Four cabin-oriented crime & horror novels

Molly Odintz is the managing editor for CrimeReads and the editor of Austin Noir. She grew up in Austin and worked as a bookseller before becoming a Very Professional Internet Person. She lives in central Texas with her cat, Fritz Lang.

At CrimeReads Odintz tagged four "recent and upcoming novels in which everything is already terrible and then the cabin makes things worse," including:

Matthew Lyons, A Mask of Flies

In Matthew Lyons’ propulsive new horror thriller, a bank robbery gone sideways forces one of the robbers to take the remnants of her gang, plus a hostage or two, to her old family cabin to recoup and recover. Upon arrival, they discover a VHS with terrifying metaphysical implications as Lyons takes a sharp left turn towards Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Casey Michel's "Foreign Agents"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World by Casey Michel.

About the book, from the publisher:

A stunning investigation and indictment of a segment of the United States' foreign lobbying industry, and the threat to end democracy.

For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they've not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they've secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself.

These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and many of them spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous, repressive regimes in the process. These foreign lobbyists include figures like Ivy Lee, the inventor of the public relations industry—a man who whitewashed Mussolini, opened doors to the Soviets, and advised the Nazis on how to sway American audiences. They include people like Paul Manafort, who invented lobbying as we know it—and who then took his talents to autocrats from Ukraine to the Philippines, and then back to the White House. And they now include an increasing number of Americans elsewhere: in law firms and consultancies, among PR specialists and former lawmakers, and even within think tanks and universities.

In Foreign Agents, Casey Michel shines a light on these foreign lobbyists as some of them—after decades of installing dictators and corrupting American policy—embark on their next mission: to end America’s democratic experiment, once and for all.

Visit Casey Michel's website.

The Page 99 Test: Foreign Agents.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Ryan Elizabeth Penske

From my Q&A with Ryan Elizabeth Penske, author of The Dreamers:

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

The title of my novel, The Dreamers, relates directly to a specific element of the story. Not only are the characters constantly dealing with the notion of dreams, thinking about dreams and what they mean, but they are also actively dreaming and in a dream state quite a lot throughout the novel. The characters who are able to dream figments of the future are also called “Dreamers” by staff that work in The Dreamers main setting of the novel, The Manor de Reves.

I write a lot of stuff, whether that be for my masters program or creative work, and I always find the title to be the last thing I think of or come up with. I think the “meat” of the work has to come first to then inform the author on what a piece should be called. I think if you title something first, very rarely will the title from the very beginning stay the same. With my novel The Dreamers however, I had enough of the premise and concept of the actual Dreamers in my story figured out, that from opening the first word document I ever began writing the story in, I titled it The Dreamers. Luckily for me it stuck, and everyone who read it including my editor and publisher liked it.

In general, I think a title should reflect the most important part of your story. It doesn’t have to be something blaringly obvious or spoiler-y, but I think what is the most cool is when a story has a title that allows for the readers to have an “ah-hah” moment and connect/understand the title once they get to a certain point in the story. I recently had this experience with...[read on]

Visit Ryan Elizabeth Penske's website.

Q&A with Ryan Elizabeth Penske.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books about trees

Callum Robinson makes all manner of things from all manner of woods for some of the most influential brands in the world. He is creative director at Method Studio, the company he established with his wife, designer and lecturer Marisa Giannasi, almost fifteen years ago. Taught by his father – now one of the UK’s foremost “Master Woodcarvers” – his work has been exhibited widely. He works and writes from a studio and workshop in a forest, beside a loch, nestled in the Scottish hills.

Robinson's first book is Ingrained: The Making of a Craftsman, a memoir of his unorthodox creative education.

At the Guardian he tagged "five very different books about trees." One title on the list:

The Treeline by Ben Rawlence

As our planet grows warmer, much of the natural world is on the move, and for the hardy trees of the vast boreal forest – a critical ecosystem circling the northern hemisphere – the climate crisis means climbing ever farther north. In this riveting, rigorous (and frankly terrifying) book, Rawlence follows the march of the pine, larch, fir, poplar, spruce and rowan that make their homes in our most brutal latitudes, skilfully blending their stories with those of the local people and scientists who live and work along the tree line, and starkly examining the ramifications for all future life on Earth.

Read about another book on the list.

