Martin Edwards

Martin Edwards has been described by Richard Osman as "a true master of British crime writing." His novels include the eight Lake District Mysteries and four books featuring Rachel Savernake, including the Dagger-nominated The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge. He is also the author of two multi-award-winning histories of crime fiction, The Life of Crime and The Golden Age of Murder. He has received three Daggers, including the CWA Diamond Dagger (the highest honour in UK crime writing) and two Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America. He has received four lifetime achievement awards: for his fiction, short fiction, non-fiction, and scholarship. He is consultant to the British Library’s Crime Classics and since 2015 has been President of the Detection Club.

Edwards's newest novel is Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife.

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

I read all the time, and much of my reading is crime fiction, because that is what I love. I also need to research books for the British Library Crime Classics series of reprints, for which I’m the consultant. Because I’ve been heavily involved with writing and then promoting Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife for the past two years, I’ve read a huge number of detective stories with a puzzle element of one kind or another. Lately I’ve become rather obsessed with the books of a Scottish writer called D.M. Devine, who also wrote as Dominic Devine. He wrote in the 1960s and 1970s and he was very good at writing traditional mysteries with an ingenious puzzle to be solved. Agatha Christie was a fan of his work, but although his serial killer mystery The Fifth Cord was filmed, as an Italian giallo, he is now more or less forgotten. This is partly because he wrote standalone mysteries rather than a series, and also partly because the type of puzzle he specialised in was rather unfashionable in those days. I recently read another serial killer mystery of his, Three Green Bottles, and it was excellent – tense, clever, and well-characterised.

Learn more about the book and author at Martin Edwards’s website.

Writers Read: Martin Edwards (April 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Frozen Shroud.

The Page 69 Test: Dancing for the Hangman.

The Page 99 Test: The Arsenic Labyrinth.

The Page 99 Test: Waterloo Sunset.

My Book, The Movie: Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife.

--Marshal Zeringue

Finley Turner

Finley Turner is a thriller writer. Initially convinced she wanted to be a professor, she got her master's in religious studies at Wake Forest University, focusing on new religious movements, cults, and religious violence. During her program, she applied for a student position in the university library and quickly realized she would rather be an academic librarian than be at the front of a classroom teaching. She worked as an archivist at Wake Forest University for six years after getting her master's in library and information science from UNC Greensboro. She now writes and parents full time.

Turner's new novel is The Tarot Reader.

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

I'm currently reading The First Witch of Boston by Andrea Catalano and listening to Ruth Ware's newest novel The Woman in Suite 11. In the fall months, especially as Halloween approaches, I always love to read something witchy. What I'm loving about The First Witch of Boston so far is its critique of misogyny in the late 1600s. The woman in question is a talented healer with a loose tongue and a passion for life. These factors, along with her success as a local healer make her an easy target for accusations of witchcraft. Social commentary makes a good story even better and although I'm only halfway through, I'm enjoying myself!

Everyone who knows me knows I'm a huge Ruth Ware fan. I buy all her books without even reading the description and as always, I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. It feels fairly rare for thrillers to be a part of a series, so I'm always intrigued to see where authors take the story for a follow-up. For those that don't know, The Woman in Suite 11 is a sequel to The Woman in Cabin 10 and I’m loving seeing the character later in her life, married with children, yet still finding herself in the middle of a murder investigation. Some things never change!

Visit Finley Turner's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Engagement Party.

Q&A with Finley Turner.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ian Chorão

Ian Chorão is a writer and psychotherapist in private practice in Brooklyn, New York. He lives with his wife, who is a filmmaker and professor; they have two children.

Chorão's new novel, When We Talk to the Dead, is his first book of horror.

Like his main character, Chorão appreciates that the space between feeling and creation, reality and imagination is often ambiguous at best.

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

I'm reading three books at the moment.

