James Markert

J. H. Markert, the author of The Nightmare Man, Mister Lullaby, and Sleep Tight, is the pen name for writer James Markert, an award-winning novelist of historical fiction. Markert is a produced screenwriter, husband, and father of two from Louisville, Kentucky, where he was also a tennis pro for 25 years, before hanging up the racquets for good in 2020. He graduated with a degree in History from the University of Louisville in 1997 and has been writing ever since. With a total of 10 published novels under his belt, Markert writes historical fiction under his name and horror/thriller under J.H. Markert. He has recently completed his next historical novel, Ransom Burning, a civil rights era family/crime drama that Markert calls “my best book yet!” He recently finished another horror novel called Dig, and is currently hard at work on his next novel, Spider to the Fly.

Recently I asked Markert about what he was reading. His reply:

This prompt caught me in between books, one author I’m quite familiar with and another I’m admittedly getting a late start on. I just finished Stephen King’s newest collection, You Like It Darker (yes I do, thank you very much), and thought it was vintage King, the reason I ever started writing in the first place. But onward now to a novel I’ve been wanting to read since finishing the mind-blowing The Cabin at the End of the World, and that is A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. I can already tell, twenty pages in, that it just might creep me out, but in the best of ways!

Visit J.H. Markert's website.

Q&A with J. H. Markert.

My Book, The Movie: The Nightmare Man.

The Page 69 Test: The Nightmare Man.

My Book, The Movie: Sleep Tight.

The Page 69 Test: Sleep Tight.

--Marshal Zeringue

Catriona McPherson

Catriona McPherson was born in Scotland and lived there until 2010, then immigrated to California where she lives on Patwin ancestral land. A former academic linguist, she now writes full-time. Her multi-award-winning and national best-selling work includes: the Dandy Gilver historical detective stories, the Last Ditch mysteries, set in California, and a strand of contemporary standalone novels including Edgar-finalist The Day She Died and Mary Higgins Clark finalist Strangers at the Gate. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, The Crimewriters’ Association, The Society of Authors and Sisters in Crime, of which she is a former national president.

McPherson's new novel is The Witching Hour.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

The brief for this assignment is very clear: do not simply list the books you’ve read. However, if anyone’s interested, everything I’ve read since December 2019 is on this page of my website.

But what have I been reading recently that I want to shout about?

Shannon Baker, a longtime resident of the Nebraska sandhills (although she now lives in Arizona), writes the Sheriff Kate Fox series of police procedurals. Or are they? Kate is one of a large family in a small town, where old feuds and fresh gossip confound every case she encounters. The landscape and lifestyle are brutal but the writing is lush and the stories are always absorbing, whether the background is the plight of migrant workers, the intricacies of policing the reservation or, as in the one I’ve just read, the big business of bucking bulls.

Still in the crime-fiction genre, but a different kettle of fish entirely, I thoroughly enjoyed Janice Hallett’s latest. Hallett writes her novels in the form of emails, texts, transcribed conversations, memos and the occasional news report. When I embarked on The Appeal (her debut), I didn’t expect there to be much characterisation. Shows what I know! The appalling cast of characters in the Fairway amateur dramatic society came rolling of the page and the two true-crime journalists in The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels are no different. Airtight plotting and car crash interpersonal drama – irresistible.

Right now I’m reading James McBride’s Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, seventy-five pages in to . . . a lot. It’s not in the crime genre, but like so much of the best literary fiction there is a puzzle about a crime right in its heart. Mind you, I reckon even if there was no plot whatsoever I’d read on, for McBride’s sharp but warm depiction of the Jewish and Black residents of Chicken Hill in Pottstown, Pa, who sometimes join hands and sometimes lock horns in their struggle to survive, thrive and prosper in the middle decades of the twentieth century. And I’ve fallen in love with Chona, who interrupts the Rabbi to point out mistakes, who will not give up her grocery store and take it easy, no matter that her husband Moshe could now afford to keep her, who is determined to stay on Chicken Hill where she was born. I have no idea what’s going to happen in this novel but I’m all in.

Visit Catriona McPherson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Go to My Grave.

Writers Read: Catriona McPherson (November 2018).

My Book, The Movie: The Turning Tide.

The Page 69 Test: The Turning Tide.

My Book, The Movie: A Gingerbread House.

The Page 69 Test: Hop Scot.

The Page 69 Test: Deep Beneath Us.

Q&A with Catriona McPherson.

The Page 69 Test: The Witching Hour.

--Marshal Zeringue

Laila Ibrahim

Laila Ibrahim is the bestselling author of After the Rain, Scarlet Carnation, Golden Poppies, Paper Wife, Mustard Seed, and Yellow Crocus. Before becoming a novelist, she worked as a preschool director, a birth doula, and a religious educator. Drawing from her experience in these positions, along with her education in developmental psychology and attachment theory, she finds rich inspiration for her novels. She’s a devout Unitarian Universalist, determined to do her part to add a little more love and justice to our beautiful and painful world. She lives with her wonderful wife, Rinda, and two other families in a small cohousing community in Berkeley, California. Her children and their families are her pride and joy. When she isn’t writing, she likes to cuddle with her dog Hazel, take walks with friends, study the Enneagram, do jigsaw puzzles, play games, work in the garden, travel, cook, and eat all kinds of delicious food.