Also see: seven books that celebrate trees in all of their glory.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jeffrey Edward Green's "Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God by Jeffrey Edward Green.

About the book, from the publisher:

Throughout his career, Bob Dylan has always been more than a musician. Whether as an icon of the social movements of the 1960s, a convert to evangelical Christianity publicly wrestling with his faith, or simply a poet of genius, Dylan has occupied a position of moral leadership for more than half a century.

Examining these roles collectively, the award-winning political philosopher Jeffrey Edward Green offers a vision of Dylan as a modern-day prophet, providing an overarching account of the significance of Dylan's political, religious, and ethical ideas. Green suggests Dylan is not a prophet of salvation, but rather a "prophet of diremption." Dylan speaks to the ideals that have animated earlier prophets--social justice, individual freedom, and adherence to God--but breaks from past tradition by testifying to the conflicts between these ideals. By considering Dylan's work across his career, Green shows how the humble folk singer from Minnesota who went on to win the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature has made novel contributions to the meaning of self-reliance, the quest for rapprochement between the religious and non-religious, and the problem of how ordinary people might operate in a fallen political world.

Learn more about Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Eyes of the People.

The Page 99 Test: Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Sofie Kelly reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Sofie Kelly, author of Furever After.

Her entry begins:

I just finished reading an advance copy of Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch. The book will be out this November.

Fed up over being passed from owner to owner, Pony sets out on a cross-country search for Penny, the little girl he’s never forgotten. Meanwhile, Penny, who’s all grown up, has been arrested, accused of a murder she didn’t commit, and afraid that she has no one to help her prove her innocence. She takes comfort in remembering her beloved pony. The cast of characters includes a goat, a rat, a racehorse and a whole community of animals that help Pony make his way across the country to Penny. Because Pony knows, better than anyone, that the little girl...[read on]

About Furever After, from the publisher:

Librarian Kathleen Paulson is in for a spell of trouble when she finds a dead body, and only her reliable magical cats can help her tail a killer in the newest installment of this New York Times bestselling series.

Kathleen is busy running the library and planning her upcoming wedding to detective Marcus Gordon when she suddenly stumbles across a body in the library. She is surprised to learn that the deceased was in the middle of an unlikely heist—it seems he was trying to steal one of the paintings that had been in a box in the library’s workroom. Kathleen never knew any of the library’s rotating artwork was valuable and can’t imagine what the dead man wanted with it.

But then an art history expert called in by the police identifies the almost-purloined painting as a piece that might have been part of a previous high profile art theft. Owen’s and Hercules’s whiskers are already twitching, and events soon make Kathleen realize that whoever killed the wannabe art thief has more than murder on their mind. Kathleen and her clever cats will have to work fast to prevent anyone else from getting hurt.

Visit Sofie Kelly's website.

My Book, The Movie: Curiosity Thrilled the Cat.

Writers Read: Sofie Kelly (October 2015).

The Page 69 Test: Faux Pas.

Writers Read: Sofie Kelly (September 2022).

Writers Read: Sofie Kelly.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books to steam up your thriller reads list

Michelle Cruz is a seventh-generation native Texan that allegedly writes suspense. In a previous life, she served as a commissioned Air Force officer and a congressional staffer. These days, she resides in the Texas Hill Country where she can often be found lurking at Summer Moon or stuffing her face with BBQ or Tex-Mex. Even When You Lie is her debut novel. She particularly enjoys tormenting her critique partners with plot bunnies and first drafts she has no intention of revising. When her children annoy her, she retreats to her office and spite reads to escape the realities of life, yet somehow she still has a TBR pile.

At Shepherd she tagged five favorite books to steam up your thriller reads list, including:

Walking Through Needles by Heather Levy

Some books may shy away from taboos, but Heather Levy writes fearlessly, dragging topics into the open and spotlighting them, so talking about them is unavoidable.

This isn’t only the story of a woman trying to clear her or her stepbrother’s names after the man who abused her throughout her adolescence turns up murdered; it’s a coming of age as she leans into what she desires and steps into that power.

I love that this is set in rural Oklahoma, a part of the country I feel gets overlooked as far as thrillers and noir go, and the second chance romance and potential that builds between Sam and Eric. This book does feature frank discussions of BDSM/kink and how an abuser exploits it, so please read the content warnings before diving in!

