Houston's Mystery Book Store Since 1980 - Murder by the Book
 

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Since 1980, where a good crime is had by all! Today is Sat, Jul 31, 2010

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Upcoming Book Signings

Our Event Signing Policies: If you're attending one of our events for the first time, please read carefully so there will be no misunderstandings...

When attending one of MURDER BY THE BOOK's signing events, please keep the following in mind:
1. The talks/readings are free. However, if you want to get any books signed (including audiobooks, movie memorabilia, e-readers, other items), the new book must be purchased from Murder By The Book.
2. You may always bring earlier books to be signed, but a limit may be imposed for authors who draw very large crowds.
3. For the bigger signings, numbers will be handed out, with attendees lining up for the signing in numerical order. Arrive early for low numbers.

When sending books to be signed:
We'll get THREE books that you send signed for every ONE copy of the new book purchased from us.

If you still have questions, please don't hesitate to call or e-mail. Thank you!


Here are some of the authors that have dropped by in the last couple of weeks... If you missed them, we still have signed copies. Please call or e-mail to reserve any!

MaryJanice Davidson
Chris Kuzneski
Don Winslow
Susan Wittig Albert
Jeannie Holmes
Dan Fesperman
Lisa Gardner
Tess Gerritsen
Alex Kava

Go here for our Signed Books page.


Tuesday, July 20, 6:30 p.m.
Mike Lawson
Thriller writer Mike Lawson will sign & discuss his new DeMarco novel, House Justice (Atlantic Monthly; $22). An American defense contractor attempts to sell U.S. missile technology to the Iranians — and the CIA knows all about it thanks to a spy in Tehran. But then the story is leaked to an ambitious journalist and the spy is exposed, brutally tortured, and executed.

The director of the CIA isn’t about to let the death of his spy go unpunished. A valuable asset has been callously sacrificed, and he’s going to find out who did it no matter how many rules he has to break. DeMarco’s boss, Speaker of the House John Fitzpatrick Mahoney has his own reasons to get to the bottom of the leak: he once had a fling with the journalist, and now that she’s in jail for refusing to reveal her source, she’s threatening to tell about their affair unless he helps get her out.

DeMarco and the CIA aren’t the only ones looking for the source of the leak. Someone else wants to avenge the spy’s death and is tailing DeMarco, hoping DeMarco will lead him to his prey. House Justice is a classic DeMarco thriller — fascinating characters, inside-the-beltway intrigue, and a gripping plot packed with surprises.

Mike Lawson received his degree in engineering from Seattle University. After college, he went to work for the U.S. Navy as a nuclear engineer and spent about thirty years working for the Navy’s nuclear power program. He spent some time in Washington D.C., but most of his career was at a large naval shipyard in Bremerton Washington. At the shipyard, Mike managed a number of different organizations related to overhauling nuclear powered submarines, cruisers, and aircraft carriers. He ended his career as a member of the government’s Senior Executive Service and as the top civilian at the shipyard responsible for navy reactor plant work on the West Coast.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Wednesday, July 21, 6:30 p.m.
Harry Dolan
Debut crime writer Harry Dolan will sign & discuss the paperback edition of his first novel, Bad Things Happen (Berkley; $15). The man who calls himself David Loogan is hoping to escape a violent past by living a quiet, anonymous life in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But when he's hired as an editor at a mystery magazine, he is drawn into an affair with the sleek blond wife of the publisher, Tom Kristoll -- a man who soon turns up dead.

Elizabeth Waishkey is the most talented detective in the Ann Arbor Police Department, but even she doesn't know if Loogan is a killer or an ally who might help her find the truth. As more deaths start mounting up -- some of them echoing stories published in the magazine -- it's up to Elizabeth to solve both the murders and the mystery of Loogan himself.

Highly recommended by David!

"Witty, sophisticated, suspenseful and endless fun... the best first novel I've read this year." -- Washington Post

Harry Dolan graduated from Colgate University where he studied fiction writing with the novelist Frederick Busch. Currently working as a freelance editor, he lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he is at work on the sequel to Bad Things Happen.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, July 24, 5:00 p.m.
2010 Macavity Award nominee!
2010 Thriller Award winner!
Jamie Freveletti
Crime writer Jamie Freveletti will sign & discuss her second novel, Running Dark (Morrow; $24.99). From internationally bestselling author Jamie Freveletti comes a riveting new thriller featuring brilliant biochemist Emma Caldridge, except this time there's nowhere to run. . . .

Emma Caldridge is on mile thirty-six of the fifty-five-mile Comrades ultramarathon in South Africa when a roadside car bomb explodes. Dazed and disoriented, she regains consciousness after the blast to find a man standing over her with a white plastic injector. She feels the prick of a needle and the rush of medication under her skin, but before she can make a sound, the man is gone.

Shaken by the event and unsure of what substance was pumped into her, Emma calls the one person who can help her figure things out: Edward Banner of the security company Darkview. But Banner has his hands full with another emergency: Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden have attacked a cruise ship, and Darkview has been hired to assist with the rescue.

However, according to intelligence sources, the ship is carrying cargo far more valuable than wealthy passengers—something that could be a new weapon of unknown origin. Suspecting the weapon may be chemical in nature, Banner asks Emma to infiltrate the ship and use her professional expertise to identify it. Emma knows it's a risky job, one that she might not survive. But when she learns that special agent Cameron Sumner—a man who has saved her life in the past—is among the hostages, nothing will stop her from getting onboard, no matter what the cost.

Jamie Freveletti is a trial lawyer and a runner. The author of the international bestseller Running from the Devil, she lives with her family in Chicago, Illinois.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Sunday, July 25, 2:00 p.m.
Daniel Silva
#1 New York Times best-seller Daniel Silva will sign & discuss The Rembrandt Affair (Putnam; $26.95), a spellbinding new novel featuring Gabriel Allon, master art restorer and assassin. Signing line numbers available beginning the book's on-sale date, Tuesday, July 20, with purchase of The Rembrandt Affair from Murder By The Book.

Two families, one terrible secret, and a painting to die for...

Determined to sever his ties with the Office, Gabriel Allon has retreated to the windswept cliffs of Cornwall with his beautiful Venetian-born wife Chiara. But once again his seclusion is interrupted by a visitor from his tangled past: the endearingly eccentric London art dealer, Julian Isherwood. As usual, Isherwood has a problem -- one only Gabriel can solve.

In the ancient English city of Glastonbury, an art restorer has been brutally murdered and a long-lost portrait by Rembrandt mysteriously stolen. Despite his reluctance, Gabriel is persuaded to use his unique skills to search for the painting and those responsible for the crime. But as he painstakingly follows a trail of clues leading from Amsterdam to Buenos Aires and, finally, to a villa on the graceful shores of Lake Geneva, Gabriel discovers there are deadly secrets connected to the painting. And evil men behind them.

Before he is done, Gabriel will once again be drawn into a world he thought he had left behind forever, and will come face to face with a remarkable cast of characters: a glamorous London journalist who is determined to undo the worst mistake of her career, an elusive master art thief who is burdened by a conscience, and a powerful Swiss billionaire who is known for his good deeds but may just be behind one of the greatest threats facing the world.

Filled with remarkable twists and turns of plot, and told with seductive prose, The Rembrandt Affair is more than just summer entertainment of the highest order. It is a timely reminder that there are men in the world who will do anything for money.

Highly recommended by McKenna, Brenda, John, and Michelle!

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Wednesday, August 4, 6:30 p.m.
Ridley Pearson
#1 New York Times best-seller Ridley Pearson will sign & discuss his new Walt Fleming thriller, In Harm's Way (Putnam; $25.95). Signing line numbers available beginning the book's on-sale date, Tuesday, August 3, with purchase of In Harm's Way from Murder By The Book.

In Harm's Way also brings back Seattle homicide cop Lou Boldt (Undercurrents)! Sun Valley sheriff Walt Fleming's budding relationship with photographer Fiona Kenshaw hits a rough patch after Fiona is involved in a heroic river rescue and she attempts to duck the press. Despite her job and her laudable actions, she begs Walt to keep her photo out of the paper, avoiding him when he can't. Then Walt gets a phone call that changes everything: Lou Boldt, a police sergeant out of Seattle, calls to report that a recent murder may have a Sun Valley connection. After a badly beaten body is discovered just off a local highway, Walt knows there is a link -- but can he pull the pieces together in time?

Highly recommended by David!

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Thursday, August 5, 6:30 p.m.
Dean James
(writing as Miranda James)

Murder By The Book employee (& award-winning mystery writer!) Dean James will sign & discuss the first of a new series, Murder Past Due (writing as Miranda James; Berkley Prime Crime; paperback original; $7.99). There's a cat in the stacks... and he makes the purr-fect partner for a librarian-turned-sleuth. Everyone in Athena, Mississippi, knows librarian Charlie Harris -- and his Maine coon cat named Diesel that he walks on a leash. They also know his former classmate-turned-famous bestselling novelist, Godfrey Priest. But someone in Athena took Godfrey off the bestseller lists -- permanently, and with extreme prejudice. Now, Charlie and Diesel must browse through the history section of the town's past to find a killer.

ALSO AVAILABLE:
Delta Blues (edited by Carolyn Haines; Tyrus; hardback, $27.95; paperback, $17.95)
Dean has a story in this new collection of original Mississippi Delta blues crime stories. From the introduction by Morgan Freeman: "This collection of short fiction captures both the art of the tale and the power of the blues, and is a nod at the human condition that often inspires musicians to write and sing the blues. These stories tell about bad men and bad women who sometimes do good--or sometimes follow their true nature. Some of these characters know all about the dangers of making a bargain with the devil. And some know the power of redemption. These are characters who would not be out of place in a Honeyboy Edwards tune, and would be right at home alongside the desolate wail of Clarksdale, Mississippi, native Son House."