Ibrahim's new novel is Falling Wisteria.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Ibrahim's reply:

At the moment I'm reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. It's been on my 'check it out list' for a long time and I grabbed it when a friend put out a pile of books that included it.

In general I strive to live intentionally. I want to notice what brings me more in line with my values and keeps me in balance physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

I'm only two chapters into the book, however I already appreciate it very much. She lays out her goal clearly as well as her methodology, and then reports on how she did. Her writing is accessible and she is speaking for herself, not as an expert for all humans.

I could see it inspiring me to make my own list of values with measurable tasks that might enhance them. I love a good life hack and the idea that if I pay close attention I can make my already amazing life just a little better.

Visit Laila Ibrahim's website.

Q&A with Laila Ibrahim.

The Page 69 Test: Falling Wisteria.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ayelet Tsabari

Ayelet Tsabari is the author of the memoir in essays The Art of Leaving, finalist for the Writer’s Trust Hilary Weston Prize and The Vine Awards, winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for memoir, and an Apple Books and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2019.

Her first book, the story collection The Best Place on Earth, won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction.

The book was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, was nominated for The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and has been published internationally.

She’s the co-editor of the award-winning anthology Tongues: On Longing and Belonging Through Language. Tsabari teaches creative writing at The University of King’s College MFA and at Guelph MFA in Creative Writing. Her debut novel is Songs for the Brokenhearted.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Tsabari's reply:

I have just finished two books since I always have at least two on the go, one in audio (for walking, driving, hanging laundry, etc.) and one to read in bed at the end of the day.

The audiobook was All Fours by Miranda July, read by her, which made it an extra treat. It's a bold, un-put-down-able book about being a woman in midlife, about sex and marriage and parenthood and art. I admit that it's only through this novel that I was introduced to July's brilliance and I can't believe it took me so long. I devoured it!

The second book was a memoir with the brilliant title, The Widow's Guide to Dead Bastards by Jessica Waite. It is the story of a woman whose beloved husband dies suddenly, leaving her to raise their 9-year-old child on her own. Over the following weeks, as she deals with the unpleasant formalities of death, she discovers shocking, unsettling secrets about her husband that make her question everything. It's beautiful, complex, honest memoir about grief and forgiveness. I found it both funny and deeply moving.

Visit Ayelet Tsabari's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Chris Nickson

Chris Nickson is the author of eleven Tom Harper mysteries, eight highly acclaimed novels in the Richard Nottingham series, and seven Simon Westow mysteries. He is also a well-known music journalist. He lives in his beloved Leeds.

Nickson's newest Simon Westow mystery is Them Without Pain.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Nickson's reply:

I tend to keep two books on the go, a novel for my downstairs ready and something non-fiction on the bedside table. The other week I picked up a Henning Mankel Wallender novel at a free library, and that's sending me down a rabbit hole. I've read many of them before, but a long time ago. Currently I'm on Sidetracked, set around the Swedish midsummer, and a series of strange deaths - most of which are gruesome murders. As always, Wallender is appealing and repellent in equal amounts. I'm curious to see how he solves this one.

Upstairs it's A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages, by Anthony Bale. Travel became an industry then, with increasing numbers going to pilgrimages to Rome, Jerusalem, Compostella and more. I read plenty of English history, but this takes me farther afield. Bale weaves his scholarship lightly and easily, with fascinating details about the people making these voyages and the places they go. The section on Venice is quite detailed, with plenty of interesting asides - apparently the powers that be deemed prostitution necessary to the local economy - and a sense of the place and time, when travel was often interrupted by outbreaks of plague; the Black Death wasn't the only one. I read plenty of history, often as research for my own books. Sometimes, though, it's simply because a topic piques my curiosity, and this did that. So far, it's very satisfying.

Visit Chris Nickson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Iron Water.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Psalm.

Q&A with Chris Nickson.

The Page 69 Test: The Molten City.

My Book, The Movie: Molten City.

The Page 69 Test: Brass Lives.

The Page 69 Test: The Blood Covenant.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Will Rise.

The Page 69 Test: Rusted Souls.

The Page 69 Test: The Scream of Sins.

The Page 69 Test: Them Without Pain.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bryn Turnbull

Bryn Turnbull is an internationally bestselling author of historical fiction. Equipped with a Master of Letters in Creative Writing from the University of St. Andrews, a Master of Professional Communication from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Bachelor's degree in English Literature from McGill University, Turnbull focuses on finding stories of women lost within the cracks of the historical record.

Her debut novel, The Woman Before Wallis, was named one of the top ten bestselling works of Canadian fiction for 2020 and became an international bestseller. Her second, The Last Grand Duchess, came out in February 2022 and spent eight weeks on the Globe & Mail and Toronto Star bestseller lists. It was followed by The Paris Deception, which came out in May 2023.