Read about the other entries on the list.

Walking Through Needles is among Megan Collins's eight top thrillers featuring dysfunctional families.

My Book, The Movie: Walking Through Needles.

The Page 69 Test: Walking Through Needles.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Daniela R. P. Weiner's "Teaching a Dark Chapter"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Teaching a Dark Chapter: History Books and the Holocaust in Italy and the Germanys by Daniela R. P. Weiner.

About the book, from the publisher:

Teaching a Dark Chapter explores how textbook narratives about the Fascist/Nazi past in Italy, East Germany, and West Germany followed relatively calm, undisturbed paths of little change until isolated "flashpoints" catalyzed the educational infrastructure into periods of rapid transformation. Though these flashpoints varied among Italy and the Germanys, they all roughly conformed to a chronological scheme and permanently changed how each "dark past" was represented.

Historians have often neglected textbooks as sources in their engagement with the reconstruction of postfascist states and the development of postwar memory culture. But as Teaching a Dark Chapter demonstrates, textbooks yield new insights and suggest a new chronology of the changes in postwar memory culture that other sources overlook. Employing a methodological and temporal rethinking of the narratives surrounding the development of European Holocaust memory, Daniela R. P. Weiner reveals how, long before 1968, textbooks in these three countries served as important tools to influence public memory about Nazi/Fascist atrocities.

As Fascism had been spread through education, then education must play a key role in undoing the damage. Thus, to repair and shape postwar societies, textbooks became an avenue to inculcate youths with desirable democratic and socialist values. Teaching a Dark Chapter weds the historical study of public memory with the educational study of textbooks to ask how and why the textbooks were created, what they said, and how they affected the society around them.

Learn more about Teaching a Dark Chapter at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Teaching a Dark Chapter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Bryn Turnbull's "The Berlin Apartment"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Berlin Apartment: A Novel by Bryn Turnbull.

About the book, from the publisher:

For fans of Kate Quinn and Kristin Hannah, this sweeping love story follows a young couple whose lives are irrevocably changed when they’re separated overnight by the construction of the Berlin Wall.

Berlin 1961: When Uli Neumann proposes to Lise Bauer, she has every reason to accept. He offers her love, respect, and a life beyond the strict bounds of the East German society in which she was raised — which she longs to leave more than anything. But only two short days after their engagement, Lise and Uli are torn violently apart when barbed wire is rolled across Berlin, splitting the city into two hostile halves: capitalist West Berlin, an island of western influence isolated far beyond the iron curtain; and the socialist East, a country determined to control its citizens by any means necessary.

Soon, Uli and his friends in West Berlin hatch a plan to get Lise and her unborn child out of East Germany, but as distance and suspicion bleed into their lives and as weeks turn to months, how long can true love survive in the divided city?

Visit Bryn Turnbull's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Paris Deception.

The Page 69 Test: The Paris Deception.

Q&A with Bryn Turnbull.

My Book, The Movie: The Berlin Apartment.

The Page 69 Test: The Berlin Apartment.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles about Argentina’s “Disappeared”

Rebecca J. Sanford is the author of The Disappeared, recipient of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association Rising Star Award. She studied at a lycée in southern France and earned a degree in French and creative writing from Loyola University. Sanford holds an MA from the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School in NYC and conducted research for her master’s thesis in Buenos Aires with the Identity Archive of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. This work inspired The Disappeared.

At Electric Lit she tagged "seven books that center the lives, experiences, and long wakes of grief left behind by those taken during Argentina’s so-called 'dirty war'." One title on the list:

Hades, Argentina by Daniel Loedel

As a medical student in 1976, Tomás Oriilla would do anything for his childhood crush, Isabel—even if her ideological fervor puts them both at risk. Ten years later, Tomás is in exile, living in New York as Thomas Shore. He is called back to Buenos Aires, where ghosts of the disappeared force him to confront the choices he once made in the name of love. A haunting journey into the past, Hades explores love and complicity through the distorted and surreal lens of individual and collective memory.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Aidan Forth's "Camps"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Camps: A Global History of Mass Confinement by Aidan Forth.

