Monday, April 30, 2018

Carol Goodman

Carol Goodman is the critically acclaimed author of over a dozen novels, including The Lake of Dead Languages and The Seduction of Water, which won the 2003 Hammett Prize. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family, and teaches writing and literature at the New School and SUNY New Paltz.

Goodman's latest novel is The Other Mother.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Goodman's reply:
I’ve long been a fan of Laura Lippman’s books—both her realistic and gritty Tess Monaghan series and her psychologically astute stand-alones—so I had high expectations for her latest Sunburn. My expectations were exceeded.

Lippman has called her book her “Cain homage,” and it indeed has the mood and set-up of James M. Cain’s first novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice. Two drifters meet at a roadside diner, sparks fly—and not just from the grill—suspicions follow … and murder. Lippman deftly evokes the mood of noir: the sultry heat of cheap motels and boarding houses, the neon glow of a jukebox, sunsets over flat cornfields, a redhead in a sundress with sunburnt shoulders. It’s as if she’s laying tinder for a fire. But she does much more.

Reading Sunburn sent me back to Cain and the books and films Postman inspired with its triangle between older husband, seductress wife, and semi-innocent/semi-hapless young man. The 1981 Lawrence Kasdan film Body Heat captured the lust and distrust, turning the Lana Turner heroine into a more knowing and wily Kathleen Turner. Alex Garland’s Ex Machina gives the lethal triangle a sci-fi twist by turning the seductress into an A.I. But while both these works give more depth to the female character, they still preference the male and his riveted gaze on the female. Lippman gives voice to both the man and the woman. In alternating close third person narrations, we’re privy to Adam’s and Polly’s thoughts (and a few other characters as well) even if the two of them are so guarded that it takes some time for us to learn what they’re keeping from each other. We learn that Polly has escaped not one, but two, abusive marriages, once by murder, once by flight—as if she has already enacted all the options given to femme fatales in the genre. What’s left for her then? Will she be able to trust and love a man like Adam? Will Adam fare any better than his genre predecessors?

I won’t say, but I can assure you we’re in good hands with Laura Lippman. Like Adam in the kitchen (who makes a grilled cheese so appealing I had to follow his recipe twice while reading this) she doesn’t cut corners. Adam and Polly may be trapped by their circumstances, but they’re not trapped by genre-prototypes. They’re complicated, three-dimensional human beings. Adam’s a man whose passions might lead him to walk away from a job; but not from his better nature. And in Polly, Lippman has given agency to the femme fatale without turning her into a monster—a feat as delicate and satisfying as making the perfect grilled cheese.
Visit Carol Goodman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, April 29, 2018

Jennifer Caloyeras

Jennifer Caloyeras is a novelist and short fiction writer living in Los Angeles. Her debut short fiction collection, Unruly Creatures (2017), was published by West Virginia University Press. She is the author of two young adult novels: Strays (2015) and Urban Falcon (2009). Her short stories have appeared in Monday Night Literary, Wilde Magazine, Storm Cellar, Booth and other literary journals.

Recently I asked Caloyeras about what she was reading. Her reply:
I am definitely what someone might call a book devourer. I am at my local library at least once or twice a week returning stacks of book and replacing them with new ones. I typically read between two and four books a week, so getting to share some recent picks with readers is fantastic.

I recently finished Chloe Benjamin’s The Immortalists. This is such a beautifully written book. It’s about four young siblings who see a fortune teller and she predicts the exact dates that they will each die. We follow each child and see how knowing this information affects them. I love the structure of the novel – each section is told from the point of view of a separate character. The book covers so many emotions. Books that deeply explore character are my favorite!

When I was recently vacationing out in the woods, I read an aptly titled nonfiction book, The Hidden Life of Trees by a forester named Peter Wohlleben. It is such a fascinating book about how trees communicate with one another and how they take care of one another. Did you know they will share their nutrients with a nearby sick tree? It’s book one in a three-part series investigating the wonders of nature. The second book in the series, The Inner Life of Animals, is out now.

