Pg. 99: Arie W. Kruglanski and Sophia Moskalenko's "The Psychology of the Extreme"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Psychology of the Extreme by Arie W. Kruglanski and Sophia Moskalenko.

About the book, from the publisher:

What does extremism mean? How does it show up in our daily lives? What drives people to extreme behaviors, and how can we learn to live and thrive in the age of overdrive?

The Psychology of the Extreme provides an accessible introduction to extremism as a force that can affect all aspects of culture and people’s choices in everyday settings. It explores the underlying psychology behind what makes people act in extreme ways, whether this is in destructive ways (such as gambling, terrorism and political violence) or in constructive ways (such as successful creators and scientists). The book features an array of case studies that show how extremism can be both pro-social and anti-social and includes interventions to reduce extremism or redirect them toward more positive and constructive tendencies. Offering a new understanding of the individual psychology of extremism, the book will appeal to all those interested in how extremism plays out in people’s and cultures' day-to-day lives.

Learn more about The Psychology of the Extreme at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Psychology of the Extreme.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Bryan Gruley's "Bitterfrost"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Bitterfrost (A Bitterfrost Thriller) by Bryan Gruley.

About the book, from the publisher:

The first in a brand-new crime thriller series from Edgar nominee and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Bryan Gruley. Feisty defence attorney Devyn Payne faces off against veteran detective Garth Klimmek as they work to solve a vicious double homicide in their small, icy town of Bitterfrost.

Thirteen years ago, former ice hockey star Jimmy Baker quit the game after almost killing an opponent. Now, as the Zamboni driver for the amateur team in his hometown of Bitterfrost, Michigan, he’s living his penance. Until the morning he awakens to the smell of blood...

Jimmy soon finds himself arrested for a brutal double murder. The kicker? He has no memory of the night in question. And as the evidence racks up against him, Jimmy’s case is skating on thin ice. Could he have committed such a gruesome crime?

As his defence attorney Devyn Payne and prosecuting detective Garth Klimmek race to uncover the truth, time is running out for Jimmy. Because all he can really be sure of is that he is capable of taking a life. The question is, in his blacked-out state, did he take two?

This gritty drama is the first in the Bitterfrost series, perfect for fans of Dennis Lehane!

Learn more about the book and author at Bryan Gruley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

The Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor.

The Page 69 Test: Purgatory Bay.

The Page 69 Test: Bitterfrost.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Andrew Welsh-Huggins reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins, author of The Mailman.

His entry begins:

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...[read on]

About The Mailman, from the publisher:

In a new thriller from the author of The End of the Road, a former postal inspection agent tracks a violent crew through the Midwest to rescue a kidnapped woman.

Mercury Carter is a deliveryman and he takes his job very seriously. When a parcel is under his care, he will stop at nothing to deliver it directly to its intended recipient. Not even, as in the current case, when he finds a crew of violent men at the indicated address that threaten his life and take the woman who lives there hostage. That’s because Carter has special skills from his former life as a federal agent with the postal inspection service, skills that make him particularly useful for delivering items in circumstances as dangerous as these.

After Carter dispatches the goons sent to kill him, he enters a home besieged by criminals―but the leader of the gang escapes with attorney Rachel Stanfield before the mailman can complete his assignment. With Rachel’s husband Glenn in tow, Carter takes off in pursuit of the kidnapper and his quarry, hunting them across Indiana, up to Chicago, and into small-town Illinois. Along the way, he slowly picks off members of the crew and uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy and a powerful crime syndicate, all in service of his main objective: to hand the package over to Rachel. Carter has never missed a delivery and isn’t about to start now.

Introducing a new lone-wolf protagonist to rival Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Steve Hamilton’s Nick Mason, and Gregg Hurwitz’s Evan Smoak, The Mailman is a pulse-pounding series opener with captivating action and enough thrills to leave readers anxiously awaiting the next installment.