About the book, from the publisher:

The concentration of terrorists, political suspects, ethnic minorities, prisoners of war, enemy aliens, and other potentially “dangerous” populations spans the modern era. From Konzentrationslager in colonial Africa to strategic villages in Southeast Asia, from slave plantations in America to Uyghur sweatshops in Xinjiang, and from civilian internment in World War II to extraordinary rendition at Guantanamo Bay, mass detention is as diverse as it is ubiquitous.

Camps offers a short but compelling guide to the varied manifestations of concentration camps in the last two centuries, while tracing provocative transnational connections with related institutions such as workhouses, migrant detention centers, and residential schools.

Learn more about Camps at the University of Toronto Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Barbed-Wire Imperialism.

The Page 99 Test: Camps.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Laila Ibrahim

From my Q&A with Laila Ibrahim, author of Falling Wisteria: A Novel:

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

I put so much thought into my titles. And they don't come to me quickly. I needed Falling Wisteria to be culturally sensitive, stand alone and fit with the Yellow Crocus series which meant a plant or flower. My initial working title was Cherry Blossom, but one of my Japanese American beta readers thought it was a stereotypical trope, so I wanted to change it. To be honest I didn't want to go full on purple since I'm heading there, but haven't gotten to the end of the family saga yet. When I googled 'Japanese flowers that grow in the SF Bay Area' I was delighted to see wisteria on the list. I knew at once it was the flower that would be in the title. I have a beautiful wisteria plant in my backyard--they are very common in Berkeley, but I didn't realize they were...[read on]

Visit Laila Ibrahim's website.

Q&A with Laila Ibrahim.

--Marshal Zeringue

The ten best books about the Olympics

Emily Burack is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects.

At Town & Country she tagged ten of the best books about the Olympics, including:

Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever

At the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona, the U.S. men's basketball team was nicknamed the "Dream Team"—comprised of stars including Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird. Sports Illustrated writer Jack McCallum was there for their entire run—and his book, Dream Team, chronicles the "moment when a once-in-a-millennium group of athletes came together and changed the future of sports."

Read about another book on the list.

The Page 99 Test: Dream Team.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: J. L. Schellenberg's "What God Would Have Known"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: What God Would Have Known: How Human Intellectual and Moral Development Undermines Christian Doctrine by J. L. Schellenberg.

About the book, from the publisher:

Classical Christian ideas loom large in philosophy of religion today. But arguments against Christian doctrine have been neglected. J. L. Schellenberg's new book remedies this neglect. And it does so in a novel way, by linking facts about human intellectual and moral development to what God would have known at the time of Jesus.

The tide of human development, which the early Christians might have expected to corroborate their teaching, has in fact brought many results that run contrary to that teaching. Or at least it will be seen to have done so, says Schellenberg, when we think about the consequences of any God existent then being fully cognizant, when Christian doctrine was first formed, of all that we have laboriously learned since then. Newly discovered facts, not just about such things as evolution and the formation of the New Testament but also about mental illness, violent punishment, the relations between women and men, and the status of same-sex intimacy, suggest detailed new arguments against the content of the Christian revelation--Schellenberg designs and defends twenty--when the prior understanding of the purported revealer is taken into account.

Written with Schellenberg's characteristic combination of verve and careful precision, What God Would Have Known offers a thorough and incisive treatment of its subject that remains respectful and fair-minded throughout. It is not concerned with the overworked question of whether classical Christians believe irrationally, but with what overlooked arguments about human development show in relation to the truth or falsity of Christian claims about reality. Fully conversant with relevant developments in science, the book is particularly generous in its attention to recent developments in social and ethical spheres as it works toward its striking conclusion that the God of the Christians, all good and all wise, would not have believed Christian doctrine.

Visit J. L. Schellenberg's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Will to Imagine.

The Page 99 Test: What God Would Have Known.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bryn Turnbull's "The Berlin Apartment," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Berlin Apartment: A Novel by Bryn Turnbull.

The entry begins:

The Berlin Apartment is a historical love story set in Cold War Berlin on both sides of the Berlin Wall. It’s a story of intrigue, passion and betrayal that spans decades, opening in the tense and sunlit summer days just before the Wall goes up – but within pages, we find friends, families and lovers separated overnight by circumstances far beyond their control.

