Andrew Welsh-Huggins

Andrew Welsh-Huggins, a son of the Finger Lakes and now longtime Ohio resident, is the Shamus, Derringer, and International Thriller Writers-award nominated author of 10 mystery novels and two nonfiction books, and editor of a short-story anthology

His latest novel, The Mailman, is a Library Journal pick of the month. Publishers Weekly said of the thriller: “With full-throttle pacing from start to finish, this will have Jack Reacher fans hoping Carter is back in action soon.”

Recently I asked Welsh-Huggins about what he was reading. The author's reply:

My recent reads reflect my attempt to read across genres as widely as possible while acknowledging that I spend most of my time devouring crime fiction.

The Left-Handed Twin, by Thomas Perry

Perry, a fellow Mysterious Press author, is a veteran writer of compulsive thrillers. Among his books is an ongoing series about Jane Whitefield, a woman who helps people in trouble disappear. In this outing, Whitefield takes the case of a young woman named Sara, whose charmed life as the girlfriend of a Hollywood fixer turns dark when her boyfriend kills a man Sara had a brief affair with. After Sara testifies against the boyfriend at trial, he vows to kill her and gains the ability when he’s found not guilty and released. Whitefield is a compelling character not least because, while she possesses above-average skills and talents, she comes across as an everyday person who uses what’s at hand to defeat the brutes (in this book, Russian mercenaries) who come after her and her clients.

How to Sell A Haunted House, by Grady Hendrix

You’ll never look at hand puppets, marionettes, or dolls the same way after reading Hendrix’s horror novel, at turns terrifying, thought-provoking, and witty. Supernatural events suffuse the book and the monster at the heart of the action comes off as evil personified. What sets this book apart, however, is the way Hendrix grounds the horror and otherworldly events solidly in the real world. When Louise is called home to Charleston after her parents die in a car crash, she dreads dealing with her failure-to-launch brother, Mark, and the house her parents crammed full of puppets related to her mother’s Christian puppet ministry. Louise’s dread is well-founded but not for the reasons she thinks. The equally horrifying and uplifting book is as much about family dynamics and dysfunction, and the corrosive effect of keeping secrets, as it is about inexplicable occurrences.

Master Slave Husband Wife, by Ilyon Woo

This meticulously researched nonfiction book tells the true story of an enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, who escaped bondage in Macon, Georgia, in 1848 with the lighter-skinned Ellen disguising herself as a white man and taking William along as her “slave.” Woo writes with a historian’s eye for detail and a thriller novelist’s attention to drama, parceling out excruciating accounts of life in the antebellum South that somehow we never learned in high school history class. Although the Crafts’ escape from the South is gripping enough, Woo keeps our attention for the second half of the book as the Crafts grapple with their new-found fame and the nation tilts toward civil war. While the book recounts events nearly two hundred years old, its focus on the racial prejudice engrained in our country’s beginnings feels equally relevant today.

Visit Andrew Welsh-Huggins's website.

My Book, The Movie: An Empty Grave.

Q&A with Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

The Page 69 Test: An Empty Grave.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (April 2023).

My Book, The Movie: The End of the Road.

The Page 69 Test: The End of the Road.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (November 2024).

My Book, The Movie: Sick to Death.

The Page 69 Test: Sick to Death.

The Page 69 Test: The Mailman.

--Marshal Zeringue