Senlin Ascends, by Josiah Bancroft, is a laugh out loud satire in the vein of Candide or Don Quixote. It’s about a newlywed named Senlin who is on his honeymoon with his wife. Their destination: The Tower of Babble - a tall building wrought with legend and lore. No one really knows how tall it is, but they do know that each level is vastly different. Senlin is warned not to separate from his wife in the medina-like streets that surround the tower, but he loses her within minutes of descending the train. He spends the book looking for her as he rises through the various floors of the tower, meeting all sorts of colorful characters who propel him to the next adventure.

Last but not least is The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu. I have to begin by saying that I was a summer camp junkie when I was young, so I find all books about summer camp immediately appealing. In this story, a group of young girls attend Camp Forevermore in Canada. On an overnight kayaking trip, something happens that will irrevocably change the course of their lives. This book is part mystery, part coming of age, part suspense.

There are two book sitting on my desk waiting for me to crack them open. The first is The Power by Naomi Alderman. With a rave blurb from Margaret Atwood, what could go wrong? This is a dystopian novel where women suddenly have all the power and Alderman explores how this changes everything. The second book is An American Marriage by Tayari Jones. Celeste and Roy are newlyweds whose lives are uprooted when Roy is sentenced to twelve years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. At the end of his sentence, Celeste has to decide whether she can move on with Roy or continue life without him.

Happy reading, everyone!
To find out more about what Caloyeras is reading, follow her on Instagram or on her Facebook author page.

Coffee with a Canine: Jennifer Caloyeras & Reba and Dingo.

The Page 69 Test: Unruly Creatures.

--Marshal Zeringue

Friday, April 27, 2018

Elizabeth J. Duncan

Elizabeth J. Duncan is the award-winning author of the well-established Penny Brannigan mystery series set in North Wales and a second series, Shakespeare in the Catskills.

The new Penny Brannigan mystery is The Marmalade Murders.

Recently I asked Duncan about what she was reading. Her reply:
The Convictions of John Delahunt by Andrew Hughes

Andrew Hughes, a former researcher with RTE, Ireland’s national broadcasting service, uncovered details of a horrific murder while researching his non-fiction book Lives Less Ordinary: Dublin’s Fitzwilliam Square, 1798-1922.

He spun that research into a stunning tale, written as a prison memoir told by a narrator who describes his descent from poor university student to murderer in Victorian Dublin -- a city awash at the time in poverty, corruption, violence, and political unrest.

The Convictions of John Delahunt is skilfully crafted and beautifully written, with a compelling back story woven into the fabric of the narrative. It’s evocatively rich with depth and detail of 1840s Dublin, from the gentility of an afternoon stroll through Merrion Square to the brutality of Dublin after dark. The narrator uses vivid descriptions and a touch of sly, disparaging humour to draw the reader into the dark corners of his shadowy world.

This book is disturbing, there’s no doubt that. But I recently spent some time in Dublin, so some of the places John Delahunt mentions as his story unfolds -- Trinity College, Kilmainham Gaol, Dame Street, the Castle – are familiar to me. In this hard-to-put-down book, John Delahunt shows me a different Dublin – this one lit by the glow of gas street lamps along the banks of the River Liffey.
Visit Elizabeth J. Duncan's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Elizabeth J. Duncan and Dolly.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Alex Grecian

Alex Grecian is the national bestselling author of the contemporary thriller The Saint of Wolves and Butchers, the novels of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad, including The Yard, The Black Country, The Devil’s Workshop, The Harvest Man, and Lost and Gone Forever, as well as the critically acclaimed graphic novels Proof and Rasputin.

Recently I asked Grecian about what he was reading. His reply:
I’m always reading several books at once, and I split my time between fiction and nonfiction. The books I read for pleasure travel from the table next to the couch, to the table next to my bed, and to all points between.