At the start of the novel, Lise remarks that Uli resembles Buddy Holly, with narrow shoulders, a wide smile and heavy glasses – a classic ‘sixties university student, who, we later find out, will gain a certain familiarity with claustrophobic spaces. In terms of contemporary actors who might fit the bill, Uli would slide into the “Hot Rodent Men” trend fairly easily: someone like Mike Faist or Timothée Chalamet would, I think, carry off his guileless optimism and determination very well.

For Lise – Uli’s pregnant fiancée, trapped in East Berlin and searching desperately for a way out – we need someone who can play tough and soft at the same time: someone who can embody Lise’s seething, steely fury, simmering...[read on]

Visit Bryn Turnbull's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Paris Deception.

The Page 69 Test: The Paris Deception.

Q&A with Bryn Turnbull.

My Book, The Movie: The Berlin Apartment.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best balls in literature

In 2010 at the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best balls in literature.

One novel on the list:

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Kitty goes to a ball prepared to perform the first quadrille with Vronsky. Tolstoy seems to know not only about her feelings of excitement, but also about the arrangement of her tulle dress over her pink slip and elaborate coiffure "surmounted by a rose and two small leaves". Everyone wants to dance with her, naturellement. Read about another entry on Mullan's list.

Read about another title on the list.

Anna Karenina also appears on Zhanna Slor's list of three dangerous affairs in literature, Zhanna Slor's list of three dangerous affairs in literature, Anna Orhanen's list of eleven of the very best literary evocations of winter, Cathy Rentzenbrink's top ten list of bookworms in fiction, Amanda Craig's list of ten of the best-dressed characters in fiction, Ceri Radford's list often of the finest literary romances ever told, Tessa Hadley's list of six favorite examinations of art in fiction, Kathryn Harrison's list of six favorite epic novels, Jane Corry's list of five of literature's more fearsome families, Neel Mukherjee's six favorite books list, Viv Groskop's top ten list of life lessons from Russian literature, Elizabeth Day's top ten list of parties in fiction, Grant Ginder's top ten list of the more loathsome people in literature, Louis De Berniéres's six best books list, Martin Seay's ten best long books list, Jeffrey Lent's top ten list of books about justice and redemption, Bethan Roberts's top ten list of novels about childbirth, Hannah Jane Parkinson's list of the ten worst couples in literature, Hanna McGrath's top fifteen list of epigraphs, Amelia Schonbek's list of three classic novels that pass the Bechdel test, Rachel Thompson's top ten list of the greatest deaths in fiction, Melissa Albert's recommended reading list for eight villains, Alison MacLeod's top ten list of stories about infidelity, David Denby's six favorite books list, Howard Jacobson's list of his five favorite literary heroines, Eleanor Birne's top ten list of books on motherhood, Esther Freud's top ten list of love stories, Chika Unigwe's six favorite books list, Elizabeth Kostova's list of favorite books, James Gray's list of best books, Marie Arana's list of the best books about love, Ha Jin's most important books list, Tom Perrotta's ten favorite books list, Claire Messud's list of her five most important books, Alexander McCall Smith's list of his five most important books, Mohsin Hamid's list of his ten favorite books, Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers, and among the top ten works of literature according to Peter Carey and Norman Mailer. John Mullan put it on his lists of ten of the best erotic dreams in literature, ten of the best coups de foudre in literature, ten of the best births in literature, and ten of the best ice-skating episodes in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Robert Bartlett's "History in Flames"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: History in Flames: The Destruction and Survival of Medieval Manuscripts by Robert Bartlett.

About the book, from the publisher:

To what extent does our knowledge of the past rely upon written sources? And what happens when these sources are destroyed? Focusing on the manuscripts of the Middle Ages, History in Flames explores cases in which large volumes of written material were destroyed during a single day. This destruction didn't occur by accident of fire or flood but by human forces such as arson, shelling and bombing. This book examines the political and military events that preceded the moment of destruction, from the Franco-Prussian War and the Irish Civil War to the complexities of World War II; it analyses the material lost and how it came to be where it was. At the same time, it discusses the heroic efforts made by scholars and archivists to preserve these manuscripts, even partially. History in Flames reminds us that historical knowledge rests on material remains, and that these remains are vulnerable.

Learn more about History in Flames at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages.

The Page 99 Test: Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?.