Turnbull's new novel is The Berlin Apartment.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Turnbull's reply:

Despite my enduring love for history, I find that my reading interests these days tend increasingly towards contemporary fiction: character studies of so-called ordinary people, living so-called ordinary lives. I'm not entirely sure what's driving the shift. Perhaps it's because I've lived so long in the past -- after four novels set between 1910 and 1960, the early 20th century feels quite domestic. Perhaps, too, it's the realization that I've reached the age and stage where the early days of my lifetime are officially historical fiction fodder: apparently, anything older than 30 years is fair game for historical fiction novelists, and I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that, definitionally.

My newest novel is also my youngest: set in Cold War East and West Germany, The Berlin Apartment follows a twenty-something couple separated by the Berlin Wall, who hatch a plan to smuggle Lise, our East German heroine, west. Not to put too fine a point on things, but it didn't escape my notice that my historical novel fishtails neatly with my own story: it came down a year and four months after I came squalling into the world. Historical indeed.

So: contemporary fiction. A few weeks back, I picked up David Nicholls's most recent novel, You Are Here: a really lovely story that hits slightly too close to home about a young-ish (okay, young middle aged) pair of unlikely romantic leads, flung together on a weekend jaunt over England's rolling hills. It's not quite a rom com - it's more poignant than that -- but it has the exact right amount of romance to warm even the chilliest (of elder-millennial hearts.

Visit Bryn Turnbull's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Paris Deception.

The Page 69 Test: The Paris Deception.

Q&A with Bryn Turnbull.

My Book, The Movie: The Berlin Apartment.

The Page 69 Test: The Berlin Apartment.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sofie Kelly

New York Times bestselling author, Sofie Kelly, writes the Magical Cats mysteries, set in the small town of Mayville Heights, Minnesota. As Sofie Ryan, she is the author of the popular bestselling Second Chance Cat mysteries that feature repurpose shop owner, Sarah Grayson, a group of senior sleuths and the world's oldest computer hacker.

Kelly has been a late night disk jockey—which explains her love of coffee--and taught absolutely terrified adults how to swim. Like Kathleen Paulson in the Magical Cats books, she practices Wu style Tai Chi. Kelly is also a mixed-media artist and likes to prowl thrift shops looking for things to re-purpose in her art.

Her new novel is Furever After.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Kelly's reply:

I just finished reading an advance copy of Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch. The book will be out this November.

Fed up over being passed from owner to owner, Pony sets out on a cross-country search for Penny, the little girl he’s never forgotten. Meanwhile, Penny, who’s all grown up, has been arrested, accused of a murder she didn’t commit, and afraid that she has no one to help her prove her innocence. She takes comfort in remembering her beloved pony. The cast of characters includes a goat, a rat, a racehorse and a whole community of animals that help Pony make his way across the country to Penny. Because Pony knows, better than anyone, that the little girl who used to ride him is not a killer.

This really is a one-of-a-kind mystery, but it’s also a story about the power of friendship. Pony is snarky, devious and more than a little self-absorbed. And he’s a wonderful character. I laughed out loud in some places while I was reading and got a lump in my throat in others. I think Pony Confidential is one of the books people will be talking about this fall.

Visit Sofie Kelly's website.

My Book, The Movie: Curiosity Thrilled the Cat.

Writers Read: Sofie Kelly (October 2015).

The Page 69 Test: Faux Pas.

Writers Read: Sofie Kelly (September 2022).

--Marshal Zeringue

Deborah J Ledford

Deborah J Ledford is the award-winning author of the Eva “Lightning Dance” Duran suspense thriller series, including Redemption and Havoc.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Ledford's reply:

I am currently fully immersed in a new mystery, and don’t tend to pleasure read the same genre while writing the first draft. And so, I chose the literary novel Prophet Song by Irish author Paul Lynch for my cookie at the end of the day.

Book seller aficionado Patrick Millikin at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore recommended this absolutely fascinating tale of a wife and mother who is forced to care for her young children alone when a new faction of Dublin’s secret police appear at her door and take her trade union husband away.

Soon the husband is lost to her, no way to find out if he’s alive or dead, or to even get word to him. As she continues to await, others in their tight-knit community disappear, never to be seen again as well. Are the arrests because of the men speaking up for the union, or a deeper and darker nefarious reason? Well, you’ll have to flip the pages to figure out the entire story within a story of what it takes to keep a family together and thrive without losing the conviction that makes a sisterhood of women strong, rather than breaking them.

Most fascinating about Prophet Song is the formatting and presentation on the pages. The book is beautiful to behold on the outside, and then when you open it up—what???? There are no paragraph breaks, no quotation marks, no “traditional” patterns readers are familiar with. But don’t let this be disconcerting. You quickly catch on to the intended method and soon get lost in the fascinating, heart wrenching, powerful read.

Prophet Song is the winner of the Booker Prize 2023 and worthy of a read, no matter your favorite genre.

Visit Deborah J Ledford's website.