Right now I’m finishing up All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire, an oral history by Jonathan Abrams. I’m a fan of the show, of course, but also of David Simon’s books, and I picked this up hoping to get a little insight into his working process. There isn’t enough of that here, and there’s less time spent talking about the writer’s room than I might have liked, but there are still great nuggets of information sprinkled throughout, and short interviews with the outstanding writers involved in The Wire, including Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, and Richard Price.

I’m dipping randomly into both Kinsey and Me, a collection of Sue Grafton’s stories and essays, and volume eighteen of the Complete Carl Barks Library (The Lost Peg Leg Mine). Grafton’s book has been sitting on a shelf in my office since I bought it, and her recent death prompted me to pick it up again. Carl Barks, was of course one of the greatest comic book creators ever, and his Donald Duck stories are the literary (that’s right, I said literary) equivalent of comfort food for me. Fantagraphics Books is currently doing a wonderful job of recoloring all of Barks’s old stories and collecting them in nice hardcover editions.

The books I’m reading for research purposes generally stay in my office. Right now I’m working on my next novel and planning the one after that, so I’m research wildly different subjects. One of my projects is set in Alaska and I’m learning a great deal about life there from John McPhee’s excellent Coming into the Country. McPhee’s journalism is always presented in the most entertaining way possible and his work is incredibly well-structured, so this feels more like a pleasure-read than research. The other book I’m writing involves a heart transplant, and Donald McRae’s Every Second Counts almost reads like a thriller itself. I find myself caught up in the stories of the doctors who pioneered that surgery, but in the process it’s helping me pinpoint what I need to know and who I should talk to about transplant procedures.
Visit Alex Grecian's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Saint of Wolves and Butchers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Carol Goodman

Carol Goodman is the critically acclaimed author of over a dozen novels, including The Lake of Dead Languages and The Seduction of Water, which won the 2003 Hammett Prize. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family, and teaches writing and literature at the New School and SUNY New Paltz.

Goodman's latest novel is The Other Mother.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Goodman's reply:
When the editor was kind enough to ask me to contribute to Writers Read I thought: “Aha! I’ve got this!” Usually such requests catch me in a lowbrow moment when I’ve just read the latest potboiler suspense novel. Not that there’s anything wrong with potboiler suspense novels—they’re what I write and I write them because I love reading them. In fact, I recently read two delicious ones: A.J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window and Greer Hendricks’ and Sarah Pekkanen’s The Wife Between Us, both compulsively readable novels featuring unreliable narrators, shifting identities, and some hard drinking. All my favorite things! But this time I also had a tonier response: I just finished reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.

I’d read it in my teens, but unlike Jane Eyre, which I’ve reread four times, I hadn’t reread it since. My vague recollections of the novel were of romantic wanderings on windswept moors, Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon playing the star-crossed lovers Cathy and Heathcliff in the 1939 film, and some ghosts. But wasn’t there a whole second half of the book concerning Cathy’s and Heathcliff’s children? And wasn’t Heathcliff kind of a jerk?

Still, when my daughter [illustrator of scene from Wuthering Heights, bottom right] mentioned she was reading it with a group of friends I eagerly joined the group. I like to encourage millennials to read the classics and, after all, I’d dragged my daughter to the Brontë parsonage last summer and made her walk in the rain on the moors. I owed her.

The first thing I noticed was how compulsively readable it is. Talk about a potboiler! Within the first few chapters a ghost has plunged its hand through a window and Nelly Dean has offered to tell the traveler Lockwood the whole sordid tale of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. And what a tale it is! When the master of Wuthering Heights rescues a destitute orphan from the Liverpool streets, he introduces a volatile force into his family that sets off the star-crossed love affair between his daughter Cathy and Heathcliff and a bitter rivalry between Heathcliff and Cathy’s brother Hindley. By the end of the first half of the book, Heathcliff has gone off into the world to make his fortune and come back to reclaim his soul mate—never mind that she’s married to the safe but boring Edgar Linton. One would think that was enough for one book—and the directors of the 1939 film apparently thought so since this was all that film covered. And that’s how most of us remember Wuthering Heights—as a tale of star-crossed lovers.