The Page 99 Test: History in Flames.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top antidetective novels

Eugenie Montague's short fiction has been published by NPR; Amazon; Faultline; Mid-American Review; Fiction Southeast and Flash Friday, a flash fiction series from Tin House and the Guardian Books Network. Her piece "Breakfast" was selected by Amy Hempel for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2017. Her hybrid work, Treating Attachment Disorder, won Eggtooth Editions' 2016 chapbook contest. She earned her MFA from the University of California, Irvine and lives in El Paso, Texas.

Montague's debut novel is Swallow the Ghost.

At CrimeReads she tagged seven favorite antidetective novels, including:

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

In a questionable translation of a missing manuscript, Adso of Melk, recalls the time he spent in a fourteenth-century monastery with Brother William, the Sherlock Holmes to his Watson. Monks are dying, and a power struggle is raging, involving the Emperor, the Pope, those Irish twins of the Catholic Church—the Franciscans and the Dominicans—as well as a handful of heresiarchs and a couple librarians. On the spectrum of antidetectives, it’s not a bad place to start as it offers a bit more closure than others. Then again, our Franciscan Sherlock has the occasion to say: “Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.” (If you like The Name of the Rose, you might also like A Wild Sheep’s Chase by Haruki Murakami. That Awful Mess on Via Meruluna is not very much like The Name of the Rose, but it is another classic written by another Italian author, Carlo Emilio Gadda, which is also translated by William Weaver).

Read about another novel on the list.

The Name of the Rose is on Douglas Westerbeke's list of eight top magical libraries in literature, Juliet Grames's ten books with vanishing narrators, Tessa Arlen’s top five list of historical novels, Sarah Dunant's six favorite books list, D.D. Everest's list of the ten top secret libraries of all time, Carolyne Larrington's top ten list of modern medieval tales, Jeff Somers's list of ten books you should finally have read in 2015, S. J. Parris's list of five favorite historical murder mysteries, Ian Rankin's list of five perfect mysteries, John Mullan's top ten list of the most memorable libraries in literature, Andy McSmith's top 10 list books of the 1980s, and Vanora Bennett's list of five favorite historical novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Deborah J Ledford reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Deborah J Ledford, author of Havoc (Eva "Lightning Dance" Duran).

Her entry begins:

I am currently fully immersed in a new mystery, and don’t tend to pleasure read the same genre while writing the first draft. And so, I chose the literary novel Prophet Song by Irish author Paul Lynch for my cookie at the end of the day.

Book seller aficionado Patrick Millikin at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore recommended this absolutely fascinating tale of a wife and mother who is forced to care for her young children alone when a new faction of Dublin’s secret police appear at her door and take her trade union husband away.

Soon the husband is lost to her, no way to find out if he’s alive or dead, or to even get word to him. As she continues to await, others in their tight-knit community disappear, never to be seen again as well. Are the arrests because of the men speaking up for the union, or a deeper and darker nefarious reason? Well...[read on]

About Havoc, from the publisher:

In this tightly paced sequel to Redemption, Eva “Lightning Dance” Duran joins the Taos Pueblo tribal police department to uncover a member of her community’s murder…and the conspiracy behind it.

It’s been over a year since the case that almost broke her, but when Eva “Lightning Dance” Duran is called back to duty, she doesn’t hesitate to answer. A bank robbery has left an officer down and a suspect on the run. Law enforcement is in hot pursuit, and residents are on the lookout―but before anyone can catch the criminal, tragedy strikes.

A member of the Taos Pueblo tribe has been shot and killed. The culprit? An untraceable 3D printed gun. With the support of fellow tribal cops, Eva breaks the news to the victim’s family and swears to find justice.

More violence follows, feeding the rising racial tensions between the Taos Pueblo people and the Hispanic community. New evidence forces Eva to consider the possibility that the bank robbery and 3D guns are related, but until she figures out how, there’s no telling how deep this crime ring goes…or how far its evasive ringleader will go to protect it.

Visit Deborah J Ledford's website.

Q&A with Deborah J Ledford.

The Page 69 Test: Redemption.

My Book, The Movie: Redemption.

The Page 69 Test: Havoc.

My Book, The Movie: Havoc.

Writers Read: Deborah J Ledford.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Andrea Freeman's "Ruin Their Crops on the Ground"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch by Andrea Freeman.