Q&A with Deborah J Ledford.

The Page 69 Test: Redemption.

My Book, The Movie: Redemption.

The Page 69 Test: Havoc.

My Book, The Movie: Havoc.

--Marshal Zeringue

D.W. Buffa

D.W. Buffa's newest novel to be released is Evangeline, a courtroom drama about the murder trial of captain who is one of the few to survive the sinking of his ship.

Buffa is also the author of ten legal thrillers involving the defense attorney Joseph Antonelli. He has also published a series that attempts to trace the movement of western thought from ancient Athens, in Helen; the end of the Roman Empire, in Julian's Laughter; the Renaissance, in The Autobiography of Niccolo Machiavelli; and America in the twentieth century, in Neumann's Last Concert.

Here is Buffa's take on Caesar’s Ghost:

It was always dangerous, for those who lived in a monarchy hundreds of years ago, to write that killing the king was the only way to win liberty for their country. The only safe way to write about the virtue of murder, when murder was the only way to replace the rule of one with the rule of all, was to write about a political assassination that had taken place in the past, the distant past, the ancient story of someone murdered because he wanted to be king, the story William Shakespeare told in his play called Julius Caesar, the play that all the loyal subjects of Queen Elizabeth could applaud.

The question, once Shakespeare decided to write a play about why Brutus and Cassius and the others thought Caesar’s ambition, if left unchecked, would be the end of the Roman republic, was how to do it in a way that would make an audience feel an interest in things that had happened more than sixteen hundred years earlier. How teach an audience to understand the strange names, the changing relationships, the different agreements and conspiracies that made the murder of Julius Caesar and the civil war that resulted one of the most important turning points in history? Writing a century and a half after Shakespeare’s death, Samuel Johnson, who understood Shakespeare perhaps better than anyone, thought he knew how it had been done. Shakespeare’s people, which is how he described the characters of Shakespeare’s invention, “act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species.”

The characters - their feelings, their motives, their vanities and ambitions - are known to us because we have observed them, and experienced them, ourselves. Shakespeare understands that. But what about the story, Caesar’s story? Caesar’s life is very far from any life we have known. Shakespeare’s audiences could only follow him through the intricacies of the drama because they “held the thread of the story in their hands.” They had the thread of the story, the story told in Shakespeare’s play of 1599, because Plutarch’s history, the parallel lives of famous Greeks and Romans, had been translated for the first time into English by Sir Thomas North just twenty years earlier, in 1579.

Among the Roman lives, Plutarch’s lives of Brutus and Julius Caesar told every English reader all he needed to know, and all he probably ever knew, about how Caesar became the first man in Rome and how a conspiracy begun by Cassius and led by Brutus ended Caesar’s life and started the struggle that on the Plains of Philippi ended any chance of a restoration of the Roman republic. Because everyone knew the story Plutarch had told, everyone could follow what Shakespeare told them in his play, especially when, as often happened, Shakespeare’s characters used some of Plutarch’s own words.

According to Plutarch, Portia, the daughter of Cato, the philosophical statesman of stern and disciplined morality, complained that Brutus did not share with his wife his secret thoughts.

“I, Brutus, being the daughter of Cato, was given you in marriage not like a concubine, to partake only in the intercourse of bed and board, but to bear a part in all your good and all your evil fortune….” She should “be admitted to…your counsels that require secrecy and trust.”

In Act II, scene ii, Shakespeare has Portia question Brutus: “Am I yourself But, as it were, in sort or limitation, to keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, and talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs Of your good pleasure? If it be no more, Portia is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife.” And then, a few lines later, she reminds him: “I grant I am a woman, but, withal, A woman well-reputed, Cato’s daughter.”

This is but one example of the method Shakespeare followed, a method by which he stays as close to the original source as possible while, at the same time, adding the depth and subtlety of his own understanding and what, in his hands, the English language could be made to do. If it is suggested that this is not what the creative arts were meant to be, it is enough to remind ourselves that it was only after Shakespeare that we began to forget that writers, and not just writers, practiced what were then called, not the creative, but the imitative, arts.

Following as close as possible, tracing in detail, what Plutarch’s histories record, Shakespeare followed an even more ancient source to provide the speech by which Brutus justified Caesar’s murder and the speech by which Marc Antony made Brutus seem, not a patriot, but a criminal. All that Plutarch says about Antony’s speech, the speech that caused the civil war that resulted in a Roman Empire in which, more than Julius Caesar ever contemplated, one man would rule, limited by nothing but his own will, is that Antony, “finding the multitude moved with his speech…unfolded the bloody garment of Caesar, showing them in how many places it was pierced, and the number of his wounds.”

Following Thucydides, the historian of the Peloponnesian War, Shakespeare writes speeches that he imagines the speaker would have given. The first sentence of Plutarch’s biography of Brutus tells where Brutus stood in the eyes of Rome. The sentence is about his ancestor. “Marcus Brutus was descended from that Junius Brutus to whom the ancient Romans erected a statue of brass in the capitol among the images of their kings with a drawn sword in his hand, in remembrance of his course and resolution in expelling he Tarquins and destroying the monarchy.” So severe was he in his refusal to abandon freedom for the rule, however benevolent, of a single man, “he proceeded even to the execution of his own sons,” when he discovered they had conspired with tyrants. This, it may be noted, was the kind of Roman, or more broadly, republican, virtue Machiavelli thought had gone missing from the world.