It is, however, a much stranger and more complicated work. (Spoilers Ahead) Cathy #1 dies giving birth to Cathy #2. Heathcliff gets his revenge by marrying Linton’s sister Isabel and treating her miserably. Isabel goes away (the only character in the book to get the hell out of the frozen Yorkshire Moors and live comfortably in London for at least a few years) and bears Heathcliff’s son, Young Linton. Meanwhile, after Hindley dies, Heathcliff raises Hindley’s son Hareton, depriving him of an education to spite his dead father. All three of these younger characters seem fated to re-enact the doomed triangle of their elders as part of a malicious plot of Heathcliff’s. Heathcliff really is a jerk! When Cathy is dying she bemoans to Heathcliff that he’ll probably get over her and go on to have children he loves. He assures her that he’ll never love his children—and he’s true to his word. He tortures his son, the neurasthenic, frail Young Linton into an ill-suited marriage to Cathy #2, who is basically kidnapped and forced to live at Wuthering Heights even after Young Linton has died and Heathcliff has defrauded her of her inheritance. That’s the point at which the traveler Lockwood comes upon them and it all looks pretty bleak. The only happy solution our narrator Nelly Dean can see is for Lockwood to marry Cathy #2. In fact, one wonders if the whole tale Nelly tells isn’t arranged for that purpose. How reliable is Nelly, after all, as a narrator, considering she doesn’t really like Cathy or Heathcliff and she has her own grievances to nurse—she is, after all, a blood relation of the Earnshaws and might have expected a bigger piece of the steak and kidney pie from the self-involved players of the drama she relates.

Illustration by Maggie Vicknair
[click to enlarge]
By the end of the book I had begun to suspect that Emily Brontë was more interested in the domestic dynamics of dysfunctional families than in spinning a romance of star-crossed lovers. And, in fact, Wuthering Heights shares much in common with the domestic suspenses so popular today: unreliable narrators, shifting identities—Cathy declares “I am Heathcliff!” which, if taken literally, is a bigger plot twist than anything in Gone Girl—and a whole lot of drinking. My daughter and her friends loved it. And why not? It’s the story of how some young people, against all odds, survive the baggage of their elders.
Visit Carol Goodman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Monday, April 23, 2018

Patrice Sarath

Patrice Sarath is an author and editor living in Austin, Texas. Her novels include the fantasy books The Sisters Mederos (Book I of the Tales of Port Saint Frey), the series Books of the Gordath (Gordath Wood, Red Gold Bridge, and The Crow God’s Girl) and the romance The Unexpected Miss Bennet.

Her numerous short stories have appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including Weird Tales, Black Gate, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, and many others. Her short story “A Prayer for Captain La Hire” was included in Year’s Best Fantasy of 2003 compiled by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. Her story “Pigs and Feaches,” originally published in Apex Digest, was reprinted in 2013 in Best Tales of the Apocalypse.

Recently I asked Sarath about what she was reading. Her reply:
I’m going through a nonfiction phase, specifically about Native Americans, so two books that I’ve devoured recently are Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Tribe in American History, by S.C. Gwynne, and 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann.

If you thought you understood the history of the culture clash between Europe and America before, hold onto your hats. This isn’t your daddy’s history lesson. 1491 is especially revelatory, as promised in the subtitle. Seriously, go read these books if you haven’t.
Visit Patrice Sarath's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Unexpected Miss Bennet.