About the book, from the publisher:

The first and definitive history of the use of food in United States law and politics as a weapon of conquest and control, a Fast Food Nation for the Black Lives Matter era

In 1779, to subjugate Indigenous nations, George Washington ordered his troops to “ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.” Destroying harvests is just one way that the United States has used food as a political tool. Trying to prevent enslaved people from rising up, enslavers restricted their consumption, providing only enough to fuel labor. Since the Great Depression, school lunches have served as dumping grounds for unwanted agricultural surpluses.

From frybread to government cheese, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground draws on over fifteen years of research to argue that U.S. food law and policy have created and maintained racial and social inequality. In an epic, sweeping account, Andrea Freeman, who pioneered the term “food oppression,” moves from colonization to slavery to the Americanization of immigrant food culture, to the commodities supplied to Native reservations, to milk as a symbol of white supremacy. She traces the long-standing alliance between the government and food industries that have produced gaping racial health disparities, and she shows how these practices continue to this day, through the marketing of unhealthy goods that target marginalized communities, causing diabetes, high blood pressure, and premature death.

Ruin Their Crops on the Ground is a groundbreaking addition to the history and politics of food. It will permanently upend the notion that we freely and equally choose what we put on our plates.

Learn more about Ruin Their Crops on the Ground at the Metropolitan Books website.

The Page 99 Test: Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice.

The Page 99 Test: Ruin Their Crops on the Ground.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven novels that shine a light on overlooked women in history

Harriet Constable is a writer and filmmaker based in London. Her debut novel is The Instrumentalist. The book is inspired by the true story of Anna Maria della Pietà, who was an orphan, musical prodigy and student of Antonio Vivaldi. It has been named an Observer top 10 debut for 2024.

Constable’s journalism and documentary work is featured in outlets including The New York Times, BBC, The Guardian, The Times, Financial Times, NPR, The Economist. She produced for BBC News at Six and Ten during the pandemic, and is a Rough Guide to Kenya co-author. She was part of the team that made the BAFTA-award winning 9/11: Inside the President’s War Room.

Originally from London, Constable worked at the Financial Times before spending several years in Nairobi and then Johannesburg. She grew up playing the flute and piano and singing with her mother, a classically trained musician.

At Electric Lit Constable tagged seven favorite "books exploring history from the female perspective, reimagining what has been lost." One title on the list:

Bright I Burn by Molly Aitken

Being a woman with power was a dangerous thing in the 13th century. Molly Aitkinson’s Bright I Burn explores the life of Alice Kyteler, the first woman in Ireland to be condemned as a witch. Determined not to suffer the same constraints as her own mother, it’s a passionate reimaging of what women have suffered simply for wanting freedom.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elena Taylor's "A Cold, Cold World," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: A Cold, Cold World by Elena Taylor.

The entry begins:

These days, as a fiction writer, I imagine less about landing on the big screen and more about streaming potential. My dream is for A Cold, Cold World to become a mini-series on either Amazon Prime or Netflix.

With the rugged scenery of the Pacific Northwest, the fast action scenes, and the intense weather events, I think it would be a dynamic and exciting project.

There are a couple reasons for the shift in my adaptation goals. First off, I love the ability to watch shows at home. As much as I enjoy going to a movie theater, I have a reclining divan, adult beverages, and a fireplace in my living room—definitely my go-to for enjoying a cinematic experience.

Then, I find that mini-series have fabulous production values these days. They can do things with streaming shows that are as complicated in terms of effects and filming as a movie. Whether it’s the opening scenes of my small-town sheriff riding up to a mountain ridge to recover the body of a dead teenager in the aftermath of a snowmobile accident, or her continued search for clues in the storm, the visual elements would be amazing.

Lastly, I think books do tremendously well when the project has more time to develop the characters and the plot. I love shows with several episodes, allowing me to discover a much fuller representation of a novel. A Cold, Cold World is a fairly fast-moving mystery, with some thrilleresque moments, but it’s also about characters grappling with real world issues, so the slower moments of character development would be key.

Even more of a dream for me would be a continuing series. I’m a big fan of shows like The Murdoch Mysteries, based on the novels by Maureen Jennings, DCI Banks based on the novels by Peter Robinson, and Shetland based on the novels by Ann Cleeves. I would love to see my Sheriff Bet Rivers Mysteries added to that heady list.