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.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve books that center work and working-class lives

Dustin M. Hoffman writes stories about working people. His newest story collection is Such a Good Man. He’s also the author of the story collectionNo Good for Digging and the fiction chapbook Secrets of the Wild. His first book One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist won the 2015 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. He’s published more than one hundred stories in journals including Black Warrior Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Ninth Letter, Masters Review, Witness, Wigleaf, The Threepenny Review, Gulf Coast, and One Story. Before getting his MFA in fiction from Bowling Green State University and his PhD in creative writing from Western Michigan University, he spent ten years painting houses in Michigan. Now he lives in South Carolina and teaches creative writing at Winthrop University.

At Electric Lit Hoffman tagged "twelve books of poetry and prose that depict not just working-class people but that foreground work as the feature." One title on the list:

Temporary by Hilary Leichter

In Adam Petty’s astute essay “Dirty Life and Times: The Past, Present and Future of Working-Class Literature,” he asks a question: “We’ve had Kmart realism; why not Walmart realism?” Or what about Amazon realism? It’s certainly going to get surreal, globalized and computerized, guided by algorithm, surely even more alienating. Saunders led the way, and Hilary Leichter pushes the tradition forward with her highly stylized, experimental novel Temporary. Here the narrator weaves between temporary jobs, though each one seems to encompass an inescapable universe. This novel is full of humor, while also taking very seriously the cruelty of our modern world that makes every worker expendable, no matter how essential. The narrator searches for permanence in this picaresque plot of temporary jobs, but no such anchor is to be found in this magical labor-led universe that funhouse-mirrors our own. There’s so much gritty authenticity in the details of labor, as the jobs flit between realistic and absurd: pirate-deck swabber, door opener, assassin assistant, pamphlet distributor, replacement mother. Even the narrator’s lovers, a swarm of boyfriends she speaks to over the phone, are a writhing mass of slipping identities that require yet more labor.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Allison Gunn

From my Q&A with Allison Gunn, author of Nowhere: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Nowhere was the title from the start, and I never received any suggestions otherwise. Beyond all else, the book is about Nowhere both literally and metaphorically. Without giving too many spoilers, it is the place of no return for our characters—a living, breathing reality just on the other side of ours. Yet, it’s also a space many of us know well. The Kennans may literally reside in the middle of nowhere, however, their isolation via stigma places them even further into this lonely place in every human’s heart.

That being said...[read on]

Visit Allison Gunn's website.

Q&A with Allison Gunn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Douglas Corleone's "Falls to Pieces"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Falls to Pieces by Douglas Corleone.

About the book, from the publisher:

A mother and daughter in hiding are threatened by more than secrets and lies in a twisting novel of paranoia, revenge, and psychological suspense by bestselling author Douglas Corleone.

For two years, Kati Dawes and her teenage daughter, Zoe, have lived off the grid in Hawaii, hiding from a past Kati must forget as if her life depends on it. New names. Anonymous online presence. So far, safe. Until Kati’s fiancé, attorney Eddie Akana, disappears along a popular hiking trail in a Maui national park. Now all eyes are on Kati. Exposure can make a woman with so many secrets very paranoid.

Eddie’s law partner, Noah Walker, is doing everything he can to protect his new client from the press that’s hovering like a vulture and the authorities whose suspicions about Kati―and the disappearance―are rising. Then suddenly, Zoe goes missing as well. Kati will risk anything to find her. But the worst is still to come. Because Kati’s not the only one with secrets. And buried among them is a twist she never saw coming.

Learn more about the book and author at Douglas Corleone's website.

The Page 69 Test: Good as Gone.

My Book, The Movie: Payoff.

The Page 69 Test: Gone Cold.

My Book, The Movie: Gone Cold.

Writers Read: Douglas Corleone (August 2015).

The Page 69 Test: Falls to Pieces.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Tsering Wangmo Dhompa's "The Politics of Sorrow"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Politics of Sorrow: Unity and Allegiance Across Tibetan Exile by Tsering Wangmo Dhompa.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet in 1959 after its occupation by China and established a government in exile in India. There, Tibetan leaders aimed to bring together displaced people from varied religious traditions and local loyalties under the banner of unity. To contest Chinese colonization and stand up for self-determination, Tibetan refugees were asked to shed regional allegiances and embrace a vision of a shared national identity.