--Marshal Zeringue

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Jack McDevitt

Jack McDevitt is the Nebula Award–winning author of The Academy series, including The Long Sunset. He went to La Salle University, then joined the Navy, drove a cab, became an English teacher, took a customs inspector’s job on the northern border, and didn’t write another word for a quarter-century. He received a master’s degree in literature from Wesleyan University in 1971. He returned to writing when his wife, Maureen, encouraged him to try his hand at it in 1980. Along with winning the Nebula Award in 2006, he has also been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award. In 2015 he was awarded the Robert A. Heinlein Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Recently I asked McDevitt about what he was reading. His reply:
I’m still trying to catch up on reading assignments from my college years, which takes us back to the 1950’s. The writing abilities of people like Hemingway, Willa Cather, Henry James, and Jane Austen continue to blow me away. Two weeks ago, I finished my first plunge into Theodore Dreiser, and, as I’ve done with others, I wondered how it had taken me so long to catch up with him. The novel was Sister Carrie, in which a young woman moves to Chicago to live with her married sister while she tries to find a job. This is somewhere around 1910, a time when employment wasn’t readily available. She’s pretty quickly out on her own, trailed by two older men who, despite occasionally questionable behavior, nevertheless gained my empathy as they wrecked their lives, and came close to ruining Carrie’s. The novel provides a strong sense of what life was like for ordinary working-class people during that time. I’ll be moving on to Jennie Gerhardt and Twelve Men, and to his short stories as soon as I can make time.

I’m about to finish Gordon Prange’s At Dawn We Slept, an account of the Pearl Harbor attack. Unlike everything else I’ve read or watched on the subject, Prange’s book does not limit itself to the attack, and to the American perspective. We get a detailed account of the Japanese point of view, their debates on whether starting a war with the United States is a good idea, the planning that went into the project, and the strategy they used to get a major naval force of carriers and destroyers within striking range of Oahu without being detected.

Prange tracks the diplomatic efforts on both sides to avoid war, though the Japanese appear to make up their minds early that an attack is inevitable. We see the successful efforts, known as ‘Magic,’ to break the Japanese cryptosystem, and the communications breakdowns on our side that result in our being caught flatfooted on December 7. And we get to witness the combat through the eyes of both sides.

The aftermath also plays out in detail. The automatic reaction is to blame Gen. Walter Short, commander of the Army forces on Oahu, and Admiral Husband Kimmel, the Navy admiral in charge. They are not without blame, but there was plenty of responsibility to be passed around. Various military and congressional investigation committees are put together to try to get at the truth. But there are stumbling blocks to managing a rational analysis of who’s at fault. FDR is a popular favorite for reelection in 1944 for a third term, and the Republicans understand their only real chance to take the White House back lies in their ability to lay the blame on him. Also leading to problems, many of the Army and Navy witnesses have no desire to see their own services held responsible.

I’ve read three Dickens novels and have about twenty to go. I’m just starting A Tale of Two Cities. Like most of the others, this is one I’ve been wanting to get to for most of my life. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ is probably the most famous opening lines of any novel ever. I’m only a handful of chapters in, but I’m hooked already.

And finally, I’m about halfway through Einstein’s Greatest Mistake, by David Bodanis. It’s a biography, the first Einstein book that might be described as easily readable, but also informative.
Visit Jack McDevitt's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Friday, April 20, 2018

D.J. Butler

D.J. (“Dave”) Butler grew up in swamps, deserts, and mountains. After messing around for years with the practice of law, he finally got serious and turned to his lifelong passion for storytelling. He now writes adventure stories for readers of all ages, plays guitar, and spends as much time as he can with his family.

Butler's new novel is Witchy Winter, book two in the epic fantasy series Witchy Winter.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Butler's reply:
I just finished reading Moby Dick for the second time. I think it deserves its claim to be a contender for the great American novel; it's sui generis, it doesn't belong to our time but it didn't really belong to its own time, either. I felt I owed MD a reread after a twenty-year hiatus because I don't think I grappled with it deeply enough the first time. Contemplating the thesis that the white whale might represent suicide gave me an additional hook in the material, and I really enjoyed this reading. I expect I'll come back to it again in twenty years.

Having finished Melville, I'm now starting Lord Jim (for the first time). I loved Heart of Darkness, and had never read any other Conrad. I had forgotten what an astonishingly good writer of English prose this Polish emigre was.

