’s Vineyard in the off-season, with its side story of land erosion, adds some much-needed atmosphere to this otherwise uninspiring novel.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-26 20:07:41

A meditation on the damage that secrets—shared or hidden—can do to the people keeping them.

Paper Ghosts
Craig Sisterson

Some crime novels grab you from the first couple of pages, not because of a shocking scene or big attention-grabbing hook, but because of the quality of the writing: an X-factor running through the prose, little touches that make it distinct and quaffable without being “put on.” Texas journalist-turned-novelist Julia Heaberlin has become one of those writers, a master storyteller.

In Paper Ghosts, her fourth standalone thriller set in her home state, our unnamed narrator is a woman on a mission. She’s been visiting the notorious Carl Louis Feldman at a halfway house. Carl’s resume includes acclaimed photographer, and suspected serial killer (acquitted at trial). Now he’s suffering from early onset dementia. The narrator tells him she’s his long-lost daughter, but she’s actually the sister of a teenager who went missing years before. She thinks Carl killed her sister, along with other women, and has planned a “family road trip” across Texas to jog his Swiss-cheese memory.

But who is fooling who? It’s a delicious setup, with two untrustworthy characters playing cat-and-mouse with each other across the big canvas of Texas. Heaberlin keeps the tension high and readers wondering, as plans go awry and detours are taken. A variety of unique Texas locales, from the lapping waters of Galveston to the tangled vegetation of the Piney Woods to the ghost-ridden expanses outside of Waco, are all brought to vivid life: the history, the geography, the people present and past.

Heaberlin has crafted a compulsive, textured tale in Paper Ghosts, a top-shelf read.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-29 02:59:54
Give Me Your Hand
Ariell Cacciola

It is the personal secrets, both the secrets we tell and the secrets we keep, that fuel Megan Abbott’s latest novel, Give Me Your Hand. Kit is a rising star in her hard-earned career as a postdoc researcher in Dr. Severin’s lab, a scientist whom she has looked up to since she was a teenager. Yet everything becomes a lot more tenuous when a former friend and rival is hired at the lab with the assumption that the latter will be awarded one of the two coveted spots on Dr. Severin’s upcoming and well-funded project. The recent hire isn’t any ordinary competition, she is Kit’s high school friend Diane Fleming, who revealed a dark and devastating secret to her when they were younger.

Up until Diane’s arrival, Kit’s life has been routine and consumed by work: early mornings before her colleagues arrive at the lab and the last one out at the end of the day. But with her, Diane brings a destructive secret, one that so burdens Kit that she doesn’t initially reveal their past friendship to the other researchers. She is haunted by it, almost bubbling over, ready to tell the secret at any chance. When a horrifying incident in the lab stuns Kit, leaving her unable to act rationally, she becomes wrapped up once again with Diane, who now has a secret on Kit.

Abbott is slyly adept at exponentially building tension. The novel is from Kit’s point of view, both now and then, with the then being her time in high school and summer camp with Diane. The past informs the future and the temporarily unknown finally bursts through as the reader waits for all the secrets to pour out in one satisfying flood. Abbott satisfies the desire for suspense, and, like her previous novels, the author masterfully delves into the complicated relationships between women and girls. Give Me Your Hand is all-around gratifying and another addition to Abbott’s already stellar oeuvre.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-29 03:05:12
Believe Me
Jean Gazis

The cover design for Believe Me highlights the word “lie” at the center of “believe”, and it’s a very fitting concept for this psychological thriller where the reader never knows what to believe as the plot twists speed by one after the next. Claire Wright is a struggling British acting student in New York City. Without a green card, she’s desperate to earn money to survive. For cash, she agrees to work for a divorce law firm as bait to entrap unfaithful husbands and get incriminating video. But when one of the suspicious wives is brutally murdered—shortly after Claire fails for the first time ever to entrap the husband—Claire is faced with an even more questionable and dangerous proposition. The FBI and NYPD suspect the murdered woman’s husband is actually a serial killer, and make Claire an enticing offer: go undercover and try to lure the suspected killer into confessing in exchange for legal immigration status.

Claire, an orphan who grew up in a series of foster homes, studies an acting method that involves total immersion in character, and she’s brilliant at it. She has a chameleon-like ability to assume different identities convincingly, but this time she must convince even herself, and assume her character day in and day out around the clock. The suspected murderer, college professor Patrick Fogler, must trust Claire totally, and she needs to seem to be falling in love with him. She begins by sharing his interest in the decadent 19th-century poetry of The Flowers of Evil, by Charles Baudelaire. The lines between performance and reality soon become very blurred indeed as Claire begins to fall for Patrick for real, and to follow him to very dark places.

Believe Me features a fascinating central character and an intriguing scenario. The lines between pretense and reality cross and uncross until Claire isn’t sure whether she is the hunter or the hunted, whether she or her character truly loves Patrick, or how far she can trust him or the police. The story’s rapid and dramatic twists and turns ensure that the final outcome remains unguessable right up to the last surprising page.

Teri Duerr
2018-06-29 03:15:14