Writers Read: Linda Kass

Saturday, July 18, 2026

Linda Kass

Linda Kass began her career as a magazine journalist and correspondent for regional and national publications. Along with her forthcoming

novel, World News from Waverley High (September 2026), she is the author of three previous works of historical fiction: Tasa’s Song (2016), A Ritchie Boy (2020), and Bessie (2023). A longtime civic leader, she is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in Central Ohio. Kass lives in Columbus with her husband, Frank; they have four children, six grandchildren, and a labradoodle named Wally.

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

A Pair of Aces is one of those rare novels that is co-authored, and seamlessly so. Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray have come together for the third time (The Personal Librarian and The First Ladies) to write this tale of two trailblazing women on opposite sides of the law—a prosecutor and a madam—who team up to bring down notorious mob boss Lucky Luciano in 1930s New York. Eunice Carter is the assistant district attorney for the City of New York and Manhattan’s first Black female prosecutor. Polly Adler, a Russian Jewish immigrant, has worked long and hard to build up her high- class brothel business, her client list filled with well-known names. As Lucky infiltrates the prostitution network and puts Polly’s girls in danger, an unlikely alliance develops between two women that launches the most sensational trial New York has ever seen. While these women are both historic figures and Eunice was part of the team to bring down Luciano, the alliance at the heart of A Pair of Aces was imagined. I love reimagining true history in fiction, something I’ve done in my work.

While I write historical fiction, I read broadly. I admire how tightly Michael Connelly writes his crime novels, and how darn prolific he is. I believe I first watched all seven seasons of Bosch before I read my first Connelly book. The Proving Ground was the recent selection of my personal book club and I happily dug in. The narrator in this Lincoln Lawyer series explains the “proving ground” is that sacred space directly in front of the jury where attorneys must prove their case, and it is exactly where Mickey Haller intimately connects with his jurors. (Mickey conducts most of his legal business from the backseat of his chauffeur-driven Lincoln, whether it’s a Town Car or Navigator, and that’s why he’s called the Lincoln Lawyer.) In this timely and riveting legal thriller, Haller’s client is a grieving mother suing a tech giant over her daughter's murder, allegedly incited by an unregulated AI chatbot, a topic that could be in today’s headlines with its focus on corporate negligence, adolescent loneliness, and AI ethics. Haller’s argument contends the AI company’s chatbot told a teenage boy that it was okay for him to kill his ex-girlfriend for her disloyalty. The story is meticulously researched and compulsively readable, carrying Connelly’s blend of gritty investigation, intense courtroom cross-examinations, and sharp legal tactics.

Whistler by Ann Patchett begins with a surprise encounter. Daphne is strolling with her husband Jonathan at the Metropolitan Museum only to run into the stepfather she hasn’t seen for forty years, a book editor named Eddie Triplett. The reader soon finds out that Daphne and Eddie were nearly killed in a car accident when Daphne was nine. This is a story of love, loss, memory, family, and kindness. As with several Patchett tales, our view of the present is more deeply considered by shining a luminous light on the past. And we also experience intense human connection and all that is good and right, even despite the childhood muddle that came long before. Some of the elements of the story may be inspired by her life, given that Ann, like Daphne, had three fathers and a childhood that was itinerant.