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Sunday, August 8, 2:00 p.m.
Gregg Hurwitz
Lisa Unger

New York Times best-selling thriller writers Gregg Hurwitz & Lisa Unger will sign & discuss their new books.

Gregg Hurwitz will sign & discuss They're Watching (St. Martin's; $24.99). Patrick Davis is a man with troubles. First his Hollywood dreams crumble and then his storybook marriage hits a snag. Now, DVDs start being delivered to his house—DVDs which show that someone is watching him and his wife, that the two of them are being stalked and recorded by cameras hidden in their house. Then the e-mails start, and someone offers to fix everything, to take the mess his life has become and make it all right. Patrick figures it’s the offer of a lifetime. But Patrick couldn’t be more wrong. With every step he falls deeper into a web of intrigue that threatens everything he values in this world. Before he knows it, he’s in and in deep—and his only escape is to outwit and outplay his unseen opponents at their own game.

Gregg Hurwitz is the author of several novels, including Trust No One, and has been a finalist for the ITW Best Novel and the Ian Fleming Gold Dagger. He lives in Los Angeles.

Lisa Unger will sign & discuss Fragile (Shaye Areheart/Crown; $24). Despite their mostly happy marriage, when their son Ricky's girlfriend vanishes, Maggie and Jones find themselves at odds—Maggie is positive Ricky had nothing to do with Charlene's disappearance, while Jones isn't as sure. With Charlene gone, the memory of another young girl who went missing some twenty years ago is haunting the town. That story didn't have a happy ending, and almost everyone has an unrevealed reason to keep the horror of it firmly in the past.

As Jones and the police turn their focus on Ricky, Maggie must find out the truth about what happened all those years ago. In order to save her son and the young woman whose life hangs in the balance, she'll test the bonds of her community—and find out just how fragile they can be.

Lisa Unger is a New York Times best-selling and award winning author. Her novels have been published in over 26 countries around the world.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Tuesday, August 10, 6:30 p.m.
Kat Richardson
One of Murder By The Book's best-selling paranormal thriller writers, Kat Richardson, will sign & discuss her new Harper Blaine "Greywalker" novel, Labyrinth (Roc; $24.95). Signing line numbers available beginning the book's on-sale date, Tuesday, August 3, with purchase of Labyrinth from Murder By The Book.

Harper Blaine was your average small-time P. I. until she died-for two minutes. Now she's a Greywalker, walking the line between the living world and the paranormal realm. There are others who know about her new powers-others with powerful tools and evil intentions, and now that the man who "killed" her has been murdered, the police are also paying close attention. That means Harper has to watch her step while searching for the ghost of her "killer"-who could be a valuable clue in the puzzle of Harper's past and her father's death, as well as a key to figuring out who's trying to manipulate her new powers and why. But with her growing powers pulling her into the Grey, Harper might not be able to come back out.

Highly recommended by Anne, Sarah & David!

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Wednesday, August 11, 6:30 p.m.
Hal Ackerman
Debut crime writer Hal Ackerman signs & discusses his first novel, Stein, Stoned (Tyrus; hardback, $24.95; paperback, $14.95). In the sixties, Harry Stein was the foremost authority on cannabis; writing the book on indoor cultivation, inventing thirteen different hybrids, and planting "Victory Gardens" across America behind police precincts, legislature courtyards, and legendarily in the rose garden of the Nixon White House.

Flash forward to the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's death and Stein is now employed by a "product liability re-insurance firm" and spending his 50th birthday counting a warehouse full of shampoo bottles. Although not the revolutionary of the future he once imagined himself to be, staying on the path of the straight and narrow allows Stein to keep that which he holds most precious in his life: joint custody of his teenage daughter, Angie. When Stein comes up 1,000 shampoo bottles short in his count and his investigations lead him to stumble upon the body of a brutally murdered supermodel, he is forced down a trail littered with old friends, new enemies, and one final journey into the world he long since left behind

Highly recommended by David!

"Just when you thought you'd seen everything in detective fiction, along comes P.I. Harry Stein, a shambling, abstaining dope connoisseur, trying to make a living and be a good father against the oddest of odds. This book is so funny, surprising, and compelling that, dare I say it, it practically gets you high. It's Hal Ackerman's first in what is sure to be a sensational series of Stein mysteries."—John Lithgow

"Harry fits comfortably into that delightfully comic line of slacker sleuths—a tradition that runs from the Fletch novels through Newton Thornburg’s 1976 cult classic Cutter and Bone and, of course, The Big Lebowski. The Dude abides with Harry Stein."—Booklist

"Pot smokers, past and present, will best appreciate the fiction debut of UCLA theater professor Ackerman..."—Publishers Weekly

Hal Ackerman has been on the faculty of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television for the past twenty-four years and is currently co-chair of the screenwriting program. His book, Write Screenplays That Sell…The Ackerman Way, is in its third printing, and is the text of choice in a growing number of screenwriting programs around the country.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Thursday, August 12, 6:30 p.m.
Sheila Lowe
Real-life forensic-writing expert & mystery writer Sheila Lowe will sign & discuss her new Claudia Rose novel, Last Writes (Berkley Prime Crime; paperback original; $6.99). The frantic search for a three-year-old, an estranged half-sister, a fanatical religious cult—Claudia's friend Kelly learns that she's an aunt when her estranged sister Erin shows up at her home in desperate need of help. Erin and her husband have been living quiet lives as members of The Temple of Brighter Light in an isolated compound. But now her husband and young child have disappeared, leaving behind a cryptic note with a terrifying message. Seizing an opportunity to use her special skills as a forensic handwriting expert, Claudia becomes one of the few outsiders ever to be invited inside the compound. She must uncover the truth about Kelly's missing niece before the prophecy of a secret ancient parchment can be fulfilled and a child's life is written off for good.

Like Claudia Rose, Sheila Lowe is a court-qualified handwriting expert who testifies in forensic cases. She has more than thirty years experience in the field of handwriting analysis and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. The author of Handwriting of the Famous & Infamous, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Handwriting Analysis, her analyses of celebrity handwritings have appeared in Time, Teen People, and Mademoiselle. Her articles on Personality Profiling and Handwriting Analysis for the Attorney have been published in several bar association magazines. Sheila's clientele includes a wide spectrum of corporate clients, mental health professionals, attorneys, private investigators and staffing agencies, among others. Her award-winning Handwriting Analyzer software is used around the world and her profiles help uncover important information in background checks and pre-employment screening. She enjoys analyzing handwriting for individuals, too, helping them understand themselves and others better.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, August 14, 5:00 p.m. First novel!
John Rector
Debut crime writer John Rector will sign & discuss his first novel, The Cold Kiss (Forge; $24.99). All Nate and Sara want is a new life in a new town, away from the crime and poverty of their past. So, after being approached at a roadside diner by a man offering $500 for a ride to Omaha, they wonder if their luck might be changing.

At first it seems like easy money, but within a few hours the man is dead.

Now, forced off the road by a blizzard and trapped in a run-down motel on the side of a deserted highway, Nate and Sara begin to uncover the man's secrets. Who he was, how he died, and most importantly, why he was carrying two million dollars in his suitcase.

Before they know it, Nate and Sara are fighting for their lives, and in the end, each has to decide just how far they are willing to go to survive.

The Cold Kiss is an everyman psychological thriller that pits a young couple against moral corruption, greed, betrayal, and love. More simply, for two characters who may have used up all their chances, it's the classic final trip down the dark tunnel that might lead to heaven, but drags them through hell. This is A Simple Plan meets The Getaway, with a pulse-pounding plot and a twist ending. John Rector is name that all thriller fans will come to know and love for years to come.

John Rector is a prize winning short story writer and author of the novels The Cold Kiss (optioned for a feature film now in development), and the forthcoming The Grove. He currently lives in Omaha Nebraska.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Monday, August 16, 6:30 p.m.
Michael Capuzzo
Four-time Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Michael Capuzzo will sign & discuss The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases (Gotham; $26). Thrilling, true tales from the Vidocq Society, a team of the world's finest forensic investigators whose monthly gourmet lunches lead to justice in ice-cold murders

Three of the greatest detectives in the world -- a renowned FBI agent turned private eye, a sculptor and lothario who speaks to the dead, and an eccentric profiler known as "the living Sherlock Holmes" -- were heartsick over the growing tide of unsolved murders. Good friends and sometime rivals William Fleisher, Frank Bender, and Richard Walter decided one day over lunch that something had to be done, and pledged themselves to a grand quest for justice. The three men invited the greatest collection of forensic investigators ever assembled, drawn from five continents, to the Downtown Club in Philadelphia to begin an audacious quest: to bring the coldest killers in the world to an accounting. Named for the first modern detective, the Parisian Fracois Vidocq -- the flamboyant Napoleonic real-life sleuth who inspired Sherlock Holmes -- the Vidocq Society meets monthly in its secretive chambers to solve a cold murder over a gourmet lunch.

The Murder Room draws the reader into a chilling, darkly humorous, awe-inspiring world as the three partners travel far from their Victorian dining room to hunt the ruthless killers of a millionaire's son, a serial killer who carves off faces, and a child killer enjoying fifty years of freedom and dark fantasy.

Acclaimed bestselling author Michael Capuzzo's brilliant storytelling brings true crime to life more realistically and vividly than it has ever been portrayed before. It is a world of dazzlingly bright forensic science; true evil as old as the Bible and dark as the pages of Dostoevsky; and a group of flawed, passionate men and women, inspired by their own wounded hearts to make a stand for truth, goodness, and justice in a world gone mad.