In non-fiction, I just recently finished an English translation of an ancient Jewish grimoire called The Sword of Moses, together with commentary by M. Gaster. I read a lot of arcana and ancient scripture; I do, after all, write fantasy.

I'm also reading several books strictly for language learning and practice purposes. By way of example, I've started again into Clyde Pharr's Homeric Greek, so I'm reading again about the wrath of Achilles in the original dactyls, a little every day. I'm also reading Goethe's Faust, usually 4-6 pages every morning on the cross-trainer. His verse is so song-like in its rhythms, I barely notice the motion of the machine.
Visit D.J. Butler's website.

The Page 69 Test: Witchy Winter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Teresa Dovalpage

Teresa Dovalpage was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1966. She earned her BA in English literature and an MA in Spanish literature at the University of Havana, and her PhD in Latin American literature at the University of New Mexico. She is the author of twelve other works of fiction and three plays, and is the winner of the Rincón de la Victoria Award and a finalist for the Herralde Award.

Dovalpage's new book is Death Comes in through the Kitchen.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:
I just finished reading Halsey Street by Naima Coster, released early this year. It deals with family issues, particularly-mother daughter relationships, and I am fascinated by the way they are portrayed. You won’t find the idealized, always self-sacrificing, long-suffering, tamale-making Latina mother there. Mirella, the main character’s mother, is everything but. Ay, que relief! The novel also tackles big issues like poverty, gentrification, and race, but (another big sigh of relief here) without preaching. The story is nuanced with flawed, vulnerable and true-to-life characters. Will there be a second part? I hope so…

I also read Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen. I chose it because Hobbs, where I am living now, is home to a strong Mennonite community and I was curious about them. The memoir is funny, well written and very informative about the Mennonite culture. I really enjoy the list of shame-based foods!

Rereading is my guilty pleasure, an act akin to coming home. I am currently back to one of my favorites, Los amantes clandestinos (The Secret Lovers) a novel by Ana Cabrera Vivanco that spans three generations and two continents. A wonderful saga that takes place in Cataluña, Havana and Miami, this literary jewel that deserves to be translated into English soon.
Visit Teresa Dovalpage's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Mariah Fredericks

Mariah Fredericks was born and raised in New York City, where she still lives today with her family. She is a graduate of Vassar College with a BA in history. She has written several novels for young adults; her novel Crunch Time was nominated for an Edgar in 2007.

Fredericks's new book is A Death of No Importance, her first mystery for adults.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:
Confession: I am a book slut. I flit from read to read, and it’s rare I read just one book all the way through. I read a lot for research, so I always have a fiction and non-fiction going. And usually one re-read.

My mystery series is set in 1910s New York, so when Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919, Mike Wallace’s follow up to his magisterial Gotham, came out, I went straight to the bookstore and told them to bring it up from the stockroom. I could say I’m reading this book, but it’s more like I’m married to it. This is what my copy looks like [image left].

You want to know which blocks Irish immigrants in the building trade lived on? Wallace will tell you. You want to know when Sophie Tucker gave up black face and why? The Italian experience of the ILGWU? Wallace will tell you. And he writes beautifully. If he ever felt less than enthralled by any aspect of the city’s history, I would never know.

For fiction, I’m reading The New York Stories of Edith Wharton. It’s easy to get distracted by the bustles and beaver hats with a turn-of-the-century author. But even after decades of reading Wharton, I’m amazed at her witty, compassionate take on the intersections of sentiment and commerce, especially in the lives of New Yorkers. In the first story, “Mrs. Manstey’s View,” a lonely woman faces a crisis when her neighbor’s extension threatens her beloved view. What does the fragile, genteel lady do? She burns down the damn extension. Now that’s a New Yorker.

My re-read for this month was Presumed Innocent—so good on the jagged edges of human nature and how we torment one another. It has aged less well in some of its stereotypes, which Turow acknowledges but doesn’t entirely fix with the sequel, Innocent.

