Vicki Delany

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers. Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen is her twentieth book, and the first in the Year Round Christmas cozy series from Berkley Prime Crime. Under the pen name of Eva Gates, she is the national bestselling author of the Lighthouse Library series, the latest of which is Booked for Trouble. Delany lives in Prince Edward County Ontario, and she is the current president of the Crime Writers of Canada.

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

I’ve just put aside the book my book club is reading this month. I’ve read about a quarter of it, and can’t stand any more. It’s the first book the club has chosen that I didn’t like at all. I won’t mention it except to say that I’m surprised we’re reading such a standard lump of “women’s fiction” (and that’s a phrase I hate). I’ve more or less enjoyed every book the club has read so far, and one of the things I like best about being in the book club is the chance to read books of the sort I wouldn’t normally read.

After giving the club’s book up, I started The Sonnet Lover by Carol Goodman. I like Goodman’s psychological suspense novels very much and I don’t know why this one, published in 2007, escaped my notice, but I’m glad I found it.

Next up is a book I’ve been looking forward to for some time, but I didn’t buy it because for some reason it was shockingly expensive here in Canada, but finally the price came down to a respectable level. It’s The Third Sin by Aline Templeton, and is one of the DI Marjorie Fleming novels. I love the British-style police procedurals best of all, and Templeton is up there with my favourites. I guess I particularly like that Marjorie is a normal Scottish wife and mother, married to a farmer with a hectic family life and a couple of difficult teenagers. Oh, and she’s also the head of a police team.

After that, I’ll be reading A Killer Necklace by Canadians Melodie Campbell and Cynthia St-Pierre. In my writing life I mix up my styles and sub-genres and I like to do so as a reader as well.

Visit Vicki Delany's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Writers Read: Eva Gates / Vicki Delany (October 2015).

The Page 69 Test: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.

--Marshal Zeringue

Juliet Marillier

Juliet Marillier was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, a town with strong Scottish roots. She graduated from the University of Otago with degrees in languages and music, and has had a varied career that includes teaching and performing music as well as working in government agencies. Marillier now lives in a hundred-year-old cottage near the river in Perth, Western Australia, where she writes full-time. She is a member of the druid order OBOD. She shares her home with a small pack of waifs and strays. Her historical fantasy novels and short stories are published internationally and have won a number of awards.

Marillier's Blackthorn & Grim novels are Dreamer’s Pool and Tower of Thorns.

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

Right now I am working towards a tight deadline for my current project, the third novel in the Blackthorn & Grim series, and that means I have to curtail my reading for pleasure as it gobbles up too much time. On my bedside table there’s a pile of reference material – books about trees, mythology, medieval building methods, all relevant to my current writing. But I have allowed myself time to read new novels by a couple of favourite authors.

I just finished Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith, third installment in the Cormoran Strike series of mysteries featuring this unusual private detective and his sidekick, Robin Ellacott. Robert Galbraith is, of course, none other than J. K. Rowling under another name. While I didn’t enjoy her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, I’m impressed by the Cormoran Strike series, which I think is getting stronger with each book. I stayed up very late to finish Career of Evil.

The Comroran Strike novels are stand-alone mysteries. The volatile relationship between disabled war veteran turned private eye Strike and his assistant Robin, who has career ambitions and a needy fiancé, runs through the series. Both Strike and Robin are complex, damaged individuals whom the author brings to convincing life on the page. The secondary characters in Career of Evil are also very well drawn, an element that was a little lacking in the earlier books of the series.

The story opens with Robin opening the office mail to find a severed human leg in a parcel addressed to her. Strike identifies four people from his past who may have sent this out of malice. The police seem fixed on one particular suspect, so Strike and Robin start their own investigation into the other three. As more crimes occur, the two are drawn down some very dark paths. Before the end, each faces deadly danger. The novel’s conclusion is satisfying on all counts and will leave readers waiting impatiently for the next installment.

I’ve also read After You, a contemporary novel by well-known UK writer JoJo Moyes. After You is a sequel to Me Before You, which is being made into a feature film to be released in 2016. JoJo Moyes is one of my favourite writers. She has a deft touch with voice and her female protagonists are remarkably real women, with convincing strengths and flaws. We cheer their triumphs and groan at their sometimes misguided choices. Moyes’s stories are compelling, believable, funny and tragic. I think her contemporary novels are her strongest – she’s written many historicals as well – and After You is no exception.