Born in Boston and educated at Northwestern University, Michael Capuzzo is the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Close to Shore, a historical thriller of the true story that inspired Jaws. Winner of many writing prizes as a syndicated columnist and a staff reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald, and for stories in magazines including Sports Illustrated, Esquire, and Life, he lives in Pennsylvania, where he and his wife publish a prize-winning storytelling magazine, Mountain Home.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, August 21, 5:00 p.m.
2010 Edgar Award nominee!
Bryan Gruley
The Edgar Award-nominated author of Starvation Lake will sign & discuss the sequel, The Hanging Tree (Touchstone; paperback original; $15).

They found her hanging in the shoe tree at the edge of town...

So begins Bryan Gruley’s sequel to Starvation Lake. When Gracie McBride, the wild girl who had left town eighteen years earlier, is found dead in an apparent suicide shortly after her homecoming, it sends shockwaves through her native Starvation Lake. Gus Carpenter, executive editor of the Pine County Pilot, sets out to solve the mystery with the help of his old flame and now girlfriend, Pine County Sheriff’s Deputy Darlene Esper. As Gus and Darlene investigate, they can’t help but question if Gracie’s troubled life really ended in suicide or if the suspicious crime scene evidence adds up to murder.

But in such a small town it’s impossible to be an impartial investigator. Gracie was Gus’s second cousin, Darlene’s best friend, and the lover of Gus’s oldest pal, Soupy Campbell. Yet with all the bad blood between Gus and Gracie over the years, Gus would rather deal with other problems. His employer is trying to push him out, the locals are annoyed that his stories have halted construction on a new hockey rink, and Darlene’s estranged husband has returned to reclaim his wife.

When Gus tries to retrace Gracie’s steps to discover what happened to her in the years she was away from Starvation Lake, he’s forced to return to Detroit, the scene of his humiliating past. And though he’s determined to find out what drove Gracie back home to Starvation Lake, Gus is unprepared for the terrible secrets he uncovers.

The second book in Bryan Gruley’s irresistible Starvation Lake series, The Hanging Tree is a compelling story about family and friendship, sex and violence, and the failure of love to make everything right.

Highly recommended by David!

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Tuesday, August 24, two events
Martin Cruz Smith
New York Times best-seller Martin Cruz Smith (Gorky Park) will sign & discuss his new Arkady Renko thriller, Three Stations (Simon & Schuster; $25.99), at two Murder By The Book events!

Luncheon (at The Briar Club):
Tuesday, August 24, 11:30 a.m.
Tickets on sale soon.

Evening store signing/talk:
Tuesday, August 24, 6:30 p.m.

Arkady Renko returns in a new mystery about crime and corruption in the cold, dark, impenetrable landscape of modern-day Moscow.

A passenger train hurtling through the night. An unwed teenage mother headed to Moscow to seek a new life. A cruel-hearted soldier looking furtively, forcibly, for sex. An infant disappearing without a trace.

So begins Martin Cruz Smith's masterful Three Stations, a suspenseful, intricately constructed novel featuring Investigator Arkady Renko. For the last three decades, beginning with the trailblazing Gorky Park, Renko (and Smith) have captivated readers with detective tales set in Russia. Renko is the ironic, brilliantly observant cop who finds solutions to heinous crimes when other lawmen refuse to even acknowledge that crimes have occurred. He uses his biting humor and intuitive leaps to fight not only wrongdoers but the corrupt state apparatus as well.

In Three Stations, Renko's skills are put to their most severe test. Though he has been technically suspended from the prosecutor's office for once again turning up unpleasant truths, he strives to solve a last case: the death of an elegant young woman whose body is found in a construction trailer on the perimeter of Moscow's main rail hub. It looks like a simple drug overdose to everyone—except to Renko, whose examination of the crime scene turns up some inexplicable clues, most notably an invitation to Russia's premier charity ball, the billionaires' Nijinksy Fair. Thus a sordid death becomes interwoven with the lifestyles of Moscow's rich and famous, many of whom are clinging to their cash in the face of Putin's crackdown on the very oligarchs who placed him in power.

Renko uncovers a web of death, money, madness and a kidnapping that threatens the woman he is coming to love and the lives of children he is desperate to protect. In Three Stations, Smith produces a complex and haunting vision of an emergent Russia's secret underclass of street urchins, greedy thugs and a bureaucracy still paralyzed by power and fear.

Martin Cruz Smith's novels include Stalin's Ghost, Gorky Park, Rose, December 6, Polar Star and Stallion Gate. A two-time winner of the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers and a recipient of Britain's Golden Dagger Award, he lives in California.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Thursday, August 26, 6:30 p.m. First novel to be published in the U.S.!
Anne Fortier
Debut literary novelist Anne Fortier will sign & discuss her first U.S. novel, Juliet (Ballantine; $25). We're one of the only stores in the country to have Fortier for an event, so you won't to miss this! Signing line numbers available beginning the book's on-sale date, Tuesday, August 24, with purchase of Juliet from Murder By The Book.

Twenty-five-year-old Julie Jacobs is heartbroken over the death of her beloved aunt Rose. But the shock goes even deeper when she learns that the woman who has been like a mother to her has left her entire estate to Julie’s twin sister. The only thing Julie receives is a key—one carried by her mother on the day she herself died—to a safety-deposit box in Siena, Italy.

This key sends Julie on a journey that will change her life forever—a journey into the troubled past of her ancestor Giulietta Tolomei. In 1340, still reeling from the slaughter of her parents, Giulietta was smuggled into Siena, where she met a young man named Romeo. Their ill-fated love turned medieval Siena upside-down and went on to inspire generations of poets and artists, the story reaching its pinnacle in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy.

But six centuries have a way of catching up to the present, and Julie gradually begins to discover that here, in this ancient city, the past and present are hard to tell apart. The deeper she delves into the history of Romeo and Giulietta, and the closer she gets to the treasure they allegedly left behind, the greater the danger surrounding her—superstitions, ancient hostilities, and personal vendettas. As Julie crosses paths with the descendants of the families involved in the unforgettable blood feud, she begins to fear that the notorious curse—“A plague on both your houses!”—is still at work, and that she is destined to be its next target. Only someone like Romeo, it seems, could save her from this dreaded fate, but his story ended long ago. Or did it?

From Anne Fortier comes a sweeping, beautifully written novel of intrigue and identity, of love and legacy, as a young woman discovers that her own fate is irrevocably tied—for better or worse—to literature’s greatest star-crossed lovers.

Read the story behind the making of Juliet here.

Very highly recommended by McKenna!

Anne Fortier grew up in Denmark and emigrated to the United States in 2002 to work in film. She co-produced the Emmy-winning documentary Fire and Ice: The Winter War of Finland and Russia and holds a Ph.D. in the history of ideas from Aarhus University, Denmark. The story of Juliet was inspired by Anne Fortier’s mother, who always considered Verona her true home... until she discovered Siena.

"Anne Fortier delivers a rollicking quest through the dark alleyways and shimmering hill towns that once inspired Shakespeare's great love story. This book has everything: Juliet and Romeo; the Italian nobility and the mafia underworld; swashbuckling heroes and spunky heroines; secret documents and hidden treasures; passionate loves and violent vendettas that span the centuries. Juliet is a thrilling debut novel, completely saturated in fascinating history."—Katherine Neville, author of The Fire

"This book is a stunner. Elegantly written in exquisite, vibrant and witty prose that rides well with the clever use of quotes from Shakespeare, it interweaves an astonishing historic take on the tale of the star-crossed lovers with a fast-paced, modern thriller. Every sentence is a joy, every character lives, and medieval and modern Siena are brilliantly evoked. The theme is delightfully original - and the kind of thing you wish you had thought up yourself. The author is to be congratulated on a truly fabulous book that will surely be a resounding success! We will never see Romeo and Juliet in quite the same way again..."—Alison Weir

"Spinning backward and forward from Shakespeare's immortal play, Anne Fortier puts to delicious use all the familiar Romantic motifs alternating with complex contemporary intrigue to weave a multi-layered cloth of stories within stories, where fortunes turn in an instant and every character is a shape shifter. Boldly imagined, brilliantly plotted, beautifully described, Juliet will carry you spellbound until the gripping end. An astonishing achievement."—Susan Vreeland, author of Girl in Hyacinth Blue

"In her debut novel, Anne Fortier takes a great idea—a young woman discovers she is the descendant of the Juliet who inspired Shakespeare's play—and executes it thrillingly. Juliet has it all—history, mystery, and romance. Ms. Fortier handles the dual plot lines with mastery, beautifully rendering Siena of the past and present."—Karen Essex, author of Leonardo’s Swans and Stealing Athena

"A feast of myth, history, and tantalizing indulgences—I was swept away, blown away, and taken for ransom. Anne Fortier breathes new life into the Shakespearean tragedy we thought we knew. I fell in love with Juliet all over again"—Jaime Ford, author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

"Ingenious, intriguing, a thrilling story that keeps you turning the pages. This is a wonderfully textured novel of history and imagination that brings Italy, past and present, beautifully to life." —Kate Mosse, author of Labyrinth and Sepulchre

"One of those rare novels that have it all. . . I was swept away.”—Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.