The Shining by Stephen King. I know, strange that I've never read it. Usually my experience is seeing a movie of a book I love, but this is the reverse--I know the movie by heart, so I have to actively push it out of my head, so I can read the actual book. What is really great about it is how down to earth the characters and tone of the story are. Planting the supernatural in a very naturalistic setting makes the impact of the horror so much more intense. And I love how much he enjoys giving space to the inner lives of all his characters.

John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie. Being a Beatle fanatic, I promised myself I wouldn't read another book about the Beatles, but this one is different. For the fully indoctrinated, there might not be new factual revelations, but this book is about the emotional psychology between these two men and how it was not just their talent but their relationship and their intense connection that forged the greatest catalog of popular songs. The love they had for one another was on par with a dizzying romantic love. And as happens with love, there were all the other emotions, hurt, anger, envy, but always, always returning to a commitment and companionship and trust that worked like a fortress, protecting and bringing out each others' best parts.

The Unfolding by A.M. Homes. Like reading The Plague during Covid, reading Home's book, which follows the intense negative backlash to Obama's win, and watching like a fly on the wall, how that anger and fear organizes the right, might seem like a hard pill in these times. But actually it has the opposite effect. She nestles the macro planning of the powerful men looking to yank back the power they feel is theirs inside a family drama, where even the most powerful are shown to be painfully mortal. And how she writes dialogue, fast, economical, sharp, and her humor, and her delight in the dark absurd venture that is being a human, it just leaves you breathless.

Follow Ian Chorão on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Vicki Delany

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than forty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, the Catskill Resort mysteries for Penguin Random House, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane.

Delany is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. She is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. Delany lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Delany's new novel is O, Deadly Night: A Year-Round Christmas Mystery.

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

I rarely read a book twice, even one I’ve enjoyed enormously. But somehow this fall I found myself returning to a couple of old favourites.

Keeping Watch by Laurie R King came out originally in 2003 and it had an enormous impact on me at the time. I decided to re-read it again and found it just as powerful as on first reading. King is best known for her Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books, but she’s written quite a few others as well. This is now called Book 2 of a series, but it’s much more of a standalone. The protagonist is a Vietnam War vet, traumatised by an atrocity he took part in, and all these years later still trying to find redemption. It deals with the trauma of war, what survivors have to deal with, and how they try to rebuild shattered lives. Very moving and highly recommended.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron (translated from the Spanish). This is the first book in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, set in Barcelona in the 1920s to 50s. Moody and atmospheric, it’s about the power of books to transform lives. It’s also a powerful message about what it’s like for ordinary, genuinely good, people living under Fascism. The entire collection is highly recommended.

A new book pick was Stone and Sky by Ben Aaronovitch. I’ve been reading the Rivers of London series from the beginning. They’re about a wizard police officer in London, his colleagues, and mentor. By this book he’s married to a River Goddess (yes). The books are fun and clever, as is the world of magic existing alongside ours created by Aaronovitch.

Visit Vicki Delany's website, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

The Page 69 Test: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.

The Page 69 Test: A Scandal in Scarlet.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in a Teacup.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (September 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Deadly Summer Nights.

The Page 69 Test: The Game is a Footnote.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2023).

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Sign of Four Spirits.

The Page 69 Test: A Slay Ride Together With You.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (December 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (July 2025).

The Page 69 Test: Tea with Jam & Dread.

--Marshal Zeringue

D.W. Buffa

The Dark Backward is among D.W. Buffa's more recent novels to be released. The story revolves around not just the strangest case William Darnell had ever tried;

it was the strangest case ever tried by any lawyer anywhere. It was impossible to explain; or rather, impossible to believe. The defendant, who did not speak English or any other language anyone could identify, had been found on an island no one knew existed, and charged with murder, rape and incest. He was given the name Adam, and Adam, as Darnell comes to learn, is more intelligent, quicker to learn, than anyone he has ever met. Adam, he learns to his astonishment, is a member of an ancient civilization that has remained undiscovered for more than three thousand years.