The Politics of Sorrow tells the story of the Group of Thirteen, a collective of chieftains and lamas from the regions of Kham and Amdo, who sought to preserve Tibet’s cultural diversity in exile. They established settlements in India in the mid-1960s with the goal of protecting their regional and religious traditions, setting them apart from the majority of Tibetan refugees, who saw a common tradition as the basis for unifying the Tibetan people. Tsering Wangmo Dhompa traces these different visions for Tibetan governance and identity, juxtaposing the Tibetan government in exile’s external struggle for international recognition with its lesser-known internal struggle to command loyalty within the diaspora. She argues that although unity was necessary for democracy and independence, it also drew painful boundaries between those who belonged and those who didn’t. Drawing on insightful interviews with Tibetan elders and an exceptional archive of Tibetan exile texts, The Politics of Sorrow is a compelling narrative of a tumultuous time that reveals the complexities of Tibetan identities then and now.

Learn more about The Politics of Sorrow at the Columbia University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Politics of Sorrow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four mystery novels that explore legacy

Benjamin Bradley is a member of both Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. He's the author of the Shepard & Kelly Mystery series through Indies United Publishing House and his short fiction has appeared in literary magazines including Reckon Review and Flash Fiction Magazine. He works in public health and homelessness and lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife, their cat Fox, and their dog Harper.

Bradley's new novel is What He Left Behind.

At CrimeReads he tagged four mystery titles that explore legacy. One entry on the list:

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The Van Laar family has been through the wringer and in this multiple timeline slow burn from Liz Moore; so many moments and interactions provoke questions about legacy and what we leave in our wake when we go. Family names play a big part in legacies; some are built by them and some are undone, but as the past meets the present here, almost every character in the novel faces some question about their legacy and life.

Read about another mystery on the list.

The God of the Woods is among Sandra Chwialkowska's five titles where bad things happen in beautiful places, Midge Raymond's eight books about women keeping secrets and Molly Odintz's eight thrillers & horror novels set at terrible summer camps.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Ron Currie's "The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie.

About the book, from the publisher:

When crime matriarch Babs Dionne’s youngest daughter is found dead, she will stop at nothing to uncover the truth—or get her revenge.

Your ancestors breathe through you. Sometimes, they call for vengeance.

Babs Dionne, proud Franco-American, doting grandmother, and vicious crime matriarch, rules her small town of Waterville, Maine, with an iron fist. She controls the flow of drugs into Little Canada with the help of her loyal lieutenants, girlfriends since they were teenagers, and her eldest daughter, Lori, a Marine vet struggling with addiction.

When a drug kingpin discovers that his numbers are down in the upper northeast, he sends a malevolent force, known only as The Man, to investigate. At the same time, Babs's youngest daughter, Sis, has gone missing, which doesn't seem at all like a coincidence. In twenty-four hours, Sis will be found dead, and the whole town will seek shelter from Babs’s wrath.

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne is a gripping, propulsive, darkly funny thriller, with a ferocious matriarch at its bruised, beating heart. Award-winning author Ron Currie delivers an unforgettable crime saga about love, duty, and vengeance.

Learn more about the book and author at Ron Currie's website.

The Page 69 Test: God Is Dead.

My Book, The Movie: God Is Dead.

The Page 69 Test: Everything Matters!.

The Page 69 Test: The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine top horror books featuring monstrous women

Susie Dumond is a queer writer originally from Little Rock, Arkansas. She is the author of Queerly Beloved, Looking for a Sign, and Bed and Breakup, and she also talks about books as a senior contributor at Book Riot and a bookseller at her local indie bookstore. Dumond lives in Washington, D.C., with her spouse, Mickey, and her cat, Maple. When she’s not writing or reading, you can find her baking cupcakes or belting karaoke at the nearest gay bar.

At Book Riot Dumond tagged nine books featuring monstrous yet deeply complicated women and girls. One title on the list:

The Monstrous Misses Mai by Van Hoang

Vietnamese American fashion designer Cordelia is thrilled to find an affordable apartment in 1959 Los Angeles. The fact that her three roommates all share her middle name — Mai — seems like a sign she’s found the right place. When a friend of their landlord offers the four young women a way to make their dreams come true with a small sacrifice, they all agree to give it a shot. But their small successes give them a taste for more, and the personal costs get higher and higher. It’s a darkly magical tale about greed, power, and how they make us unrecognizable to ourselves.