Saturday, August 28, 3:00 p.m. Time change.
Victoria Laurie
Young adult thriller writer Victoria Laurie will sign & discuss the sequel to Oracles of Delphi Keep, The Curse of Deadman's Forest (Random House; $16.99). Since finding an ancient prophecy, Ian Wigby and his sister Theo's lives have changed forever. A powerful evil is building, and to defeat it, six uniquely gifted children must be gathered. According to the newest prophecy, a trip through the magical portal near their home will bring them to the third Oracle -- a child with extraordinary powers to heal. But this same prophecy also foretells of Ian's death should he venture through the portal again. If Ian and Theo stay in Dover, all will surely be lost, but to to heed the prophecy they risk their very lives and everything they have ever held dear.

Michelle & David both highly recommend the first of the series!

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, August 28, 5:00 p.m.,
at Alliance Francaise!
David Rosenfelt
Best-selling mystery writer David Rosenfelt will sign & discuss his new Andy Carpenter novel, Dog Tags (Grand Central; $24.99). German Shepherd police dog witnesses a murder and if his owner -- an Iraq war vet and former cop-turned-thief -- is convicted of the crime, the dog could be put down. Few rival Andy Carpenter's affection for dogs, and he decides to represent the poor canine. As Andy struggles to convince a judge that this dog should be set free, he discovers that the dog and his owner have become involved unwittingly in a case of much greater proportions than the one they've been charged with. Andy will have to call upon the unique abilities of this ex-police dog to help solve the crime and prevent a catastrophic event from taking place.

A percentage of the sales from this event will benefit Golden Beginnings Golden Retriever Rescue here in Houston!

More details on this event to come.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.


Wednesday, September 1, 6:30 p.m.
Sara Paretsky
New York Times best-selling crime writer Sara Paretsky will sign & discuss her new V. I. Warshawski novel, Body Work (Putnam; $26.95). Signing line numbers available beginning the book's on-sale date, Tuesday, August 31, with purchase of Body Work from Murder By The Book.

The enigmatic performer known as the Body Artist takes the stage at Chicago's Club Gouge and allows her audience to use her naked body as a canvas for their impromptu illustrations. V. I. Warshawski watches as people step forward, some meek, some bold, to make their mark.

The evening takes a strange turn when one woman's sketch triggers a violent outburst from a man at a nearby table. Quickly subdued, the man-an Iraqi war vet-leaves the club. Days later, the woman is shot outside the club. She dies in V.I.'s arms, and the police move quickly to arrest the angry vet.

A shooting in Chicago is nothing new, certainly not to V.I., who is hired by the vet's family to clear his name. As V.I. seeks answers, her investigation will take her from the North Side of Chicago to the far reaches of the Gulf War.

Sara Paretsky is the author of sixteen books, including her renowned V. I. Warshawski novels. Her many awards include the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers' Association. She lives in Chicago.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Thursday, September 2, 6:30 p.m. Date changed!
Former Harris County District Attorney
Carol S. Vance
Former Harris County D.A. Carol Vance will sign & discuss his memoir, Boomtown D. A. (White Caps Media; paperback original; $15.95).

Carol Vance was the district attorney of Harris County (Houston) Texas, from 1966 to 1979. Boomtown DA takes you on a rollicking ride of his twenty-one years in the District Attorney’s office in Houston, our nation’s fourth largest city. Prosecuting everything from sometimes-humorous misdemeanors to one of the most gruesome serial murder cases in American history, the story of Vance’s eight years as an assistant DA and thirteen years as district attorney are sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Houston was the fastest growing city in the country during Vance’s tenure as DA -- a true boomtown. And along with the population explosion came a boom in crime. Vance and his team of prosecutors were right in the middle of it, fighting for justice day in and day out. Filled with a cast of larger-than-life characters and written from the heart, this is a story you won’t soon forget.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, September 4, 5:00 p.m.
Bill Crider
Edgar Award finalist Bill Crider will sign & discuss his new Sheriff Dan Rhodes mystery, Murder in the Air (St. Martin's Minotaur; $24.99). There’s a big stink in Blacklin County, and everyone seems to think Sheriff Dan Rhodes should do something about it. The smell is coming from the giant chicken farm owned by Lester Hamilton. Rhodes sees this as a matter for the state’s air-quality enforcement agency, not the county sheriff. That all changes, however, when Hamilton is found dead, floating in an old rock pit not far from the town of Clearview. Hamilton had probably been engaged in the act of noodling for catfish, which is not only highly dangerous but illegal in Texas.

Rhodes suspects that Hamilton didn’t die by accident, though. There are plenty of suspects, including an eccentric community college professor and one of his colleagues, who lives near the chicken farm and has to wear a respirator mask to ward off the smell. Also, someone known in the county as Robin Hood is going around shooting arrows into utility poles as a protest. When semi-nude protestors arrive at the chicken farm, things really begin to get out of hand.

Filled with fun, mayhem, and memorable characters, Murder in the Air is a wonderful addition to this very excellent series. Award-winning author Bill Crider shows again that he is one of the most talented and entertaining mystery writers around.

Bill Crider is the winner of two Anthony Awards and an Edgar Award finalist. He lives with his wife in Alvin, Texas.

"Crider’s use of subtle humor and Sheriff Dan Rhodes’s unassuming competence make this 17th series entry a laid-back delight." -- Library Journal on Murder in the Air

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Wednesday, September 8, two events
Jeff Lindsay

The best-selling author of the Dexter books will sign & discuss the latest featuring our favorite serial killer, Dexter Is Delicious (Doubleday; $25.95) at two MBTB events.

Luncheon (at The Briar Club):
Wednesday, September 8, 11:30 a.m.
Tickets on sale soon.

Evening store signing/talk:
Wednesday, September 8, 6:30 p.m.

America’s most-read, most-watched, and most beloved serial killer—Dexter Morgan—is back. After selling more than one million copies and inspiring the wildly popular #1 Showtime series and top-rated crime drama on pay-cable television, New York Times bestselling author Jeff Lindsay returns with his most hilarious, macabre, and purely entertaining novel yet.

Dexter Morgan has always lived a happy homicidal life. He keeps his dark urges in check by adhering to one stead fast rule . . . he only kills very bad people. But now Dexter is experiencing some major life changes—don’t we all?—and they’re mostly wrapped up in the eight-pound curiosity that is his newborn daughter. Family bliss is cut short, however, when Dexter is summoned to investigate the disappearance of a seventeen-year-old girl who has been running with a bizarre group of goths who fancy themselves to be vampires. As Dexter gets closer to the truth of what happened to the missing girl, he realizes they are not really vampires so much as cannibals. And, most disturbing . . . these people have decided they would really like to eat Dexter.

Jeff Lindsay’s bestselling, dark, ironic, and oftentimes laugh-out-loud hilarious novels about the lovable serial killer with no soul (but a redeeming desire to kill only people who deserve it) have gained a legion of fans and assumed a place in our culture.

Jeff Lindsay is the New York Times bestselling author of Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter in the Dark, and Dexter by Design. He lives in South Florida with his wife and three daughters. His novels are the subject of the hit Showtime show Dexter.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Thursday, September 9, 6:30 p.m.
Kevin Guilfoile
Thriller writer Kevin Guifoile will sign & discuss his new book, The Thousand (Knopf; $25.95). Kevin Guilfoile’s riveting follow-up to Cast of Shadows (“Spellbinding” —Chicago Tribune; “A masterpiece of intelligent plotting” —Salon) centers on an extraordinary young woman’s race to find her father’s killer and to free herself from the crossfire of a centuries-old, clandestine civil war in which she has unknowingly become ensnared.

In 500 B.C. a mysterious ship appeared off the coast of what is now Italy. A man disembarked to address the frightened crowd along the shore. He called himself Pythagoras and when he was done speaking a thousand men and women abandoned their lives to follow him; his disciples would influence western philosophy, science, and mathematics for all time.

Chicago, the present. Solomon Gold has tapped into valuable and dangerous secrets while composing his magnum opus: the Gold Completion of Mozart’s infamous unfinished requiem. After he is murdered, his brilliant daughter—a girl whose uncanny mental gifts have left her both powerful and troubled—finds herself racing to understand his composition, his murder, and, as violence erupts all around her, a fractured, ancient cult descended from the original disciples of Pythagoras.

Kevin Guilfoile has written for McSweeney’s, Salon, and The New Republic. He lives in Chicago with his wife and children.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Friday, September 10, 6:30 p.m.
Rhys Bowen
Best-seller Rhys Bowen will sign & discuss her new "Royal Spyness" mystery, Royal Blood (Berkley Prime Crime; $24.95).

Penniless and thirty-fourth in line to the throne, Lady Georgiana Rannoch finds herself in a truly draining state of affairs. To escape her hateful brother, Georgie accepts an invitation from the Queen to represent the royals at a wedding in Transylvania. But at the macabre-looking castle, Georgie finds the bride with blood running down her chin, and a wedding guest is poisoned. Now it's up to Georgie to save the nuptial festivities before the couple's vows become: to love and to cherish, till undeath do them part.

Highly recommended by McKenna!

Rhys Bowen has been nominated for every major mystery award, and has won seven. Born in England, she lives in northern California.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Sunday, September 12, 2:00 p.m.
Susan Wittig Albert
More details to come.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Wednesday, September 15, 6:30 p.m.
Danny Hogan
He wears many hats (though not in this photo); among them he's a publisher and a crime writer. Join us for a special signing event for Danny Hogan, author of Killer Tease and The Windowlicker Maker and owner of the U.K.'s Pulp Press.

Killer Tease (paperback original; $13.95) Eloise Murphy is a burlesque dancer who's pushing thirty and on the brink of losing gigs because of her violent temper...Set in present-day Brighton, Killer Tease sees our heroine fight against the odds to the bitter end. An unscrupulous ex banker who blackmails her into a degrading position; a foul and devious hit man who loves beating women; an old friend who betrays her all connive and team up to give her Hell. But maybe they have all bitten off more than they can chew when they cross the psychopath in pasties.