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 "The Use And Abuse Of History" by Friedrich Nietzsche:

Everyone now understands that nothing in the past was what it should have been. No one in the past, none of those whose names are still remembered, measured up, fully measured up, to what we today understand are the standards all decent, right thinking people should meet. Washington and Jefferson, all the others who were once given credit for their commitment to the cause of freedom, either owned slaves themselves or did nothing to bring slavery to an end. History, especially American history, the history that was taught to children in schools and to everyone else in Fourth of July orations, was, if not a conscious lie, a failure to see things as they really were.

What everyone now understands, what everyone now thinks he knows, is not, surprising as it may seem, a new discovery, an original insight of the present age; it is what Friedrich Nietzsche went to war against a hundred fifty years ago. In "The Use And Abuse Of History," the second of four essays known collectively as Thoughts Out Of Season, Nietzsche complained about “unreflective people who write as historians in the naive faith that, according to all popular opinions, their age is right, and that to write in conformity with this age amounts to exactly the same thing as being just.” It is worse than that; the historians want more than to criticize, they want to condemn. “Measuring past opinions and deeds according to the widespread opinions of the present moment is what these naive historians call ‘objectivity.’ It is there that they discover the cannons of all truth; their aim is to force the past to fit the mold of their fashionable triviality.” And as to the worth of these historians, the worth, we must add, of our own over-confident historians, he remarks, “every man’s vanity is directly proportional to his lack of intelligence.” They believe, mistakenly, that, in the present, they stand higher than those in the past, when, instead, they “merely come after them.”

The belief that the present is in all important respects superior to the past would once have been thought a mark of ignorance. The Greeks, the Romans, the Bible, spoke, if in different ways, of a golden age, a time in the past from which there had been, not just a decline, but a departure so great that, looking back, the loss was nothing less than tragic, and history, if it was worth reading at all, nothing more than failed attempts to recapture, reclaim, something of what had once been achieved. The Roman historian, Tacitus, writing in the second century about the sequence of Roman emperors from the death of Augustus to the death of the last of the Caesars, remarked that in the rebellions and civil wars that had taken place the actual course of events was more often than not “dictated by chance,” as if this were a fact too obvious to require any further explanation.

The belief in the superiority of the past, that what was older was better, that what was most ancient deserved not only respect but reverence, first began to be doubted in the seventeenth century when Thomas Hobbes, in a sentence that has become as famous, and perhaps even more famous, than anything written by Greek or Roman writers, described the earliest human beings as living no better than beasts, their lives, “nasty, brutish, solitary and short.” A century later, Rousseau, insisted that, instead of an unchanging nature, man was able to become what he wanted to be, that the human being was perfectible. The French Revolution, inspired by what Rousseau had written, seemed to prove that what he had written was true. Everyone, or almost everyone, now agreed that the rights of man, the equal right to life and liberty, were the basis of legitimate government and the only praiseworthy way of life. The perfectibility of man had been achieved.

But if that were true, Hegel argued at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the past had been nothing more than stages of development. The suffering, the wars, the conflicts and violence, the rise and fall of empires, were nothing but the means by which the human race could, finally, obtain knowledge of itself, and everyone could live in freedom, protected by a powerful but benevolent state. History had reached its long sought end, because, with Hegel, history now understood itself. Nietzsche, at the end of the nineteenth century, thought this nothing short of insanity. History had with Hegel become “a compendium of factual immorality,” in which the development of the world is seen “as occurring for the everyday utility of the modern human being.” Worse yet, with Darwin following Hegel, “the history of humanity is merely the continuation of the history of animals and plants.” Taught all this, modern man looks “with amazement on the miracle” of “the distance traveled,” and tells himself: “We have reached our goal; we are the goal; we are nature perfected. Overproud Europeans of the nineteenth century you are stark raving mad!”

Nietzsche was serious. It was madness to believe, as much of the world believed, and still believes, that the present is the desired culmination of everything that has happened in the past. “In truth, the belief that one is the late born offspring of prior ages is paralyzing and upsetting, but it must seem horrible and destructive when one day, in a brazen inversion, such a belief deifies this late born offspring as the true meaning and purpose of all previous historical events; when his knowing wretchedness is identified with the culmination of world history.”