It’s hard to say much about the story without including spoilers for Me Before You. The protagonist of both novels is Lou Clark, who in the new book is trying to put herself together after the events of Me Before You (this story takes place eighteen months later.) Lou hasn’t kept a promise she made to her beloved Will. She’s working in a dead-end job, feeling alone, and wondering if she’ll ever be prepared to take a risk again. Then she does, and everything changes.

For those unfamiliar with this author’s work, I’d suggest you start with Me Before You (read it before you see the film, in case they ruin it by changing the ending) or the lighter but equally wonderful The One Plus One, which was a Sunday Times bestseller. They are engaging, thought-provoking novels that don’t shy away from tackling serious issues.

Visit Juliet Marillier's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Juliet Marillier & Pippa, Gretel, and Sara.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sally Andrew

Sally Andrew lives on a nature reserve in South Africa's Klein Karoo with her partner, Bowen Boshier, and other wildlife, including a secretive leopard. Her background is in adult and environmental education, and she has published a number of nonfiction books.

Andrew's debut novel is Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery.

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

I am halfway through the autobiography of Agatha Christie, which I am finding very entertaining and interesting. I admire her crime writing enormously, and find it fascinating what a fun and 'unambitious' child and young woman she was. She loved to play and to sing, and had quite some difficulty speaking and writing.

I'm also reading Alexander McCall Smith's charming '44 Scotland Street' series. They give me a lovely taste of Edinburgh, make me smile, and lower my adrenaline levels.

I have a pile of delicious Perry Mason novels (by Erle Stanley Gardner) that my man and I have hunted and gathered from second hand bookstores. I could gobble them all up at once, but I eke them out. I have just read The Case of the Amorous Aunt. Clever, funny, delightful. Can you believe that man used to write 1,000,000 words a year? (That's 10 x my book.)

Visit Sally Andrew's website.

My Book, The Movie: Recipes for Love and Murder.

The Page 69 Test: Recipes for Love and Murder.

--Marshal Zeringue

Gail Carriger

Gail Carriger writes comedic steampunk mixed with urbane fantasy in three series: 2 adult, the Parasol Protectorate and the Custard Protocol, and 1 YA, the Finishing School series. Her newest book ends the Finishing School series and is called Manners & Mutiny. Her books are published in 18 different languages. She has 12 New York Times bestsellers via 7 different lists (including #1 in Manga). She was once an archaeologist and is overly fond of shoes, hedgehogs, and tea.

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

Jinn and Juice by Nicole Peeler

It's very much what I think of as classic urban fantasy. By which I mean: lots of fun side characters, pithy remarks, witty banter, scenes full of action, and a nice thread of romance. I like Peeler's skewed take on urban fantasy world building, particularly with the Jinn as magical creatures and the Magi who can control them. Her main character, Lyla, is brash and bold, but hampered by an (understandably) paralytic fear of slavery. Lyla's reactions and interactions are all characterized by this fear, but that doesn't stop her from being fun - just makes her more complex. The setting is Pittsburgh, where steel had corrupted a major magical node, so that only half magical beings (AKA the misfit toys) can live and work spells. A quick, fun, uplifting read.

Learn more about the book and author at Gail Carriger's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Waistcoats & Weaponry.

The Page 69 Test: Manners & Mutiny.

--Marshal Zeringue

Stephen L. Moore

Stephen L. Moore, a sixth-generation Texan, graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, where he studied advertising, marketing, and journalism. He is the author of multiple books on World War II and Texas history, including Pacific Payback: The Carrier Fly Boys Who Avenged Pearl Harbor at the Battle of Midway and Taming Texas, a biography of his great-great-great grandfather William T. Sadler, who was one of the first Texas Ranger captains in the 1830s.

His new book is The Battle for Hell’s Island: How a Small Band of Carrier Dive-Bombers Helped Save Guadalcanal.

Recently I asked him about what he was reading. Moore's reply:

More often than not, I read books related to subjects that I am currently studying or have ongoing interest in.