Highly recommended by David & McKenna!

The Windowlicker Maker (paperback original; $13.95) They reckon they can give themselves a pat on the back and go for a drink after and brag about it the live long night -- and then carry on with their lives. No, not this time. Since the dawn of time man has been writing revenge stories. Whether scrawled on the wall of a cave, etched with quill and ink upon parchment or thumped out on a typewriter or laptop, we have, as a species, made many attempts to record our dissatisfaction with filthy greedheads and wrong'uns in the form of tales, odes and verse. None, however, none have come close to encapsulating the unyielding savagery of righteous wrath as Danny Hogan's The Windowlicker Maker. But we're not going to leave it just there folks. We are also throwing in Danny Hogan's short story "A Gun Called Comeuppance."

We'll also have plenty of Pulp Press's other titles on hand, too.

Danny was born and raised in London and spent most of his younger days playing bass for punk/Oi! band, Gundog, and running a stall on Camden Market. He has also lived in France, running English pubs in Paris of all things. He resides in Brighton with a blonde, and two fat rats.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, September 25, 5:00 p.m.
Graham Brown
Thriller writer Graham Brown will sign & discuss his two novels.

Black Rain (Dell; paperback original; $7.99) Covert government operative Danielle Laidlaw leads an expedition into the deepest reaches of the Amazon in search of a legendary Mayan city. Assisted by a renowned university professor and protected by a mercenary named Hawker, her team journeys into the tangled rain forest—unaware that they are replacements for a group that vanished weeks before, and that the treasure they are seeking is no mere artifact but a breakthrough discovery that could transform the world.

Shadowed by a ruthless billionaire, threatened by a violent indigenous tribe, and stalked by an unseen enemy that leaves battered corpses in its wake, the group desperately seeks the connection between the deadly reality of the Mayan legend, the nomadic tribe that haunts them, and the chilling secret buried beneath the ancient ruins.

Black Sun (Dell; paperback original; $7.99) In the heart of the Amazon, NRI operative Danielle Laidlaw makes an incredible discovery: a translucent Mayan stone generating massive waves of energy while counting down toward the infamous apocalyptic date: December 21, 2012. And somewhere, there are three more just like it.

What power will be unleashed if all four stones come together? Who created them—and who has them now? Using a cryptic Mayan map and a prophecy that points to the end of the world, Danielle and her team race toward answers. But one staggering question remains: Were these artifacts meant to save us—or to destroy us once and for all?

Graham Brown was born in Chicago in 1969. He grew up in Illinois, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, traveling often with his family. Graham earned a degree in Aeronautical Science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona and went on to get a law degree from Arizona State College of Law in Tempe. A former pilot, lawyer and executive at a small health care company, Graham could not escape the allure of the thriller. After writing in his spare time for years he decided to see what he could make of it. Black Rain is the first result, with other novels on the way. Graham has spent the better part of the last 21 years in the deserts of Arizona and southern California. He currently lives in Tucson, with his wife, Tracey.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Friday, October 1, 6:30 p.m.
Berkley Prime Crime & Obsidian signing party!
Jenn McKinlay / Hannah Reed /
Maggie Sefton / Wendy Lyn Watson

More details to come.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, October 2, 4:30 p.m.
Kay Finch
More details to come.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Sunday, October 3, 2:00 p.m.
Spencer Quinn
The best-selling author of the Chet & Bernie mysteries will sign & discuss the latest, To Fetch a Thief (Atria; $25).

More details to come.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Thursday, October 7, 6:30 p.m.
Louise Penny
Multiple award-winning, best-selling crime writer Louise Penny (Still Life) will sign & discuss her new "Three Pines" mystery, Bury Your Dead (St. Martin's Minotaur; $24.99).

It is Winter Carnival in Quebec City, bitterly cold and unsurpassingly beautiful. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté de Quebec has come not to celebrate but to recover from a harrowing investigation gone wrong that left one of his team members dead. But murder seems to follow Gamache everywhere, even to the seemingly peaceful Literary and Historical Society, one of the last bastions of English culture in Quebec, where a man in found dead in the basement. And not any man--but the famous Augustin Roy, who had carried his obsessive search for the long-lost body of the founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, all the way to the Society library. Badly injured himself and desperately in need of a rest, Gamache cannot resist the appeals of the police and the Society board alike to negotiate the treacherous ground between the English and the French in the old walled city.

McKenna's & Brenda's highest recommendations!

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Friday, October 8, 6:30 p.m.
Russel McLean
More details to come.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, October 9, 5:00 p.m.
Elizabeth Lynn Casey
Cozy mystery writer Elizabeth Lynn Casey will sign & discuss her "Sewing Circle" books, including the latest, Pinned for Murder (Berkley Prime Crime; paperback original; $6.99).

ALSO AVAILABLE:
Sew Deadly
(Berkley Prime Crime; paperback original; $6.99) Ever since she moved to Sweet Briar, South Carolina, Yankee librarian Tori Sinclair has been the talk of the tiny town. But she's been so busy at work, winning over the sewing circle, and trying to forget her cheating ex that she hasn't even had time to baste together a pillow, let alone mind local gossip. Then she finds the hometown sweetheart dead at her back door. Everyone believes the police investigator, who's just fixin' to link Tori to the murder in a love triangle gone bad. To clear her name, Tori will have to rely on her new sewing sisters and stitch together the truth -- or be darned.

Death Threads (Berkley Prime Crime; paperback original; $6.99) Yankee librarian Tori Sinclair is basking in the warmth of her new circle of friends from South Carolina's Sweet Briar Ladies Society sewing circle. That is until local author Colby Calhoun reveals an unflattering secret about the town's historic past -- and then disappears, leaving a bloody trail behind him. And when Tori begins to see a pattern of the townsfolk's age-old Southern pride standing in the way of justice, she knows it's time to unravel the mystery.

Elizabeth Lynn Casey is the best selling author of the Southern Sewing Circle Mystery series. Sew Deadly, the first book in the series, debuted in August, 2009. Death Threads followed in May, 2010. Pinned for Murder is her latest addition to the series. Although she's not a seamstress, Elizabeth plays one in books! She lives in New York with her daughters. For more information, visit her website: www.elizabethlynncasey.com.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, October 16, 6:00 p.m.
Vince Flynn
More details to come.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Monday, October 18, 6:30 p.m.
Ace Atkins
Reed Farrel Coleman
Tom Franklin
S. J. Rozan

Crime novelists Ace Atkins, Reed Farrel Coleman, Tom Franklin, and S. J. Rozan and will sign & discuss their new books.

Edgar Award-nominated crime writer Ace Atkins (Crossroad Blues) will sign & discuss the new Busted Flush Press reprint of the 3rd Nick Travers novel, Dark End of the Street ($15). The plan is simple. All Nick Travers, a former professional football player turned professor, has to do is drive up Highway 61 from New Orleans to Memphis from New Orleans to Memphis and track down the lost brother of one of his best friends. But as Travers knows, these simple jobs seldom turn out smoothly.

"When all is said and done, Dark End of the Street sheds light on the underbelly of politics, racism and the junking of American culture. Atkins is an astute observer of life as well as a singular voice in fiction." -– USA Today

Three-time Shamus Award winner Reed Farrel Coleman will sign & discuss his sixth Moe Prager crime novel, Innocent Monster (Tyrus; $24.95). Seven years have passed since the brutal murder that tore Moe Prager’s family apart and six years since Moe brushed the dust off his PI license. But when his estranged daughter Sarah comes to him with a request he cannot refuse, Moe takes a deep breath and plunges back into the icy, opaque waters of secrets and lies. Sashi Bluntstone, an eleven-year-old art prodigy and daughter of Sarah’s dearest childhood friend, has been abducted. Three weeks into the investigation, the cops have gotten nowhere and the parents have gotten desperate. Desperation, the door through which Moe Prager always enters, swings wide open. Just as in Sashi’s paintings, there’s much more to the case than one can see at a glance.

With the help of an ex-football star, Moe stumbles around the fringes of the New York art scene, trying to get a handle on where the art stops and the commerce begins. Much to Moe’s surprise and disgust, he discovers that Sashi is, on the one hand, revered as a cash cow and, on the other, reviled as a fraud and a joke. Suspects abound beyond the usual predators and pedophiles, for it is those closest to Sashi in life that have the most to gain from her death. Cruel ironies lurk around every corner, beneath every painting, and behind every door. Almost nothing is what it seems.

Innocent Monster is a book of children and parents, of lives lost and found. It is a variation on the theme of good and evil, each often wearing the other’s disguise. Beware the innocent monster for it need not hide itself and it lives closely among us: sometimes as close as the mirror.

Southern novelist Tom Franklin (Hell at the Breech; Smonk) will sign & discuss his new crime novel, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (Morrow; $24.99).

Tom Franklin is the author of Poachers: Stories and Hell at the Breech. Winner of a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship, he teaches in the University of Mississippi's MFA program and lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife, the poet Beth Ann Fennelly, and their children, Claire and Thomas.

Edgar Award-winning crime writer S. J. Rozan (Winter & Night) will sign & discuss her new Bill Smith/Lydia Chin novel, On the Line (St. Martin's Minotaur; $24.99).