Marcus Brutus, though far more humane, felt the same devotion to liberty, the same abhorrence of having a king who would make slaves of everyone, a king that the Roman populace, which is to say the Roman mob, was, with Caesar’s secret approval, intent on making Caesar become. In the speech Shakespeare writes, the speech that as you hear it in the play, or read it in the privacy your study, is exactly what, knowing what you have learned from Plutarch, you would expect Brutus to say:

“If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say, that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.”

In Plutarch, Antony, given permission by Brutus over the strenuous objections of Cassius, speaks the next day; in Shakespeare, Antony speaks immediately after Brutus leaves. His speech, Shakespeare’s speech, begins with words every schoolchild used to know by heart: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend your ears: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

Antony’s speech is more than four times longer than the speech in which Brutus argues that Caesar had to die if Rome was to remain free. In a masterpiece of misdirection, Antony repeats each accusation Brutus made, each time insisting that “Brutus is an honorable man,” a claim that soon becomes a mockery. When he gets to the central charge against Caesar, the proof that Caesar intended to be king, Antony reminds the crowd that when he, Antony, had three times presented Caesar with “a kingly crown…he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?”

Unlike Thucydides, Shakespeare adds the reaction of the crowd, the way it changes what it thinks about what it hears. “Mark’d ye his words?” asks one citizen of another. “He would not take the crown; Therefore ’tis certain he was not ambitious.” Antony makes the crowd mad with anger when he shows them Caesar’s blood-stained mantle; he makes them mad with anticipation when he tells them that Caesar in his will has left each of them money and all of them together his gardens. The crowd that had called Brutus the savior of his country now screams: “Burn! Fire! - Kill! - Slay! Let not a traitor live.”

Plutarch, the historian, told the story of Caesar’s death and the civil war that followed. Shakespeare, the playwright, took that history and made it come alive; come alive, moreover, in a way that made the assassination of Julius Caesar become immortal. And Shakespeare knew it. In Act III, scene ii, he puts into the mouth of Cassius a thought nowhere found in Plutarch: “How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted O’er, In states unborn and accents yet unknown!”

Samuel Johnson understood. Shakespeare, he wrote, “has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit.” Shakespeare has outlived more centuries than that, in part because great actors have wanted nothing so much as to perform in one of Shakespeare's plays. In a coincidence so remarkable as to be almost beyond belief, one of the greatest Shakespearian actors was named, like Brutus’ own ancestor, Junius Brutus Booth. Born in 1796, he was enormously popular on both the London stage and in America. His performances were literally unforgettable. The 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, as sober a publication as there ever was, remarks, “His eccentricities bordered on insanity, and his excited and furious fencing in Richard III and as Hamlet frequently compelled the Richmond and Laertius to fight for their lives in deadly earnest.”

The actor’s ability to confuse himself with the role he plays continued with his sons. In the introduction to Julius Caesar in the Yale edition of the collected works of Shakespeare, we are told that the “crowning achievement in America’s production of Julius Caesar will always be the magnificent double triumph of Edwin Booth and Lawrence Barrett in the 60s, 70s and 80s” of the l9th century. It was in the fall of 1864 that Edwin Booth appeared in Julius Caesar with his two brothers. Six months later, on April 14, 1965, one of his brothers, John Wilkes Booth, perhaps convinced that he was himself Brutus, murdered Abraham Lincoln in the Ford Theatre in Washington as Lincoln sat watching a play.

Julius Caesar was murdered more than two thousand years ago, but Caesar’s ghost will live forever, or at least as long as there are readers to turn the pages of Plutarch’s astonishing histories and Shakespeare’s marvelous plays.

Visit D.W. Buffa's website.

Third reading: The Great Gatsby. 

Third reading: Brave New World.

Third reading: Lord Jim.

Third reading: Death in the Afternoon.

Third Reading: Parade's End.

Third Reading: The Idiot.

Third Reading: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Third Reading: The Scarlet Letter.

Third Reading: Justine.

Third Reading: Patriotic Gore.

Third reading: Anna Karenina.

Third reading: The Charterhouse of Parma.

Third Reading: Emile.

Third Reading: War and Peace.

Third Reading: The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Third Reading: Bread and Wine.

Third Reading: “The Crisis of the Mind” and A Man Without Qualities.

Third reading: Eugene Onegin.

Third Reading: The Collected Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Third Reading: The Europeans.

Third Reading: The House of Mirth and The Writing of Fiction.

Third Reading: Doctor Faustus.

Third Reading: the reading list of John F. Kennedy.

Third Reading: Jorge Luis Borges.

Third Reading: History of the Peloponnesian War.

Third Reading: Mansfield Park.