Read about another title on the list.

The Monstrous Misses Mai is among Susie Dumond's eight top historical novels that add a little magic.

The Page 69 Test: The Monstrous Misses Mai.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Thomas Crosbie's "The Political Army"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Political Army: How the U.S. Military Learned to Manage the Media and Public Opinion by Thomas Crosbie.

About the book, from the publisher:

Since World War II, the U.S. military has taken a keen interest in shaping press coverage and, through it, public perception and democratic oversight of the armed forces. After misjudging the domestic political landscape during the Vietnam War, Army leaders embraced media management, recognizing that control over information had become central to how wars are fought. Even as the Army presented itself as a scrupulously apolitical organization, its leaders strove to reshape their political environment through public relations.

This book tells the story of the U.S. Army’s deepening involvement in media management over six decades and offers new ways to understand the military as a political actor. Thomas Crosbie examines how the Army gradually transformed its relationship with the civilian government and the public by engaging with the press. He traces Army media management from its origins as an ad hoc task to its professionalization and formalization, alongside the Army’s rise as a political force, its precipitous fall in the Vietnam War era, and its renewed ascent after learning key lessons from the experience of Vietnam. The Political Army draws on the records of Army leaders, archives of major public affairs figures and organizations, and extensive interviews with war correspondents, public affairs officers, and senior Army staff. Demonstrating how the U.S. Army gained, at great expense, potent political sway, this book provides a theoretically rich account of military politics and what it means for democracy.

Learn more about The Political Army at the Columbia University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Political Army.

--Marshal Zeringue

Rosanne Limoncelli's "The Four Queens of Crime," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Four Queens of Crime by Rosanne Limoncelli.

The entry begins:

The Four Queens of Crime takes place in 1938. The best selling authors of the decade, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham, are hosting a gala to raise money for the Women’s Voluntary Service to help Britain prepare for war. Baronet Sir Henry Heathcote has loaned Hursley House for the event, and all the elites of London society are attending. The gala is a brilliant success, despite a few hiccups, and the four writers witness quite a bit of dramatic family dynamics and political intrigue that pervade the event. The next morning, Sir Henry is found dead in the library. Detective Chief Inspector Lilian Wyles, the first real life woman detective at Scotland Yard, and her partner DCI Richard Davidson are assigned the case and discover a cluster of potential suspects among the weekend guests, including an upset fiancée, a politically ambitious son, a reserved but protective brother, an irate son-in-law, a rebellious teenage daughter, and the deputy home secretary. Quietly recruiting the four queens of crime, DCI Wyles must sort through the messy aftermath of Sir Henry’s death to solve the mystery and identify the killer.

As I was writing the book, since I am also a filmmaker, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the story as a movie or TV series. There are so many wonderful English actors that could fill the roles, especially at the age of the these real people in 1938. Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and Ngaio Marsh were in their late 40’s and Margery Allingham was 34. And the real life first woman DCI Lilian Wyles was 52. I wanted to keep these real ages in mind as I developed their characters. So often, in movies, women’s roles are given to actors much younger than the character’s physical age, it seems older women are just not always celebrated the way older men are. I would not want that to happen in the movie of my book. And why should it with so many great choices? Agatha could be played by Kate Winslet, and Cate Blanchett could play Ngaio since she is from down under. Dorothy L Sayers could be portrayed by...[read on]

Visit Rosanne Limoncelli's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Four Queens of Crime.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sandra Chwialkowska's "The Ends of Things"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Ends of Things: A Novel by Sandra Chwialkowska.

About the book, from the publisher:

A propulsive literary debut, The Ends of Things is both a thought-provoking suspense and a meditation on female friendship and agency—perfect for fans of The White Lotus and authors like Catherine Steadman and Rachel Hawkins.

She thought she had the perfect life … until she met a stranger in paradise.

Laura Phillips always wanted to travel the world but was too afraid to go it alone. So when her new boyfriend, Dave, invites her on a romantic getaway to the remote island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas, she jumps at the chance.