SJ Rozan, a native New Yorker, is the author of eleven novels. Her work has won the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity awards for Best Novel and the Edgar for Best Short Story. Bronx Noir, a short story collection SJ edited, was given the NAIBA "Notable Book of the Year" award. She's served on the National Boards of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and is ex-President of the Private Eye Writers of America. In January 2003 she was an invited speaker at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The 2005 Left Coast Crime convention in El Paso, Texas made her its Guest of Honor. A former architect in a practice that focussed on police stations, firehouses, and zoos, SJ Rozan lives in lower Manhattan.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Tuesday, October 19, 6:30 p.m.
Soho Crime signing --
Stuart Neville & Jassy MacKenzie

Two acclaimed Soho Press crime writers -- Stuart Neville & Jassy MacKenzie -- will sign & discuss their new books.

2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Stuart Neville (The Ghosts of Belfast) will sign & discuss his 2nd novel, Collusion (Soho; $25). When Detective Inspector Jack Lennon tries to track down his former lover, Marie McKenna, and their daughter, his superiors tell him to back off. But now an assassin stalks Belfast, tying up loose ends for a vengeance-driven old man. As Lennon unravels a conspiracy that links his daughter to a killer named Fegan, the line between friend and enemy blurs.

Debut South African crime writer Jassy MacKenzie will sign & discuss her first novel, Random Violence (Soho; $25). In Johannesburg prosperous whites live in gated communities; when they exit their cars to open the gates, car-jackings are common. But seldom is the victim killed, much less shot twice, like Annette Botha. Piet Botha, the husband of the wealthy woman, is the primary suspect in his wife's murder. P.I. Jade de Jong fled South Africa ten years ago after her father was killed. Now, back in town, she offers to help her father's former assistant, Superintendent David Patel, with his investigation of this case. Under apartheid, Patel, of Indian descent, could never have attained his present position. But he is feeling pressure from his “old line” boss with respect to this investigation and fears lingering prejudice is at work. As Jade probes into this and other recent car-jacking cases, a pattern begins to emerge, a pattern that goes back to her father's murder and that involves a vast and intricate series of crimes for profit.

"Set in contemporary South Africa, Mackenzi's triumphant debut introduces PI Jade de Jong... The plot has more than its fair share of nice twists, and Mackenzie does a superb job of making the reader care for her gutsy lead while offering a glimpse at life in South Africa after apartheid. Readers will wish Jade a long fictional career. "—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Thursday, October 21, 6:30 p.m.
Donna Moore
Lefty Award-wimystery writer Donna Moore (Go to Helena Handbasket...) will sign & discuss her new comic caper novel, Old Dogs (Busted Flush Press; paperback original; $15).

"Like the perfect heist, Donna Moore's screwball caper is slick, audacious and hugely rewarding."—Chris Ewan, author of The Good Thief's Guide to Paris

"Roll out the awards shelf, Donna is going to grab them all."—Ken Bruen, award-winning author of London Boulevard

La Contessa Letitzia di Ponzo and her sister Signora Teodora Grisiola are not who they might seem. Now in their seventies, they’re actually Letty and Dora, a pair of ex-hookers turned con-artists who’ve decided to steal a pair of gold, jewel-encrusted Tibetan shih tzu dog statuettes from a Glasgow museum. Unfortunately, it seems everyone wants to get their hands on the expensive pooches. There’s the dodgy chauffeur, a pair of delinquents who work in a crematorium, an out-of-work insomniac bent on revenge, and an innocent young islander who’s obsessed with returning the dogs to Tibet. And yet the elderly con-artists might just manage to execute their plan and live the rest of their lives in the lap of luxury. That’s if they can avoid the Australian hitman with his sights on a very different future for them...

"Two septugenarian sisters take the classic heist to new levels in this addictive caper... Will keep readers smiling if not laughing out loud. The author's clever wordplay, irreverant humor, and vivid characters will please Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake, and Carl Hiaasen fans, not to mention the Ocean's Eleven crowd. A leisurely paced setup leads to a quick climax, making this a compulsive, enjoyable read." -- Library Journal, starred review

Highly recommended by David!

ALSO AVAILABLE:
Donna's first novel, Go to Helena Handbasket... (PointBlank; $15.95), and the Busted Flush Press anthologies, Damn Near Dead (edited by Duane Swierczynski; paperback original; $18) & A Hell of a Woman (edited by Megan Abbott; hardback, $26; paperback, $18), in which she has stories.

Donna Moore is the author of Go to Helena Handbasket, winner of the 2007 Lefty Award for most humorous crime novel. She has short stories in various anthologies, including Damn Near Dead and A Hell of a Woman (both Busted Flush Press). Donna runs the blog Big Beat From Badsville, which focuses on Scottish crime fiction.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Friday, October 22, 6:30 p.m.
Lone Star Noir party!
Akashic Books visits Texas with the latest of its acclaimed, award-winning Noir Series: Lone Star Noir (edited by Bobby Byrd & Johnny Byrd; Akashic; paperback original; $15.95). We're working on scheduling a signing with several of the contributors. Please stay tuned for more!

Here's the line-up for Lone Star Noir: Milton T. Burton, Bobby Byrd, David Corbett, Sarah Cortez, the late James Crumley, Murder By The Book's Dean James, Joe R. Lansdale, Jessica Powers, Ito Romo, Lisa Sandlin, Claudia Smith, Jesse Sublett, Tim Tingle, Luis Alberto Urrea, George Wier

CONFIRMED FOR THE SIGNING (so far): Bobby Byrd (editor), Johnny Byrd (editor), Milton T. Burton, Sarah Cortez, Dean James, Ito Romo, Claudia Smith (tentative), George Wier

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, October 23, 5:00 p.m.
JoAnna Carl
Joelle Charboneau
Carolyn Hart
Mystery writers JoAnna Carl (a.k.a. Eve Sandstrom) & Carolyn Hart will be joined by debut author Joelle Charbonneau, as they sign & discuss their new books.

Best-seller JoAnna Carl will sign & discuss her new Chocoholic mystery, The Chocolate Pirate Plot (NAL; $21.95).

Best-seller Carolyn Hart will sign & discuss her latest books, including the new "Death on Demand" novel, Laughed 'Til He Died (Morrow; $24.99), and the new Bailey Ruth mystery -- starring an impetuous, redheaded ghost -- Ghost in Trouble (Morrow; $19.99).

In Ghost in Trouble, the late Bailey Ruth Raeburn, an impetuous, redheaded ghost, returns to her hometown of Adelaide, OK, as a special emissary from Heaven charged with protecting Kay Clark, a beautiful, willful woman who is determined to play hunt-the-killer. Bailey Ruth finds herself at odds with Kay. Despite her near-miss from death, Kay would like nothing better than for Bailey Ruth to scoot right back where she came from. Bailey Ruth’s efforts are complicated by young lovers suspicious of each other, a woman with a secret that can destroy her family, and a charlatan psychic, but Bailey Ruth perseveres to unmask a cunning killer. ALSO NEW IN PAPERBACK: Merry, Merry Ghost (Avon; $7.99) The late Bailey Ruth Reburn arrives in Adelaide in time for Christmas and for murder. She helps a desperate grandmother provide for her grandson and thwarts a perfect murder. Just in time, she saves a young woman and a little boy and brings Christmas peace to a troubled family.

Debut novelist Joelle Charbonneau will sign & discuss her first skating mystery, Skating Around the Law (St. Martin's Minotaur; $24.99). Rebecca Robbins is a woman on a mission -- to sell the roller rink she inherited in her rural hometown and get back to her life in Chicago. Fast. What she didn't count on was discovering a dead body head-first in a rink toilet. Now Rebecca is stuck in a small town where her former neighbors think she's a city slicker who doesn't belong, relying on a police department that's better at gardening than solving crimes. With the help of a handsome veterinarian, a former circus camel, and her scarily frisky grandfather, Rebecca must discover the identity of the murderer before she becomes the next victim.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Tuesday, October 26, 6:30 p.m.
Rachel Caine
More details to come.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Wednesday, October 27, 6:30 p.m. First novel!
Michael Ayoob
Debut crime writer Michael Ayoob will sign & discuss his first novel, In Search of Mercy (St. Martin's Minotaur; $24.99). Dexter Bolzjak is an ex–hockey goalie who was abducted and tortured by perverted sports fans eight years ago. Now he’s muddling along in a Pittsburgh warehouse when he meets an old, terminally ill drunk named Lou Kashon. Lou wants to see his lost love, the actress Mercy Carnahan, and offers Dexter a fortune to find her. Dexter embarks on the search, retracing Mercy’s past online and on foot. Soon, Mercy begins to haunt Dexter, appearing in his dreams while flashbacks to his own traumatic experience plague his waking hours. Dexter persists and follows Mercy’s trail to New York, where he finds a voyeuristic film of the actress recorded shortly before her disappearance. Once Dexter connects that film to its source, he finds himself trapped in the ultimate nightmare.

Michael Ayoob is a winner of the Minotaur Books/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel competition. He earned a B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. Michael lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, October 30, 5:00 p.m. First novel!
Hilary Davidson
Debut crime writer Hilary Davidson will sign & discuss her first novel, The Damage Done (Forge; $24.99). Lily Moore, a successful travel writer, fled to Spain to get away from her troubled, drug-addicted younger sister, Claudia. But when Claudia is found dead in a bathtub on the anniversary of their mother’s suicide, Lily must return to New York to deal with the aftermath.

The situation shifts from tragic to baffling when the body at the morgue turns out to be a stranger’s. The dead woman had been using Claudia’s identity for months. The real Claudia had vanished, reappearing briefly on the day her impostor died. As Claudia transforms from victim to suspect in the eyes of the police, Lily becomes determined to find her before they do.

Is Claudia actually missing, or is she playing an elaborate con game? And who’s responsible for the body that was found in the bathtub? An obsessive ex-lover? An emotionally disturbed young man with a rich and powerful father? Or Lily’s own former fiancé, who turns out to be more deeply involved with Claudia than he admits?