I’m currently reading William H. Bartsch’s Victory Fever on Guadalcanal. His liberal use of first-person accounts, both Japanese and American, bring refreshing new detail to one of the most vicious fights endured by U.S. Marines in the Pacific War, the Battle of Tenaru. I really appreciate such books that blend fast-paced reading with accurate details—due to this author’s ability to dig deep into both eyewitness and official records.

Recently, I read Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides. Although it has been out for a while, it is a remarkable story of one of the greatest rescue missions of World War II. It also of great interest to me since a small part of it touches on one of my upcoming projects.

Visit Stephen L. Moore's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

C. Joseph Greaves

C. Joseph Greaves spent 25 years as an L.A. trial lawyer before becoming a full-time writer. In addition to penning historical/true crime fiction (beginning with 2012’s Hard Twisted, from Bloomsbury), he writes (as Chuck Greaves) the award-winning Jack MacTaggart series of L.A.-based legal mysteries (Hush Money, Green-Eyed Lady, and The Last Heir) for St. Martin’s Minotaur. Greaves won the 2010 SouthWest Writers International Writing Contest and has been a finalist for many national honors including the Shamus, Rocky, Reviewers’ Choice, and Audie Awards, as well as the New Mexico-Arizona, Colorado, and Oklahoma Book Awards.

His latest book is Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo) (Bloomsbury), a novelization of mobster Lucky Luciano’s colorful and controversial 1936 vice trial.

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

Writing Tom & Lucky required a tremendous amount of reading; not just everything previously written about defendant Lucky Luciano, prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, and defense attorney George Morton Levy, but also the entire trial and appellate record and transcripts, which comprise many thousands of pages, as well as Levy’s personal file from the trial, to which I was given exclusive access. On top of that, I’d committed to writing a bi-monthly book review column for my local newspaper, the Four Corners Free Press, here in southwestern Colorado. Plus I belong to a book group, and I try to squeeze in the occasional guilty pleasure on the side. That makes for a lot of reading!

I’m currently reading Purity by Jonathan Franzen, who’s a great favorite, and while it’s too soon to render a verdict, I’m enjoying it tremendously. Before that I read, in galley form, City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg, and was enthralled by the scope of both its ambition and execution. The book is set in New York City circa 1976-77, when I too
lived there, and it does a wonderful job of capturing the decrepitude and menace of Manhattan at its modern nadir.

Before that I read the delightful This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Jonathan Evison, which is an allegorical journey through life as told from the perspective of a 78-year-old widow. Jon is a friend with whom I try to have a beer whenever he’s in the neighborhood, and he’s had an incredible string of successes starting with All About Lulu, followed by West of Here (his first New York Times bestseller) and then The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, which will soon be a major motion picture starring Paul Rudd. Jon is living proof that good things sometimes actually happen to good people (but I suspect that being immensely talented also helps.)

Learn more about the book and author at C. Joseph Greaves's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Scott Shane

Scott Shane is a reporter in the Washington bureau of the New York Times, where he has covered national security since 2004.

His new book is Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone.

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

I've recently finished Slavery by Another Name, by Douglas Blackmon, which I'm catching up with several years late. It's a revelatory book about the resumption of forced labor in much of the South after the Civil War, in the guise of forcing African American men to work off fines for bogus crimes (loitering, for instance) with months of unpaid labor. I live in Baltimore and have long had an interest in the history of slavery and abolition here, and years ago as a reporter for The Baltimore Sun I wrote a lot about race, poverty, drugs, crime and incarceration. It's taken me a long time, but I can now see more clearly the continuity of the oppression of African Americans from slavery, through the kind of semi-slavery Blackmon documents, through Jim Crow, and to the era of mass incarceration we live in today. I highly recommend the book -- not an easy read, but written with great passion and formidable research -- to anyone interested in American history and the role of race.

And now I'm halfway through a novel by Tim Gautreaux called The Clearing, another one that I heard about, bought and then left to mature in the bedroom pile for a few years. It tells the story of two brothers brought together at a saw mill in the 1920s in rural Louisiana. One experienced the horrors of World War I. And that's about all I should reveal about this engrossing, beautifully written book.

Visit Scott Shane's website.

The Page 99 Test: Objective Troy.

My Book, The Movie: Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone.

--Marshal Zeringue

Charlie Price

Charlie Price lives in northern California. He is an executive coach for business leaders and has also worked with at-risk teens in schools, hospitals, and communities. His novels include Desert Angel and The Interrogation of Gabriel James, winner of the Edgar Award.