As soon as they arrive at the Pink Sands resort, Laura and Dave are handed cocktails garnished with umbrellas and led to a luxurious suite. It’s a lovers’ paradise. But when they head down to the pristine beach, Laura notices an oddity among the sunbathing couples: a woman vacationing alone. Intrigued, Laura befriends the woman, Diana, and as they spend time together, Laura finds herself telling Diana secrets she’s never shared with anyone.

But when Diana unexpectedly disappears, Laura suddenly realizes how little she knows about this mysterious woman.

The police suspect Diana may be in danger, and soon Laura herself becomes embroiled in the investigation. Her worries swiftly turn into obsession: Who is Diana? Where did she go? Is she dead? Murdered? As Laura races to find out what happened—and prove her own innocence—she quickly realizes that nothing in this sun-soaked paradise is what it seems, and it’s impossible to know who she can trust. What started out as a dream getaway is turning into a terrifying nightmare…

Visit Sandra Chwialkowska's website.

Q&A with Sandra Chwialkowska.

The Page 69 Test: The Ends of Things.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven terrifying horror novels set in small towns

Allison Gunn is a professional researcher, writer, and podcaster with a penchant for all things whimsical and strange. An alum of the University of Maryland, she has extensively studied marginalized communities as well as Appalachian folklore and the occult. She currently resides in the wonderfully weird land of West Virginia with her twin daughters, a precocious pup, and one seriously troubled tabby.

Nowhere is her first novel.

At Electric Lit Gunn tagged "seven terrifying horror novels set in small towns." One title on the list:

My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon

Set in an idyllic small-town ripped from a Hallmark movie, My Darling Girl follows the destruction of author Alison O’Conner’s wholesome life after her estranged, terminally ill mother moves in to live out her final days. A unique take on the well-trod possession trope, My Darling Girl leverages the deceptive beauty of sleepy hollows to slowly tighten the noose around both the main character and the reader, reminding us that darkness lurks in the shadows of Christmas lights and countryside charm.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Matt Plass

From my Q&A with Matt Plass, author of The Ten Worst People in New York: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The Ten Worst People in New York wasn’t my first choice of title, or even my second, but now I can’t imagine the book with any other lettering along the spine.

The novel began life in 2017 as The Murder Club, based on my 2015 Kindle Single of the same name (a B-side to the Lawrence Block short story "Gym Rat"). When Richard Osmond released The Thursday Murder Club to wide acclaim in 2020 (Damn you, Richard!) I had to think again. The Murder Club became The List, then The Reckoning, and finally—at the suggestion of my amazing editor, Sara J. Henry—The Ten Worst People in New York.

Who are the ten worst people in New York? Imagine a television talk show host launches a new nightly feature: a live list of public hate figures, updated by online and audience votes. On the list you might find a real estate mogul who’s really nothing more than a slumlord, a conspiracy junky who targets the victims of gun massacres, a climate-change denying scientist, a corrupt local politician, a wealthy financier who everyone suspects of being a sexual predator... Each night on the show, the audience enjoys sniggering and booing at the very worst people in the great city of New York, and it’s just a bit of fun.

Until people on the list start dying.

We spend most of the book either with FBI Special Agent Alex Bedford, or with young filmmaker Jacob Felle, as they investigate the murders from different angles. But we also get to step inside the minds of individuals on the list of the ten worst people in New York. Seeing...[read on]

Visit Matt Plass's website.

Q&A with Matt Plass.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Chris Nickson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Chris Nickson, author of No Precious Truth.

His entry begins:

Over the last several days, I've been re-reading Mick Herron's Slough House series, possibly more widely known as the Slow Horses series on Apple TV. The books are an absolute delight, full of twists and unexpected turns, spy novels that can make you laugh even as they crank up the tension. At the centre is Jackson Lamb, a former crack field agent who now runs his kingdom of agents exiled from the Park – the home of MI5 – for various offences. Lam, a dissolute-looking reprobate who seems to have no redeeming qualities, is still a supremely gifted agent, able to run rings around both opposition and those in charge at home, and his agents prove themselves better than those who were once their colleagues. They're just...[read on]

About No Precious Truth, from the publisher:

The first in a brand-new WWII historical thriller series introduces Sergeant Cathy Marsden – a female police officer working for the Special Investigation Branch – who risks her life to protect the city of Leeds from an escaped German spy!