Third Reading: To Each His Own.

Third Reading: A Passage To India.

Third Reading: Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

Third Reading: The Letters of T.E. Lawrence.

Third Reading: All The King’s Men.

Third Reading: The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.

Third Reading: Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of ancient Egypt.

Third Reading: Main Street.

Third Reading: Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part I.

Third Reading: Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part II.

Third Reading: Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Third Reading: Fiction's Failure.

Third Reading: Hermann Hesse's Demian.

Third Reading: Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and The Fourth of July.

--Marshal Zeringue

Adam Mitzner

Adam Mitzner is the acclaimed Amazon Charts bestselling author of Dead Certain, Never Goodbye, and The Best Friend in the Broden Legal series as well as the stand-alone thrillers A Matter of Will, A Conflict of Interest, A Case of Redemption, Losing Faith, The Girl from Home, The Perfect Marriage, and Love Betrayal Murder. A practicing attorney in a Manhattan law firm, he and his family live in New York City.

Mitzner's new novel is The Brothers Kenney.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Mitzner's reply:

Right now, I’m midway through Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Long Island Compromise, and loving it. I live on Long Island, so the terrain feels familar, but what makes the novel so great are the characters she’s able to write. They are people that you might know in your life, but who at the same time are so damaged that they’re laugh out loud funny.

Before her book, I finished Alex Finlay’s If Something Happens to Me, which was as fast-paced a thriller as I’ve read in a long time. It takes place in various locales (from Kansas to Tuscany) and is told from multiple points of view, but what I loved most about is that it keeps you guessing until the final page.

Visit Adam Mitzner's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Conflict of Interest.

My Book, The Movie: A Conflict of Interest.

The Page 69 Test: A Case of Redemption.

My Book, The Movie: A Case of Redemption.

The Page 69 Test: Losing Faith.

My Book, The Movie: Losing Faith.

The Page 69 Test: A Matter of Will.

My Book, the Movie: A Matter of Will.

My Book, The Movie: The Perfect Marriage.

The Page 69 Test: The Perfect Marriage.

Q&A with Adam Mitzner.

Writers Read: Adam Mitzner (May 2023).

My Book, The Movie: Love Betrayal Murder.

The Page 69 Test: Love Betrayal Murder.

My Book, The Movie: The Brothers Kenney.

--Marshal Zeringue

Amanda Sellet

Amanda Sellet is a former journalist and the author of romcoms for teens and adults, including By the Book, which Booklist described in a starred review as, “impossible to read without laughing out loud.” She loves old movies, baked goods, and embarrassing her teen daughter.

Sellet's new novel, Hate to Fake It to You, is her adult debut.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Sellet's reply:

This is a year of continuous and overlapping deadlines for me, which means even my leisure reading needs to multitask. Each of these titles relates to a current or future writing project, but since some of these works-in-progress are still top-secret, I’ll stick to the vague interest areas of “screwball comedy retellings,” “general fiction with a strong romantic subplot,” and “frothy mystery.”

Lady Eve’s Last Con by Rebecca Fraimow: In July, I had the absolute pleasure of moderating a virtual panel with a group of writers whose books draw inspiration from classic films—including this sparkling space caper, a must-read even if sci-fi isn’t your usual stomping ground. Fraimow updates the Preston Sturges classic The Lady Eve by trading cruise ships for spaceships, preserving the original’s wisecracking heroine, audacious hoax, and 1940s jargon in a beautifully crafted romp with a sharp eye for economic disparity. (If you enjoy the madcap energy of The Lady Eve, stay tuned for news about my summer 2025 release!)

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue: It’s been a very long time since I occupied a cubicle, but this dryly witty contemporary took me right back to the sad packed lunch and fluorescent lights era of my life, complete with the petty resentments that fester amidst the 9-to-5 grind. Main character Jolene’s acerbic inner monologue won me over immediately, because I will follow a genuinely funny voice almost anywhere—even when it begins in a fairly dark place. Which is not to say that this falls into the style of books I think of as “misery porn,” where the goal is to rub the reader’s nose in human suffering for maximum melodrama. This is a much more hopeful and compassionate vision of the world, with moving twists and turns that shift the relationships—and reader perceptions—of a forced family of work colleagues.

Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies by Catherine Mack: Did I save this book so that I could hold it up in a vaguely menacing fashion while on vacation? Absolutely. (You’re welcome, Mom!) I’m a sucker for funny footnotes, which this book leans into in a big way, and thoroughly enjoyed the playfully meta stylings of a mystery novelist using her “skills” to solve an actual crime while on a fraught book tour of absurdly picturesque Italian locales. This would pair really well with a lemon spritz, so provision your cocktail cupboard accordingly.

Visit Amanda Sellet's website.

Q&A with Amanda Sellet.

The Page 69 Test: By the Book.

Writers Read: Amanda Sellet (December 2022).

--Marshal Zeringue

Zoje Stage

Zoje Stage is the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of the psychological thrillers Baby Teeth and Getaway, and the psychological horror novels Wonderland and Mothered. Her books have been named "best of the year" by Forbes Magazine, Library Journal, PopSugar, LitReactor, Barnes & Noble, Book Riot, and more.