As Lily searches for answers, a shadowy figure stalks her and the danger to her grows. Determined to learn the truth at any cost, she is unprepared for the terrible toll it will take on her and those she loves.

"Sinking us into the noir New York of Sara Gran and Charlie Huston, Hilary Davidson’s lush novel The Damage Done delivers on all counts, offering both slow-burn suspense and creeping pathos. Taking the classic story of hero’s quest to solve the riddle of a wayward sister, it’s ultimately a tale of lost women, victims and victimizers, damaging and perilously damaged. A rich, haunting debut.” — Megan Abbott

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Tuesday, November 9, 6:30 p.m.
Dennis Lehane
Best-selling crime writer Dennis Lehane will sign & discuss his first Patrick & Angie thriller in 11 years, Moonlight Mile (Morrow; $26.99), a sequel to one of his most famous works, Gone, Baby, Gone.

Highly recommended by David, McKenna & Anne!

Dennis Lehane was born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He has written nine novels, including A Drink Before the War, Gone Baby Gone, Prayers for Rain, Mystic River, Shutter Island, and A Given Day.

Mystic River was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won both the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel as well as the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction given by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.

Before becoming a full-time writer, Mr. Lehane worked as a counselor with mentally handicapped and abused children, waited tables, parked cars, drove limos, worked in bookstores, and loaded tractor-trailers. His one regret is that no one ever gave him a chance to tend bar. He lives in the Boston area.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Friday, November 12, 6:30 p.m.
Tasha Alexander
Deanna Raybourn
Lauren Willig

Event moderated by Andrew Grant!
Best-selling historical mystery writers Tasha Alexander, Deanna Raybourn and Lauren Willig will sign & discuss their new books!

Tasha Alexander will sign & discuss her new Lady Emily mystery, Dangerous to Know (St. Martin's Minotaur; $24.99).

Deanna Raybourn will sign & discuss the new Lady Julia Grey mystery, Dark Road to Darjeeling (Mira; paperback original; $14.95).

Lauren Willig will sign & discuss The Mischief of the Mistletoe (Dutton; $24.95), which is a "Pink Carnation" Christmas mystery. Arabella Dempsey’s dear friend Jane Austen warned her against teaching. But Miss Climpson’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies seems the perfect place for Arabella to claim her independence while keeping an eye on her younger sisters nearby. Just before Christmas, she accepts a position at the quiet girls’ school in Bath, expecting to face nothing more exciting than conducting the annual Christmas recital. She hardly imagines coming face to face with French aristocrats and international spies…

Reginald “Turnip” Fitzhugh—often mistaken for the elusive spy known as the Pink Carnation—has blundered into danger before. But when he blunders into Miss Arabella Dempsey, it never occurs to him that she might be trouble. When Turnip and Arabella stumble upon a beautifully wrapped Christmas pudding with a cryptic message written in French, “Meet me at Farley Castle”, the unlikely vehicle for intrigue launches the pair on a Yuletide adventure that ranges from the Austens’ modest drawing room to the awe-inspiring estate of the Dukes of Dovedale, where the Dowager Duchess is hosting the most anticipated event of the year: an elaborate 12-day Christmas celebration. Will they find poinsettias or peril, dancing or danger? And is it possible that the fate of the British Empire rests in Arabella and Turnip’s hands, in the form of a festive Christmas pudding?

Author of the best-selling Pink Carnation series, Lauren Willig has a graduate degree from the Harvard history department, a JD from Harvard Law, and a large pile of unfinished dissertation chapters. After years of sneezing on manuscripts in the archives, Lauren Willig left academia to attend law school and write Napoleonic-set historical romances, beginning with The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, which came out in 2005. Since then, the Pink Carnation books have been chosen as Romantic Times Top Picks, nominated for a Quill Award, and hit the New York Times bestseller list. Lauren is currently hard at work on the ninth book in the Pink Carnation series.

Highly recommended by McKenna & Michelle!

Tonight's moderator, thriller writer (& Tasha's husband!) Andrew Grant, is the author of Die Twice (St. Martin's Minotaur; $24.99). Obliged to leave New York City in the aftermath of his previous mission, David Trevellyan is summoned to the British Consulate in Chicago. To the same office where just a week before his new handler was attacked and shot by a Royal Navy Intelligence operative gone bad. Assigned the job of finding the rogue agent and putting an end to his treacherous scheme, Trevellyan soon finds that once again, his only hopes of saving countless innocent lives lie not within the system, but in his instinctive belief—you're bound to do what's right, whatever the personal cost may be.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, November 13, 4:30 p.m.
Kathryn Casey
Houston crime writer Kathryn Casey will sign & discuss her 3rd Sarah Armstrong mystery, The Killing Storm (St. Martin's Minotaur; $25.99). "The Killing Storm is more scorching than Texas in July. This is of the most unique and enjoyable mystery series to come along in quite some time." -- best-selling mystery author and Shamus award nominee Jason Pinter

A quiet afternoon in the park, and four-year-old Joey Warner plays in the sandbox, when a stranger approaches looking for his runaway dog. While Joey’s mom, Crystal, talks on her cell phone, the stranger convinces the child to help search. By the time Crystal turns around, her son has disappeared. Yet her behavior is odd, not what one would expect from a distraught mother. Is Crystal Warner somehow involved in her son’s abduction?

Meanwhile, on a cattle ranch outside Houston, Texas Ranger Sarah Armstrong assesses a symbol left on the hide of a slaughtered longhorn, a figure that dates back to a forgotten era of sugarcane plantations and slavery. Soon other prizewinning bulls are butchered on the outskirts of the city, each bearing a different but similar drawing. Before long, the investigations converge at the same time a catastrophic hurricane threatens. Someone very close to Sarah is brutally murdered, and the clock ticks, as the storm moves in. If Sarah doesn’t act quickly, the child will die.

ALSO AVAILABLE: The first two in the series -- Singularity (St. Martin's Minotaur; $24.95) and Blood Lines (St. Martin's Minotaur; $24.99).

Kathryn Casey is an award-winning, Texas journalist who has written for Rolling Stone, Texas Monthly, TV Guide, Reader’s Digest, Seventeen, MORE, and Ladies’ Home Journal magazines. In addition, she’s the author of six highly acclaimed true crime books: The Rapist’s Wife; A Warrant to Kill; She Wanted It All; Die, My Love; Descent into Hell; and Shattered. Ann Rule calls Casey “one of the best in the true crime genre.” After two decades of crime reporting, Casey has turned her attention to fiction, beginning with Singularity, a mystery and the first in a new series featuring Texas Ranger Sarah Armstrong. The American Library Association’s Booklist magazine chose Singularity as one of the top ten crime novel debuts of 2009. The second in the series, Blood Lines, was published in 2009 to rave reviews, and the third book in the series, The Killing Storm, debuts in November 2010. Over the years, Casey has appeared on Oprah Winfrey, Montel Williams, Nancy Grace, A&E, Court TV, Investigation Discovery, E!, and other television and radio venues. She lives in Houston with her husband and their puppy, Nelson.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.


Sunday, November 14, evening
at the Hilton Americas
The 31st Annual Book & Author Dinner!
Tyler Florence
Carl Hiaasen
Jake Silverstein
Marlo Thomas

Go here for tickets!
TV chef/writer Tyler Florence will sign & discuss his new cookbook, Tyler Florence Family Meals: Finding the Feast in Your Backyard (Rodale; $35). The star of the popular Food Network series Tyler’s Ultimate, Tyler Florence is famous for championing simplicity, freshness, and culinary honesty in cooking. Now, after more than a decade spent tracking down some of the world’s most flavorful recipes (and debunking a generation of novice chefs’ culinary fears), Tyler brings it all back home to celebrate the pleasures of cooking with wholesome, local ingredients. His easy yet toothsome recipes exemplify the message that restaurant chefs from coast to coast have embraced: Local foods, cooked in season and prepared simply but with care and thought, are the best meals you can eat anywhere.

In Tyler Florence Family Meals Tyler recounts the journey that brought him from the home cooking he grew up loving to the “haute-homey” restaurant cuisine that first won him culinary acclaim, to the pleasures of the world’s great cuisine as showcased on his Food Network shows, and ultimately back to his roots as he prepares to open a restaurant while raising a family of young children. He speaks with his signature casual charm about how they can improve their cooking and eating habits to bring about real changes in their health and in their attitude toward food.

Better than any other chef at work today, Tyler knows what people want to eat and how to help them achieve spectacular results without stress or strife. With this all-new collection of bold and exciting recipes, any cook can rid herself of her culinary fears and discover why, when it comes to fine dining, there is no place like home.

Tyler Florence is the author of five best-selling cookbooks and the host of the Food Network show Tyler’s Ultimate. His first restaurant is scheduled to open in San Francisco this year. He lives in Mill Valley, CA.

New York Times best-seller Carl Hiaasen will sign & discuss his new crime novel, Star Island (Knopf; $26.95). Meet twenty-two-year-old Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was fourteen—and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster.

Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her “undercover stunt double,” Ann DeLusia. Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too “indisposed”—meaning wasted—to go out in public. And it is Ann-mistaken-for-Cherry who is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by obsessed paparazzo Bang Abbott.

Now the challenge for Cherry’s handlers (über–stage mother; horndog record producer; nipped, tucked, and Botoxed twin publicists; weed whacker–wielding bodyguard) is to rescue Ann while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry’s public—and from Cherry herself.

The situation is more complicated than they know. Ann has had a bewitching encounter with Skink—the unhinged former governor of Florida living wild in a mangrove swamp—and now he’s heading for Miami to find her . . .