Leeds, 1941. As the war rages across Europe, Police Sergeant Cathy Marsden’s life since she was seconded to the Special Investigation Branch has remained focused on deserters and home-front crimes. Until now.

Things take a chilling turn when Cathy’s civil servant brother, Dan, arrives from London with a dark secret: he is working for the XX Committee – a special MI5 unit set up to turn German spies into double agents. But one of these agents has escaped and is heading for Leeds, sent to destroy targets key to the war effort. Suddenly Cathy and the squad are plunged into an unfamiliar world of espionage and subterfuge.

With the fate of the country and the war in the balance, failure is not an option, and Cathy must risk everything, including her own life, to stop a spy.

This fast-paced World War II thriller is perfect for fans of Kate Quinn, Rhys Bowen and Kelly Rimmer!

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.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (August 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Brass Lives.

The Page 69 Test: The Blood Covenant.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Will Rise.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (March 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Rusted Souls.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (September 2023).

The Page 69 Test: The Scream of Sins.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (March 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Them Without Pain.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (September 2024).

Writers Read: Chris Nickson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Andrew Welsh-Huggins "The Mailman"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Mailman by Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a new thriller from the author of The End of the Road, a former postal inspection agent tracks a violent crew through the Midwest to rescue a kidnapped woman.

Mercury Carter is a deliveryman and he takes his job very seriously. When a parcel is under his care, he will stop at nothing to deliver it directly to its intended recipient. Not even, as in the current case, when he finds a crew of violent men at the indicated address that threaten his life and take the woman who lives there hostage. That’s because Carter has special skills from his former life as a federal agent with the postal inspection service, skills that make him particularly useful for delivering items in circumstances as dangerous as these.

After Carter dispatches the goons sent to kill him, he enters a home besieged by criminals―but the leader of the gang escapes with attorney Rachel Stanfield before the mailman can complete his assignment. With Rachel’s husband Glenn in tow, Carter takes off in pursuit of the kidnapper and his quarry, hunting them across Indiana, up to Chicago, and into small-town Illinois. Along the way, he slowly picks off members of the crew and uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy and a powerful crime syndicate, all in service of his main objective: to hand the package over to Rachel. Carter has never missed a delivery and isn’t about to start now.

Introducing a new lone-wolf protagonist to rival Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Steve Hamilton’s Nick Mason, and Gregg Hurwitz’s Evan Smoak, The Mailman is a pulse-pounding series opener with captivating action and enough thrills to leave readers anxiously awaiting the next installment.

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

Seven top books that combine mystery and romance

Bellamy Rose has never solved an actual murder. When she’s not writing about them, she spends her time trying to taste every cuisine in the world, befriending all the animals she meets, and publishing non-murdery rom-coms as the USA Today bestselling author Amanda Elliot. She lives with her husband and daughter in New York City.

Roses's new novel is Pomona Afton Can So Solve a Murder.

At CrimeReads she tagged seven favorite books that combine mystery and romance. One title on the list:

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne

Okay, so this one throws a third genre into the mix – it’s a sapphic romance/mystery/fantasy hybrid, and an absolutely delightful one at that. Reyna and Kianthe flee the tumultuous royal court to open the shop of their dreams and live a quiet life together, but said quiet life keeps getting interrupted by mysteries for them to solve… not to mention the stress of keeping that life not just quiet but secret from the vengeful queen.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: J. Paul Kelleher's "The Social Cost of Carbon"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Social Cost of Carbon: Ethics and the Limits of Climate Change Economics by J. Paul Kelleher.

About the book, from the publisher:

Called the "the most important number you've never heard of" by leading environmental economists, the social cost of carbon (SCC) aims to capture in a precise number the harm caused by emitting a single ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In The Social Cost of Carbon, J. Paul Kelleher offers a systematic analysis of the social cost of carbon, its theoretical basis, and its proper role in climate economics and climate policy design.

The book explains that the SCC is not one concept but four, each of which is addressed to a distinct task in climate economics. Moreover, these concepts can be sorted into two families that correspond to the two branches of welfare economics, social choice theory and general equilibrium theory. Kelleher draws on these radically different theoretical frameworks to explain how a mathematically identical pair of SCC concepts can emerge from each. He then argues that the analytical power of each SCC concept is limited by its inability to fully capture the ethical considerations that bear on responsible climate policy.