What, precisely, is the reason - if there is a reason - for the “wretchedness” of the “late born offspring,” i.e. the contemporary man, what Nietzsche would later call “the last man?” He has become an abstraction, his instincts expelled by history, history as taught by Hegel and the historians who came after him, history that “takes the great drives of the masses to be what is important and paramount,” and views all great men “merely as their clearest expression, as if they were bubbles that become visible on the surface of the flood.” The result is that everyone disguises himself behind a mask of the cultivated man, “the scholar, the poet, the statesman,” all of them together “anxiously disguised universal human beings.” There is reason to doubt whether they are human beings at all, or only “merely machines who think, write, and speak,” spectators with an “acquired knowledge that has no outward effect, of learning that fails to become life.” Everyone exists in a state of universal haste and a “universal addiction to comfort.” We moderns “have nothing that we have drawn from ourselves alone; we become something worthy of attention - namely, walking encyclopedias….”

The remedy, the way to escape the “paralyzing education spell cast upon the present age,” is to study the history, and write the history, of “great men,” what Nietzsche calls “monumental history.” Unlike antiquarian history, which finds everything, even the smallest details, interesting about the past; or critical history, which condemns everything that does not meet the standards, however misinformed, of the present; monumental history is concerned with what is great: the life, the “beautiful life,” of those fortunate few who did not believe that simply staying alive was the most important thing. This is the kind of history that should be read by those who need teachers and examples that cannot be found among their contemporaries or in the present age. Nietzsche himself can be explained - he explains himself - as having found what he needed in what had been done, and what had been written, in the past, the very distant past: “it is only to the extent that I am a student of more ancient times - above all, of ancient Greece - that I, as child of our times have had such unfashionable experiences.”

The study of ancient times, the study of Greek history and Greek philosophy, makes it possible - and is perhaps the only thing that can do this - to break with the present and all its false assumptions. Instead of the last man who believes that the highest level of civilization is physical comfort and something to entertain him in the arid emptiness of his meaningless existence - the last man who, Nietzsche insists, is contemptible precisely because he does not know how contemptible he has become - the example of men and women who did great things in the past will cause at least a few others to attempt something great themselves. “With a hundred such unmodernly educated human beings - that is, human beings who have matured and grown accustomed to the heroic - the entire noisy sham cultivation of this age could now be silenced once and for all. -” It has happened before, a rebirth of ancient learning, and with it, a return to the ancient understanding of what human excellence really means. “Suppose someone believed that no more than one hundred productive human beings, educated and working in the same spirit, would be needed to put an end to the cultivatedness that has just now become fashionable in Germany; would he not be strengthened by the recognition that the culture of the Renaissance was borne on the shoulders of just such a band of one hundred men?”

The serious study of history, the history of what great men have done, proves for Nietzsche that men can do great things again. History proves that history has not come to an end; history proves Hegel wrong. But if history does not end with Hegel, neither does it end with Darwin. For Hegel, and the historians who followed him, everything is derived from what went before and becomes, in its turn, the basis for everything that comes after; everything in the past is provisional. Marx, following Hegel, agreed that history comes to an end. Man becomes what he called the ‘species’ animal, able to do, and to be, everything - a hunter for a fisherman in the afternoon, a literary critic in the evening. This is Nietzsche’s last man, the human being with no aspirations to anything higher than himself, content with what he is, convinced that there is nothing beyond himself. Hegel and Marx trace human history from the earliest human beings, unprotected in a state of nature, to the civilization of the industrial age. Darwin traced the development of the human being from its origin as a species. But anyone who takes Darwin seriously has to admit that by its own logic evolution does not stop with the human being. There has to be something higher than the human being, something beyond the last man, something Nietzsche called the “superman.” The last man is not last after all; he is only a brief transition, whose only importance is as the material from which the superman, who has both the knowledge and the will, will create something better.