Will Bang Abbott achieve his fantasy of a lucrative private photo session with Cherry Pye? Will Cherry sober up in time to lip-synch her way through her concert tour? Will Skink track down Ann DeLusia before Cherry’s motley posse does?

All will be revealed in this hilarious spin on life in the celebrity fast lane.

Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of eleven previous novels, including the best-selling Nature Girl, Skinny Dip, Sick Puppy, and Lucky You, and three best-selling children’s books, Hoot, Flush, and Scat. His most recent work of nonfiction is The Downhill Lie: A Hacker’s Return to a Ruinous Sport. He also writes a weekly column for The Miami Herald.

Texas Monthly editor Jake Silverstein will sign & discuss his book, Nothing Happened and Then It Did (Norton; $23.95). In 1999, Jake Silverstein relocated to remote West Texas in the hopes of becoming a journalist. He wanted to be “where there was nothing happening,” he writes, so that “when something did happen there would be no one but me to write about it.” Unfortunately, the leads he turned up never quite worked out, so he kept moving, crossing back and forth across the border between fact and fiction in search of a magazine article. Part memoir, part novel, part history, Nothing Happened and Then It Did chronicles these often hilarious misadventures around Texas, Louisiana, and Mexico, as Silverstein’s search becomes an attempt to understand the purpose of journalism and the nature of storytelling.

Jake Silverstein was born in 1975 and raised in Oakland, California. He attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and also received degrees from Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, and the Michener Center for Writers, at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1999 he moved to Marfa, Texas, to write for the Big Bend Sentinel. In 2005 he became a Contributing Editor to Harper’s Magazine. His work has also appeared in the anthologies Best American Travel Writing 2003, The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup (2006); and Submersion Journalism (2008). He joined the staff of Texas Monthly as a senior editor in 2006 and later became the magazine’s fourth editor. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Mary, their two sons, Leo and Joe, and a couple of cats.

Actress/writer Marlo Thomas (That Girl) will sign & discuss her new book, Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny (Hyperion; $26.99).

Go here for tickets!

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.


Saturday, November 20, 5:00 p.m.
David Handler
Edgar Award-winning mystery writer David Handler will sign & discuss his most recent books: The Shimmering Blond Sister (St. Martin's Minotaur; $24.99) and Click to Pay (Severn House; hardback, $28.95; paperback, $15.95).

In Click to Pay, adying TV star reaches out to a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with an explosive revelation: the truth behind an infamous Hollywood murder spree, which will destroy a U.S. senator's bid for the presidency. For former star reporter Hunt Liebling, it's a chance to get his career back on track -- until he walks in on an all-new Hollywood massacre, and becomes the prime suspect himself.

The Shimmering Blond Sister is the brand-new Mitch Berger / Desiree Mitry mystery. Murder By The Book has also bought up all remaining copies of the first book in this series, The Cold Blue Blood (St. Martin's Minotaur; $6.50)... drop by the store to get started on these wonderful, witty, whodunits!

And don't miss the first four mysteries featuring celebrity ghostwriter Stewart Hoag: The Man Who Died Laughing / The Man Who Lived by Night (Busted Flush Press; hardback, $26; paperback, $18) and The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald / The Woman Who Fell from Grace (Busted Flush Press; hardback, $26; paperback, $18). The 3rd one won the Edgar Award!

David will also sign his short story in the new Busted Flush Press noir anthology, Damn Near Dead 2: Live Noir or Die Trying! (edited by Bill Crider; paperback original; $18).

Highly recommended by David!

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Monday, November 22, 6:30 p.m. Date changed!
Jack Kerley
Best-selling thriller writer Jack Kerley (The Hundredth Man) will sign & discuss his new Carson Ryder novel, Buried Alive (U.K. import; paperback original; $15.95). When police detective Carson Ryder wins a free vacation to the isolated Appalchian mountains, he welcomes the chance to take a well-deserved rest. But all too soon an anonymous phone-call summons him to the scene of grisly torture. This is just the first of a series of increasingly savage murders and Ryder finds himself helping overstretched local detective Donna Cherry and forest ranger Lee McCoy sift through the bizarre clues.

And adding to the confusion his disturbed brother Jeremy has settled in the area. Meanwhile back home in Alabama, the ill-advised hypnotic regression of ex-professional fighter Bobby Lee Crayline has led to his escape. With several malevolent killers on the loose, it is Ryder's death-defying challenge to unearth horrors others wished buried years ago.

Though they're not published in the U.S., Murder By The Book stocks all of Jack Kerley's Carson Ryder thrillers in paperback, imported from England!

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, December 4, 4:30 p.m.
Houston mystery author
Rachel Brady
Mystery writer Rachel Brady will sign & discuss her second novel, Dead Lift (Poisoned Pen; hardback, $24.95; paperback, $14.95). Single mom Emily Locke is building a new life with her daughter. Hoping to spend more time at home, she’s put her career on hold to work part-time for her private investigator friend, Richard Cole. It’s a nice balance between work and family until Emily finds out she’s been working for the attorney that defended her husband’s killer.

The discovery nearly destroys her friendship with Richard, but Emily resists abandoning his client, the socialite Claire Gaston, who awaits trial for the murder of a local plastic surgeon. The threat of losing her children to a self-serving ex-husband terrifies Claire more than the specter of a life behind bars. Sympathetic to a mother’s fears and unconvinced of Claire’s guilt, Emily resolves to stick with the case despite her growing concerns about Richard and the dubious attorney who hired him.

A mysterious note leads her into a daring undercover ruse at a high brow ladies health club. Impervious to fashion trends, disinterested in beauty treatments, Emily fakes conformity with Houston’s elite debutantes and trophy wives in a surreal fitness subculture where things, and people, are seldom what they seem. At this gym, “killer workout” has a whole new meaning.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Thursday, December 9, 11:30 a.m.
At The Briar Club!
Kate Morton
Mystery Author Luncheon:
$65 (includes a copy of The Distant Hours)
Tickets on sale soon. More details here.

New York Times best-seller Kate Morton (The House of Riverton; The Forgotten Garden) will sign & discuss her new novel, The Distant Hours (Atria; $26)!

Kate Morton, a native Australian, holds degrees in dramatic art and English literature and is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Queensland. She lives with her family in Brisbane, Australia. She is the best-selling author of The House of Riverton and The Forgotten Garden.

Can't make it to our luncheon? Kate Morton will also sign The Distant Hours at Blue Willow Bookshop in the evening, 7 p.m.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Saturday, December 11, 3:00 p.m.
Milton T. Burton
Texas crime writer Milton Burton will sign & discuss his new novel, Nights of the Red Moon (St. Martin's Minotaur; $24.99). A murdered preacher's wife, a missing million dollar shipment of cocaine, a shadowy Houston area banker who is known to have smuggled over four hundred tons of Colombian Red into the country -- all make for one of longtime East Texas Sheriff Bo Handel's most perplexing cases. The action is fast and tense, the characterization deep, and the stakes high as events race toward a heartbraking conclusion. The first of a new series!

As a bonus, at the signing Milton will also read the first chapter from the next Bo Handel book, Mortal Remains.

Milton T. Burton is a fifth-generation Texan, born in Jacksonville, Cherokee County. He has been variously a cattleman, college history teacher, political consultant, and an assistant to the dean of the Texas House of Representatives. Nights of the Red Moon is his third crime novel.

Highly recommended by David!

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Thursday, December 23, 6:00 p.m.
Raymond Benson
Best-seller Raymond Benson will sign & discuss his latest works.

Choice of Weapons (Pegasus; paperback; $19.95) Three classic 007 novels by acclaimed author Benson, featuring literature's most celebrated secret agent, are collected in this single volume. Includes The Facts of Death, Zero Minus Ten, and The Man with the Red Tattoo, as well as two James Bond short stories, "Live at Five" and "Midsummer Night's Doom."

Hunt Through Napoleon's Web (writing as Gabriel Hunt; Hard Case Crime; paperback original; $7.99) Of all the priceless treasures Gabriel Hunt has sought, none means more to him than the one drawing him to the rugged terrain of Corsica and the exotic streets of Marrakesh: his own sister’s life. To save her, Hunt will have to challenge the mind of a tyrant two centuries dead—the calculating, ingenious Napoleon Bonaparte.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

Tuesday, December 28, 6:30 p.m.
Book launch party!
Victoria Laurie
New York Times best-seller Victoria Laurie will sign & discuss her new Ghost Hunter mystery, Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls (Signet; paperback original; $7.99), the day the book goes on sale!

More details to come.

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.


And we're already scheduling into 2011...

Friday, January 21, 6:30 p.m.
Thomas E. Sniegoski
Acclaimed pranormal & YA author Thomas E. Sniegoski will sign & discuss his novels, including his "Sleeper Code" YA series -- Sleeper Code (Razorbill; $7.99) & Sleeper Agenda (Razorbill; $6.99) -- and the latest Remy Chandler adult novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread (Roc; $14). Six year-old Zoe York has been taken and her mother has come to Remy for help. She shows him crude, childlike drawings that she claims are Zoe's visions of the future, everything leading up to her abduction, and some beyond. Like the picture of a man with wings who would come and save her-a man who is an angel. Zoe's preternatural gifts have made her a target for those who wish to exploit her power to their own destructive ends. The search will take Remy to dark places he would rather avoid. But to save an innocent, Remy will ally himself with a variety of lesser evils -- and his soul may pay the price.

Highly recommended by Anne & John! And both she & David love the "Sleeper Code" books!

Please call or e-mail to order signed or inscribed copies.

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