Finally, at my 11 year old’s recommendation, I’m reading Marvel Comics’ Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. Which is every bit as wonderful as the title would suggest.
Visit Mariah Fredericks's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Girl in the Park.

The Page 69 Test: A Death of No Importance.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Sam Wiebe

Cut You Down, the latest novel in Sam Wiebe's series featuring Vancouver PI Dave Wakeland, is garnering rave reviews, including a starred review from Publishers Weekly. He's also the author of Invisible Dead and Last of the Independents, and the editor of the forthcoming Vancouver Noir. Wiebe lives in Vancouver.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Wiebe's reply:
Sheena Kamal’s follow-up to her best-selling debut The Lost Ones is titled It All Falls Down. It takes flawed heroine Nora Watts from Vancouver to Detroit in search of clues to her father’s mysterious death, and to her own fractured family life. It builds on the strengths of the first book, while adding new dimensions to the character and delving into topics like North America’s treatment of refugees and soldiers. I really like Nora’s (and Kamal’s) sense of humour, which veers between acidic and absurd.

I’ve also been reading Joe R Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard series, trying to keep ahead of the TV series. Mucho Mojo finds Leonard, a gay black Vietnam vet, inheriting a house from his uncle, only to find the body of a child buried beneath the floorboards. Narrated by Hap, an ex-prisoner and conscientious objector, the story unfolds like a John D. MacDonald novel told by Mark Twain. Darker than the first book, but leavened by the terrific interplay between characters, Mucho Mojo led me to immediately pick up the third book, The Two-Bear Mambo, which has one of those great James Crumley-esque opening paragraphs. Pick it up and see for yourself.
Visit Sam Wiebe's website.

My Book, The Movie: Invisible Dead.

The Page 69 Test: Invisible Dead.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Spencer Kope

Spencer Kope is the Crime Analyst for the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office. Currently assigned to Detectives Division, he provides case support to detectives and deputies, and is particularly good at identifying possible suspects. In his spare time he developed a database-driven analytical process called Forensic Vehicle Analysis (FVA) used to identify the make, model and year range of vehicles from surveillance photos. It's a tool he's used repeatedly to solve crimes. One of his favorite pastimes is getting lost in a bookstore, and he lives in Washington State.

Kope's new novel is Whispers of the Dead.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. His reply:
I recently finished Ready Player One, and what a cool ride. I loved the story, not just because it paints an accurate picture of what I believe our dystopic future might look like, but because it also looks back to the best decade of my life: the 1980s. It’s one of the best stories I’ve read in a while, so I also picked up a first printing to add to my collection of first editions. Now that the Spielberg movie is out, I’ll be lining up to see it at the theater in the next week or so.

I’m currently reading Suspect by Robert Crais, which is shaping up to be a great story, and before that it was Yesterday’s Echo by Matt Coyle, which I really enjoyed.

Much as I’d like to spend my life in novels, I also read a lot of non-fiction. Some of this is research for books I’m writing, other times it’s just because I’m curious by nature. I recently took a load of grief from family members who thought it was hilarious that I was reading a book about salt. They wanted to know if the sequel was called Pepper. The book was Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky, and it was fascinating—or at least I thought so.

Another non-fiction title I recently finished was Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson. This one was research for my crime series, which features a recurring villain nicknamed Leonardo because of the subtle depiction of the Vitruvian Man that he leaves behind. Finally, one of my all-time favorite non-fiction titles remains Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Pure gold.
Visit Spencer Kope's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Nell Hampton

An avid foodie and writer, Nell Hampton (AKA Nancy J. Parra) decided to finally combine her two loves. She lives in Richmond, VA.

Her new novel is Lord of the Pies.