This was Nietzsche’s hope, a hope based on what from his unsurpassed understanding of Greek philosophy he believed human beings could become again, a hope that vanished when he, and the world around him, descended into madness. The last man now dreams of an even more comfortable existence, spared from all effort by the thoughtless guidance of an artificial intelligence that does not, because it cannot, recognize either human excellence or the mystery of human existence. The need for monumental history has never been more urgent.

Visit D.W. Buffa's website.

Buffa's previous third reading essays: The Great Gatsby; Brave New World; Lord Jim; Death in the Afternoon; Parade's End; The Idiot; The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; The Scarlet Letter; Justine; Patriotic Gore; Anna Karenina; The Charterhouse of Parma; Emile; War and Peace; The Sorrows of Young Werther; Bread and Wine; “The Crisis of the Mind” and A Man Without Qualities; Eugene Onegin; The Collected Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay; The Europeans; The House of Mirth and The Writing of Fiction; Doctor Faustus; the reading list of John F. Kennedy; Jorge Luis Borges; History of the Peloponnesian War; Mansfield Park; To Each His Own; A Passage To India; Seven Pillars of Wisdom; The Letters of T.E. Lawrence; All The King’s Men; The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus; Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of ancient Egypt; Main Street; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part I; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part II; Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Fiction's Failure; Hermann Hesse's Demian; Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and The Fourth of July; Caesar’s Ghost; The American Constitution; A Tale of Two Cities; The Leopard; Madame Bovary; The Sheltering Sky; Tocqueville’s America and Ours; American Statesmen; Ancient and Modern Writers Reconsidered; Père Goriot; Edmund Burke; The Novels of W.H. Hudson; America Revised; The City And Man.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kathleen S. Allen

Kathleen S. Allen is a young adult writer of gothic horror, historical, fantasy, and speculative fiction. She has published poems, short stories, novellas, and novels. She prefers dark to light, salty to sweet, and tea to coffee. She is a fan of K-Pop, classic rock, and British detective shows. She loves gray, foggy, cool, rainy days; unfortunately she lives in Los Angeles which is usually sunny and warm.

Allen's new novel is The Resurrectionist.

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

I am currently reading Katabasis by R.F. Kuang. I’ve read all her books so she’s an automatic buy for me. I started with Babel and was intrigued by the history she wove into her story. I then read the three books in The Poppy War series, again the history intrigued me.

I’m a fan of historical fiction and I especially like Asian history/mythology so picking up Katabasis was an easy decision for me. She uses quite a lot of historical references in Katabasis, which I enjoy. Her writing can be dense at times but it’s worth it to plough through it. As a former professor I can appreciate the academic atmosphere she weaves into her stories. Do I recommend this book? I do!

Visit Kathleen S. Allen's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Resurrectionist.

My Book, The Movie: The Resurrectionist.

--Marshal Zeringue

Randee Dawn

Randee Dawn is a Brooklyn-based author and journalist who writes speculative fiction at night and entertainment and lifestyle stories during the day for publications like the New York Times, NBCNews.com, Variety, The Los Angeles Times, and Emmy Magazine. Her debut novel, Tune in Tomorrow, was published by Solaris. Publishers Weekly said of Tune in Tomorrow: "Dawn balances over-the-top drama and comedy with genuine intrigue to create a fun story with plenty of heart." Lightspeed praised it as "an excellent read if you're looking for something to make you smile... well worth your time."

Dawn's new novel is Leave No Trace.

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

I have several stacks or shelves of to-be-read material, all of which has good intentions behind it – but much of which gathers dust. I am often attracted by the latest shiny new acquisition, but I also derive great pleasure from finally getting to that thing I've been staring at longingly for so long. One of these days, N.K. Jemisin and your Broken Earth trilogy, one of these days!

All of which means there's rarely rhyme or reason to what I pick up – but here are the last several titles I've torn (not literally! Don't tear books!) through.