Stage's new novel is Dear Hanna, the follow-up to her international sensation Baby Teeth. She lives in Pittsburgh with her cats.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Stage's reply:

I just finished reading All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby—a police procedural mystery set in rural Virginia. This novel had two exceptionally strong elements: its main character, Sherrif Titus Crown, and the atmosphere of the town itself. In certain ways it reminded me of another recent read, The Searcher by Tana French, which also had a small town setting—Ireland, in this case—and a compelling detective who embodied integrity. Both of these mysteries really benefitted from their locations, where the history and communities contributed a very visceral element, making both novels feel very alive and layered.

Another recent read was The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy. People like to think of the 1950s as this wholesome time—but it was also a time when women couldn't have their own bank accounts, and their husbands could have them committed to mental institutions. Even with the presence of a supernatural element, this novel's purpose was to explore that darker underside of midcentury domestic life.

Visit Zoje Stage's website.

Writers Read: Zoje Stage (July 2018).

Q&A with Zoje Stage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Liz Alterman

Liz Alterman is the author of The Perfect Neighborhood, He'll Be Waiting, and Sad Sacked. Her work appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney's, and other outlets. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and three sons where she spends most days microwaving the same cup of coffee and looking up synonyms. When Alterman isn't writing, she's reading.

Her new novel is The House on Cold Creek Lane.

Recently I asked Alterman about what she was reading. Her reply:

I love to jump back and forth between fiction and non-fiction and print and audiobooks.

I just finished reading Margot Harrison's intriguing The Midnight Club, which follows four adult friends who reunite in an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of their friend and classmate's death during their college days. Set in Vermont, it's very atmospheric and has a speculative element as the group uses a substance known as "sog" to travel back to the past to relive the moments right before their friend's death. I loved this unique premise and Harrison's smooth mix of pop culture and poetry references. Fans of The Secret History will enjoy this wild ride.

I also recently listened to Gary Janetti's We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay and thoroughly enjoyed every bit--right down to the acknowledgements. It's perfect summer reading/listening as it covers the pleasures and perils of travel in a fun, keenly observed way that you can't help but nod and laugh along.

I'm always hunting for books to motivate and inspire my writing and Steve Almond's Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow is a true gem. I've been recommending it to writer friends since I finished the first chapter. Almond narrates the audiobook and brings so much humor and heart to his advice that I know this is one I'll return to again and again.

On the thriller side, I listened to Tracy Sierra's Nightwatching earlier this summer and had goosebumps for the duration. The writing is fantastic and Emily Ellet's narration brings this harrowing tale to life in a way that had me glancing over my shoulder, convinced a intruder was lurking in the corner. Initially, I picked it up because (lucky for me!) Emily agreed to voice the Corey character in my novel The House on Cold Creek Lane, but after the first few minutes, I forgot all that and was completely spellbound by the story.

Visit Liz Alterman's website.

Q&A with Liz Alterman.

My Book, The Movie: The Perfect Neighborhood.

The Page 69 Test: The Perfect Neighborhood.

The Page 69 Test: The House on Cold Creek Lane.

My Book, The Movie: The House on Cold Creek Lane.

--Marshal Zeringue

Reed Farrel Coleman

Called a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the noir poet laureate in the Huffington Post, Reed Farrel Coleman is the New York Times-bestselling author of thirty-one novels—including six in Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series—short stories, poetry, and essays.

In addition to his acclaimed series characters, Moe Prager and Gus Murphy, he has written the stand-alone novel Gun Church and collaborated with decorated Irish crime writer Ken Bruen on the novel Tower.

Coleman is a four time Edgar Award nominee in three different categories: Best Novel, Best Paperback Original, and Best Short Story. He is a four-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the Year. He has also won the Audie, Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards.

With their kids moved away to far off Brooklyn, Coleman, his wife Rosanne, and their cats live in the wilds of Suffolk County on Long Island.

His new Nick Ryan novel is Blind to Midnight.

Recently I asked the author about what I'm reading. Coleman's reply:

During the course of my career—my first novel was published in 1991—reading has become, much to my regret, more of a chore and less of a pleasure. It can be an occupational hazard for a genre writer as you know the shorthand and can see what the person behind the curtain is doing to manipulate the reader. That combined with reading for blurbs kind of took it all out of me. During the pandemic I developed a bad case of “Reader Block” and found I had energy only to write. It’s eased somewhat, but in its wake I have found that I now want to read only high quality stuff from writers I love. I say this so you can understand why I’m mentioning the books I’m about to discuss.

Currently, I’m reading The Murder of Mr. Ma by SJ Rozan and John Shen Yen Nee. SJ’s always been a favorite and the setting is 1920s London. It is a fascinating Sherlock Holmes-ian style novel that shines a light on ugly anti-Asian racism. And any book that begins with Bertrand Russell playing a big part’s got me.