Recently I asked Hampton/Parra about what she was reading. Her reply:
Oh, gosh so many wonderful things. I’m really into research right now for my next book and I’ve been reading British cook books. I have this great one called The Royal Touch by Caroline Robb. She was Princess Diana’s personal chef when the boys were young and the stories that she intersperses with her recipes are wonderful. I like the insight into how the Princes grew up.

I also am reading some great history books on London and Kensington palace. The workings of large households fascinate me.
Visit Nell Hampton / Nancy J. Parra's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Coffee with a Canine: Nancy J. Parra and Little Dog.

The Page 69 Test: Lord of the Pies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Friday, April 13, 2018

Emma Berquist

Emma Berquist grew up in Austin, Texas and sunburns easily.

She currently lives in New Zealand and avoids the beach.

Her new novel is Devils Unto Dust.

Recently I asked Berquist about what she was reading; her reply:
I’ve recently been treating myself to some middle grade books and I just finished Merrill Wyatt’s Ernestine, Catastrophe Queen. Even if I didn’t know the author, I’d have to pick this one up because it’s about a precocious girl trying to start the zombie apocalypse, and I’m all about zombies. This book is so enjoyable, a fast-paced mystery with an irrepressible main character and a cast of farcical elderly patrons. Since I’ve been all kinds of anxious about my first book releasing, I really needed a laugh and a distraction, and this hit the spot exactly.
Visit Emma Berquist's website.

The Page 69 Test: Devils Unto Dust.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thursday, April 12, 2018

David Drake

The Army took David Drake from Duke Law School and sent him on a motorized tour of Viet Nam and Cambodia with the 11th Cav, the Blackhorse. He learned new skills, saw interesting sights, and met exotic people who hadn’t run fast enough to get away.

Drake returned to become Chapel Hill’s Assistant Town Attorney and to try to put his life back together through fiction making sense of his Army experiences.

He describes war from where he saw it: the loader’s hatch of a tank in Cambodia. Drake's military experience, combined with his formal education in history and Latin, has made him one of the foremost writers of realistic action SF and fantasy. His bestselling Hammer’s Slammers series is credited with creating the genre of modern Military SF. He often wishes he had a less interesting background.

Drake's new novel is Though Hell Should Bar the Way.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Drake's reply:
At the moment, I'm actively reading two books:

Log-letters from "The Challenger" by Lord George Granville Campbell. I'm honestly not sure what Campbell's position during the Challenger Expedition of 1872 was--he may have been aboard simply because he was the (third) son of the Duke of Argyle. He certainly wasn't a scientist but he may not have had naval rank either.

Regardless, he has left a lively and informative account of this famous Royal Society scientific expedition--a 19th century predecessor of the International Geophysical Year of my youth.

Mosquito Pathfinder by Albert Smith, the memoir of an RAF navigator during WW II. This has many virtues, starting with the fact that it's clearly and entertainingly written. Smith was very much an oick, the son of a truckdriver from Salford--who happened to be very good at math. Most such memoirs are written by officers with at least a brushing acquaintance with the better classes.

Smith did his job in a variety of aircraft and theaters, describing the problems of living with scorpions and centipedes in North Africa as well as flak and night fighters over Essen in a Wellington.
Visit David Drake's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Susan Henderson

Susan Henderson is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the recipient of an Academy of American Poets award. She is the author of the novels Up from the Blue (2010) and The Flicker of Old Dreams (2018).

Recently I asked Henderson about what she was reading. Her reply:
I'm currently reading Jennifer Haupt's In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, inspired by her time spent as a journalist in Rwanda. It digs deep into trauma to find hope, grace, and a sense of resolution.

Two books I read recently and loved were Hala Alyan's Salt Houses -- a particularly poetic story of a Palestinian family in exile, and Max Porter's Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, that I've now read four times. It's not really a novel (though it says on the cover that it is) and it's not really poetry. It's just a weird and fantastic emotional ride of a family coming to terms with death, with one of the narrators being a crow.
Visit Susan Henderson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Up From the Blue.

The Page 69 Test: The Flicker of Old Dreams.

--Marshal Zeringue