The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale

This legend of the horror genre had mostly passed me by until I attended a panel at ArmadilloCon (in Austin, TX) in which friends, fans and Lansdale's literary son talked about what made his stories so visceral, scary, and often funny. (Among many other things, Lansdale is the author of the short story "Bubba Ho Tep," about an old man who may just be Elvis battling a mummy.) The book is not for the squeamish; Lansdale goes there and a few steps beyond in ways that made me chuckle darkly, but might not be dinner reading for others. I picked up this book right after the panel in the dealer's room of the convention, and finished it up just a few weeks later, delighted at having found a new (to me) author whose work I wanted to chase down more of.

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

Picoult is important, in that she gets big ideas and moral quandaries into mass-market novels that are widely read, and I applaud her for that. But this one, oh, man, this one … in essence, it's a tale of elephant behavior, grieving rituals and mother-child bonding. Oh, and there's also a human daughter looking for the mother she believes abandoned her, a disenchanted former cop, a failed psychic (or is she) and a massive twist at the end you won't see coming unless you think throughout the whole thing, this teenage daughter does not behave like a 13 year old at all. Oh, and elephants. Did I mention the elephants? So many elephants. Maybe too many elephants. I'm fairly sure I picked this one up for free from a giveaway pile, but I don't recall where.

The Mind Worms by Nicholas Kaufmann

Kaufmann's a friend, so I picked this up from him when he read at a reading series I run in New York City called Brooklyn Books & Booze. This is the third in his trilogy of Dr. Laura Powell books (all of which are worth reading), and all of which involve in some form or the other corporations infecting locals with their toxins. People die in horrible ways, but it's also a mystery – how will the curious coroner Dr. Powell (who also has the worst luck in the world) figure out this particular disaster?

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

When my friend Lynda tells me "this one's a rough ride" in a bookstore as we pass a book, I know it's the one for me. In a futuristic world where animals develop a transmissible virus that prevents them being eaten, it's vegetarian/vegan heaven! Except, it's not: Human desire for flesh means cannibalism is not only fashionable, it's trendy. I'd like to think the world where we decide that eating people (and raising them in herds, as well as hunting and experimenting on them) is more sensible than just becoming vegans is too awfully fanciful to happen, but I live in this world, right now, where people are now deciding that established, verifiable, effective science experiments now need to be tried all over again, like vaccines and fluoride in the water and pasteurization. A rough ride, indeed.

If Wishes Were Retail by Auston Habershaw

A simple premise – what if a genii (or djinn) set up a shop in a mall to dispense wishes (at a reasonable price)? It's much harder than you'd think to get people what they wish, as it turns out, even when he has a helper in 17-year-old Alex, who has one wish of her own: To get out of town and go to college. Auston, who also read with us at Brooklyn Books & Booze, was kind enough to hand me an advanced reading copy of this when we chatted at WorldCon in Seattle in 2025, and I love finding a truly funny author and premise. Not a lot of books make me laugh aloud (even if I enjoy them) and this one has at least one gag that did exactly that.

Visit Randee Dawn's website.

The Page 69 Test: Tune in Tomorrow.

Q&A with Randee Dawn.

My Book, The Movie: Tune in Tomorrow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tony Wirt

Tony Wirt was born in Lake Mills, IA, and got his first taste of publication in first grade, when his essay on Airplane II: The Sequel appeared in the Lake Mills Elementary School’s Creative Courier.

He's a graduate of the University of Iowa and spent nine years doing media relations in the Hawkeye Athletic Department. Wirt has also been a sportswriter, movie ticket taker and Dairy Queen ice cream slinger who can still do the little curly thing on top of a soft serve cone.

He currently lives in Rochester, MN, with his wife and two daughters.

Wirt's new novel is Silent Creek.

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

I’m currently reading It’s the End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand. Being led back into that world by one of the most impressive group of authors that’s ever been assembled has been amazing.