New on my list is Still Waters by Matt Goldman. Matt, a former TV comedy writer, is great at setting up readers with premises that grab you immediately and don’t let go. I can’t wait to dig in.

After Matt, I’ve got some of my favorites to reread. In that queue are: Berlin Noir by the late great Philip Kerr, A Dance at the Slaughterhouse by Larry Block, and The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell. I can’t bear to reread my older works, but works by the masters are always the way to go.

Visit Reed Farrel Coleman's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Hollow Girl.

The Page 69 Test: Where It Hurts.

The Page 69 Test: What You Break.

My Book, The Movie: Sleepless City.

Q&A with Reed Farrel Coleman.

The Page 69 Test: Sleepless City.

--Marshal Zeringue

Christina McDonald

Christina McDonald is the USA Today and Amazon Charts bestselling author of What Lies In Darkness, The Stranger At Black Lake, These Still Black Waters, Do No Harm, Behind Every Lie, and The Night Olivia Fell, which has been optioned for television by a major Hollywood studio.

Her critically acclaimed novels have been featured on lists from Entertainment Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Real Simple, and more. Her writing has been featured in The Sunday Times, Dublin, USAToday.com, and Expedia.

Originally from Seattle, WA, she has an MA in Journalism from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and she now lives in London, England with her husband, two sons, and their dog, Tango.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. McDonald's reply:

I read almost exclusively fiction, and tend to stick within the thriller genre, which is also what I write. As an author, I’m lucky to be given early reader copies of upcoming books in order to blurb if I enjoy them. One I’ve read lately that really stands out for me is Catch You Later by Jessica Strawser.

Catch You Later is about two best friends, Mikki and Lark, who have nothing but each other. Working night shift together at a highway travel stop, Mikki and Lark are going nowhere fast. Until a stranger stops by the travel stop and Mikki impulsively leaves with him, never to be seen again.

Hypnotic, elegant and beguiling, Catch You Later is a beautifully written story about the power of female friendships, about the ties that bind, and those that set you free. There’s a compelling mystery, emotional depth and tightly plotted twists, but where this book really shines is its characters. Mikki, who disappears, and Lark, left behind to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.

Catch You Later is smart and textured with a dark, atmospheric heart. It’s one of those books that I thought about long after finishing the final pages. I highly recommend reading when it comes out in October 2024!

Visit Christina McDonald's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Night Olivia Fell.

The Page 69 Test: These Still Black Waters.

Q&A with Christina McDonald.

--Marshal Zeringue

Molly MacRae

Molly MacRae spent twenty years in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Upper East Tennessee, where she managed The Book Place, an independent bookstore; may it rest in peace. Before the lure of books hooked her, she was curator of the history museum in Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town.

MacRae lives with her family in Champaign, Illinois, where she recently retired from connecting children with books at the public library.

Her latest novel is Come Shell or High Water.

Recently I asked MacRae about what she was reading. Her reply:

Mortal Radiance, the second book in Kathryn Lasky’s Georgia O’Keeffe mystery series just came out. But I didn’t know about this historical mystery series, until I heard about Mortal Radiance, so I rushed right out to get book one, Light on Bone. It’s wonderful. Set in 1933 New Mexico, it’s told from O’Keeffe’s point of view. She’s living alone in a casita at Ghost Ranch and protective of her painting time and solitude. That solitude is first shattered when she comes across a murdered Franciscan friar, and then by an accumulation of other events, including the arrival of Charles Lindbergh and his wife at the ranch. As O’Keeffe collects facts and suppositions about the murder and other events, she begins to think about them the way she thinks about art—about seeing the unseen and about making visible the invisible. Lasky’s vivid writing make me feel as though I’m in O’Keeffe’s beloved New Mexican landscape and inside O’Keeffe’s fascinating mind.

I’m also making my way through the short stories in The Killing Rain; Left Coast Crime 2024 Anthology, edited by Jim Thomsen. The stories are all set in the Seattle area. They range from traditional to humorous to hardboiled. I’ve read nine of the fourteen stories, so far, and each is excellent.

In the early 80s I decided I wanted to make paper and started collecting cotton lint from our dryer. Life (and growing children) intervened. This summer (only forty years later) I’m going to try again. To help, I borrowed every book about papermaking the library has. Helen Hiebert’s Papermaking with Garden Plants & Common Weeds is my favorite. Hiebert gives clear definitions, instructions, recipes, and charts of papermaking plants. She suggests techniques and projects, and she offers encouragement. I’ll start with some of the easier methods to see if I can really do this. If I can, then I’ll work my way up to making paper from the mulberries and Rose of Sharon that grow like weeds in our backyard. Weeding through papermaking sounds like an efficient plan.

Visit Molly MacRae's website.

My Book, The Movie: Plaid and Plagiarism.

The Page 69 Test: Plaid and Plagiarism.

The Page 69 Test: Scones and Scoundrels.

My Book, The Movie: Scones and Scoundrels.

The Page 69 Test: Crewel and Unusual.

The Page 69 Test: Heather and Homicide.

Q&A with Molly MacRae.

--Marshal Zeringue