The book concludes by explaining how some SCC concepts can and should be put to work in real-world climate change policy analysis-providing practical advice for translating the SCC into tangible change.

Visit J. Paul Kelleher's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Social Cost of Carbon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Third reading: D.W. Buffa on American Statesmen

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.

Buffa's latest take in his "Third Reading" series is on American statesmen. It begins:

Perhaps the best, but certainly the most interesting way, to get a real understanding of the present occupant of the White House is to read a biography written more than sixty years before his birth, a biography of Andrew Jackson written in 1882 as part of a series on “American Statesmen.” The author, William Graham Sumner, who taught politics and economics at Yale, quotes without adverse comment Thomas Jefferson’s remark that Jackson had no business being President, that he was, in fact, “one of the most unfit men I know for the place,” a “dangerous man” who has “very little respect for laws or constitutions.” This was especially the case after Jackson lost the presidency in what he became convinced was a stolen election.

In the election of 1824...[read on]

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.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Sandra Chwialkowska

From my Q&A with Sandra Chwialkowska, author of The Ends of Things: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The working title for my novel was Eleuthera, which is the name of the Bahamian island where my book is set. I liked how eleutheria is also the Greek word for freedom, which is a motif in the book, as well as the epithet of the Greek goddess Artemis (Diana) who is referenced in the novel. My heroine, Laura, yearns to have the confidence and freedom embodied by Diana, the solo female traveler she encounters at the beach resort, who later goes missing. My acquisitions editor encouraged me to find an alternative title, one that was a bit easier to pronounce (haha), had an internal tension, and also suggested the genre of the book, which is psychological suspense. My beta reader pulled a phrase from my book—the ends of things—and it instantly clicked with me because it encapsulates what the book is about: my heroine, Laura, always imagines the worst-case scenario, or “the ends of things,” which causes…[read on]

Visit Sandra Chwialkowska's website.

Q&A with Sandra Chwialkowska.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top fantasy journeys

Grace Curtis is a freeroaming writer from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

Her debut Frontier, a queer space western about climate change (really), came out in March last year.

The follow up Floating Hotel was a bestseller in the UK.

When she’s not dreaming up stories, Curtis can usually be found up a hill somewhere, climbing or hiking or lolling idly in the grass.

Idolfire is her first work of fantasy.

At The Nerd Daily the author tagged five of the best fantasy journeys, including:

Christopher Buehlman – The Blacktongue Thief

‘They don’t make ‘em like this anymore!’ But actually they DO! The Blacktongue Thief is a modern novel with a very classical charm. A motley crew, a perilous quest, a richly imagined world ripe for capering across… Buehlman’s novel is deliciously dark and always, always fun. Plus, we really need more books where the heroes are at risk of being lowered into a large cauldron and turned into stew. That’s just good storytelling.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Susan Meissner "A Map to Paradise"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: A Map to Paradise by Susan Meissner.

About the book, from the publisher:

1956, Malibu, California: Something is not right on Paradise Circle.

With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor, Elwood, but the screenwriter’s agoraphobia allows for just short chats through open windows. He’s her sole confidante, though, as she and her housekeeper, Eva, an immigrant from war-torn Europe, rarely make conversation.

Then one early morning Melanie and Eva spot Elwood’s sister-in-law and caretaker, June, digging in his beloved rose garden. After that they don’t see Elwood at all anymore. Where could a man who never leaves the house possibly have gone?

As they try to find out if something has happened to him, unexpected secrets are revealed among all three women, leading to an alliance that seems the only way for any of them to hold on to what they can still call their own. But it’s a fragile pact and one little spark could send it all up in smoke…

Visit Susan Meissner's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Susan Meissner & Bella.

My Book, The Movie: Stars Over Sunset Boulevard.

My Book, The Movie: A Bridge Across the Ocean.

The Page 69 Test: A Bridge Across the Ocean.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Year of the War.

The Page 69 Test: Only the Beautiful.

The Page 69 Test: A Map to Paradise.

--Marshal Zeringue