I’m only about halfway through, but the standouts so far have been Gabino Iglesias’s "Hope Boat" and "In a Pig’s Eye" by Joe R. Lansdale. Knowing that heavyweights like S.A. Cosby, Cynthia Pelayo and Tananarive Due are still coming…I cannot wait to read on.

Visit Tony Wirt's website.

The Page 69 Test: Pike Island.

Q&A with Tony Wirt.

My Book, The Movie: Pike Island.

My Book, The Movie: Silent Creek.

The Page 69 Test: Silent Creek.

--Marshal Zeringue

Skyla Arndt

Skyla Arndt has always loved the creepy, crawly side of life. When she was younger, she thought that love might translate to hunting Bigfoot, but luckily for him, writing proved easier. These days, you can catch her writing stories by candlelight, splurging on candles for her office, and continuing to keep an eye out for Bigfoot (because you never know). She lives with her husband and three cats by the perpetually frozen Great Lakes.

Arndt's new novel is House of Hearts.

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

Body Count by Codie Crowley (forthcoming May 2026)

I was lucky enough to snag a copy of Codie Crowley’s wonderfully quirky, YA sapphic slasher. Body Count expertly balances serious themes (sexual autonomy, consent, and domestic violence) with an atmospheric, bubblegum horror backdrop. Our pink-haired protagonist, Sundae Valentine, is on the run from a wish-granting monster she met several years ago at the Jersey Shore. For the longest time, she thought she’d finally outrun him—but when her school chooses to return to the shore for prom weekend, she knows she’s in trouble. If Sundae doesn’t find a way to banish this demon, she’ll lose more than her crown this prom season. She’ll lose her life. An absolute must read!

Visit Skyla Arndt's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Suzanne Redfearn

Suzanne Redfearn is the #1 Amazon and USA Today bestselling author of eight novels: Call of the Camino, Two Good Men, Where Butterflies Wander, Moment In Time, Hadley & Grace, In an Instant, No Ordinary Life, and Hush Little Baby. Her books have been translated into twenty-seven languages and have been recognized by RT Reviews, Target Recommends, Goodreads, Publisher’s Marketplace, and Kirkus Reviews. She has been awarded Best New Fiction from Best Book Awards and has been a Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist.

Born and raised on the east coast, Redfearn moved to California when she was fifteen. Currently, she lives in Laguna Beach with her husband where they own Lumberyard Restaurant. In addition to being an author, Redfearn is an architect specializing in residential and commercial design. When not writing, she enjoys doing anything and everything with her family—skiing, golf, tennis, pickleball, hiking, board games, and watching reality TV. She is an avid baseball fan. Her team is the Angels.

Recently I asked Redfearn about what she was reading. The author's reply:

I have read some amazing books lately. My favorite was a surprise since I don’t normally read fantasy novels. But The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune was my book club’s selection a couple of months ago, and it was incredibly moving and thought provoking. I have the sequel, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, downloaded, and I can’t wait to rejoin the amazing cast of characters from the first novel.

The second story that I absolutely tore through is from one of my favorite authors, Fredrik Backman. I think his latest, My Friends, might be his best book since A Man Called Ove. I don’t know if anyone does a better job developing characters or working humor into storylines of such depth and meaning. I walked away from the story richer for the experience of having read it, which is the mark of a truly great book.

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Coffee with a Canine: Suzanne Redfearn and Cooper.

My Book, The Movie: Hush Little Baby.

The Page 69 Test: Hush Little Baby.

The Page 69 Test: No Ordinary Life.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (February 2016).

My Book, The Movie: No Ordinary Life.

My Book, The Movie: In an Instant.

The Page 69 Test: In an Instant.

Q&A with Suzanne Redfearn.

My Book, The Movie: Hadley and Grace.

The Page 69 Test: Hadley & Grace.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (March 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Moment in Time.

My Book, The Movie: Moment in Time.

Writers Read: Suzanne Redfearn (February 2024).

Writers Read: S. E. Redfearn (October 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Two Good Men.

--Marshal Zeringue