Price's latest novel is Dead Investigation.

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

I usually keep a dense non-fiction going and read it a chapter at a time so I can better incorporate the content. If I don’t remember tomorrow what I read today, I reread the same chapter. I’m currently on The Organized Mind by Daniel Levitin. His neuroscience gives me usable guidelines for managing the growing amount of information I attempt to juggle. Since working on psych locked units I’ve studied brain research looking for a better understanding of memory and inspiration. It’s particularly reassuring to me that brains were developed to solve mysteries and that, as an organ, it has evolved hidden but effective ways of operating. Just before Levitin I was astounded Yuval Noah Harari’s revolutionary Sapiens, tracing human development through the incremental imaginations that allowed man to organize and be productive in larger and larger groups. I majored in the history of ideas at Stanford but I have never before encountered such a broad and engrossing perspective – something like the Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Between non-fiction chapters, I break this more intense reading with noir detective pleasures like Harry Dolan’s David Malone series, a very fresh and compelling approach to crime fiction. I have read so many detective novels in the last forty years I’m always looking for something smart that puts characters ahead of the plot. Jess Walter did that with Land of the Blind, featuring a woman police officer who struggles with her personal and professional relations as she doggedly works through a complex case that haunts her.

Raised in Colorado and Montana, I pay attention to contemporary Western authors. McGuane’s essays, Some Horses, was detailed and visceral. During its pages I felt like I was working with him on his Montana ranch in the country around the Boulder River that I particularly like to fish.

Visit Charlie Price's website.

My Book, The Movie: Dead Investigation.

--Marshal Zeringue

Allan Woodrow

Allan Woodrow is the author of The Rotten Adventures of Zachary Ruthless and The Pet War. Also, under the name Fowler DeWitt, Woodrow has written The Contagious Colors of Mumpley Middle School and its sequel, The Amazing Wilmer Dooley.

Woodrow's latest book is Class Dismissed.

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

I usually have a few books on my nightstand, replenishing them with frequent trips to the bookstore or library. Then, I finish those books and I grab something from the bookshelf in my house until I can find time to run out to the library or bookstore again.

Right now is one of those ‘in-between’ times.

So I have two books on my nightstand now, but hope to fill up the stand with more books in the next few days.

The book I’m reading right now is The View from Saturday by the great E.L. Konigsburg. This will be my third or fourth time reading the 1996 Newberry Medal winner, but it’s been a couple of years since the last time, so I’m rediscovering parts I’ve forgotten. When I’m writing a children’s book (which is usually), I like to read a classic or two. My own writing improves when I’m reading strong writing. It rubs off on me. This book is told from a variety of different perspectives—which I had forgotten—and coincidentally, that is something I did for my latest book (Class Dismissed).

The other book on my nightstand is bestseller The Girl On The Train. The entire country has seemingly read it; my wife read it; now it’s my turn. I admit, I don’t read that many adult books. But books that are smash hits are begging to be read, even if they are not my usual reading material.

Visit Allan Woodrow's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Margaret Randall

Margaret Randall is the author of dozens of books of poetry and prose, including Che on My Mind, and the translator of When Rains Became Floods: A Child Soldier's Story.

Randall's new book is Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led by Transgression.

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

I read a lot of poetry and non-fiction, rarely novels or short stories. Recently I read God's Bankers by Gerald Posner, and then read it again, and then again. It's a big book filled with detail: tracing centuries of the Vatican's money trail leads all over the place. Pope Francis's attempts to reign in the Vatican Bank make this book particularly timely.

Poet V. B. Price's Broken and Reset, a compilation of his poetry over several decades, is a beautiful read, one of those books you want to put on your night table and return to when the spirit moves.

I've recently reread Blanche Wiesen Cook's Eleanor Roosevelt (volumes I and II) because I know volume III will be coming out soon and I want to be prepared.

Joy Harjo's Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, Renato Rosaldo's The Day of Shelly's Death, and Susan Sherman's The Light that Puts an End to Dreams (all poetry) are recent reads that have given me a lot. And, just to mention the odd novel, Mark Behr's Embrace is one I have just finished for the second time--a monumental work.

Visit Margaret Randall's website.

My Book, The Movie: Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary.

--Marshal Zeringue