Since the first book, I’ve thought about who I would love to see in the major roles. I think Charisma Carpenter would be perfect for the role of Sheriff Bet Rivers. Her evolution from the ditzy party-girl on Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the serious and hardcore vampire fighter on Angel was a lot of fun to watch. I know she can be tough and physical, but also thoughtful and smart.

That naturally brings me to...[read on]

Visit Elena Taylor's website.

Q&A with Elena Taylor.

The Page 69 Test: A Cold, Cold World.

My Book, The Movie: A Cold, Cold World.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: William A. Everett's "The Year that Made the Musical"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Year that Made the Musical: 1924 and the Glamour of Musical Theatre by William A. Everett.

About the book, from the publisher:

Whether they appeared on Broadway or the Strand, the shows appearing in 1924 epitomized the glamor of popular musical theatre. What made this particular year so distinctive – so special – was the way it brought together the old and the new, the venerated and the innovative, and the traditional and the chic. William Everett, in his compelling new book, reveals this remarkable mid-Roaring Twenties stagecraft to have been truly transnational, with a stellar cast of producers, performers and creators boldly experimenting worldwide. Revues, musical comedies, zarzuelas and operettas formed part of a thriving theatrical ecosystem, with many works – and their leading artists – now unpredictably defying genres. The author demonstrates how fresh approaches became highly successful, with established leads like Marie Tempest and Fred Stone appearing in new productions even as youthful talents such as Florence Mills, Fred and Adele Astaire, Gertrude Lawrence and George Gershwin now started to make their mark.

Learn more about The Year that Made the Musical at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Year that Made the Musical.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top crime novels with a focus on nature

Ayla Rose is an author and lawyer who lives in the Green Mountains of Vermont. When not writing, she enjoys kayaking, hiking, gardening, and spending time with her husband, sons, and the family’s three dogs.

Her new novel, Murder on Devil's Pond, is book 1 in The Hummingbird Hollow B&B Mystery series.

At CrimeReads Rose tagged six "favorite crime novels (or series) with a focus on the outdoors." One title on the list:

A Borrowing of Bones by Paula Munier

If you enjoy adventure (and dogs!) with your nature, don’t miss Paula Munier’s Mercy Carr Mystery Series, the first of which is A Borrowing of Bones. The books take place in Vermont and feature soldier Mercy Carr and her deceased fiancé’s retired bomb-sniffing dog, Elvis, both of whom are suffering from PTSD when they return stateside. In A Borrowing of Bones, Mercy and Elvis discover a crying baby and a shallow grave filled with remains in the Vermont wilderness during one of their long treks. The two pair up with U.S. Game Warden Troy Warner and his search and rescue Newfoundland Susie Bear to solve a cold-case murder and find the infant’s mother. The descriptions of Vermont will transport you to the Green Mountain State, and did I mention dogs?

Read about another novel on the list.

My Book, The Movie: A Borrowing of Bones.

The Page 69 Test: A Borrowing of Bones.

--Marshal Zeringue

Third reading: D.W. Buffa on Caesar’s Ghost

D.W. Buffa's newest novel to be released is Evangeline, a courtroom drama about the murder trial of captain who is one of the few to survive the sinking of his ship.

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 Caesar’s Ghost. It begins:

It was always dangerous, for those who lived in a monarchy hundreds of years ago, to write that killing the king was the only way to win liberty for their country. The only safe way to write about the virtue of murder, when murder was the only way to replace the rule of one with the rule of all, was to write about a political assassination that had taken place in the past, the distant past, the ancient story of someone murdered because he wanted to be king, the story William Shakespeare told in his play called Julius Caesar, the play that all the loyal subjects of Queen Elizabeth could applaud.

The question, once Shakespeare decided to write a play about why Brutus and Cassius and the others thought Caesar’s ambition, if left unchecked, would be the end of the Roman republic, was how to do it in a way that would make an audience feel an interest in things that had happened more than sixteen hundred years earlier. How teach an audience to understand the strange names, the changing relationships, the different agreements and conspiracies that made the murder of Julius Caesar and the civil war that resulted one of the most important turning points in history? Writing a century and a half after Shakespeare’s death, Samuel Johnson, who understood Shakespeare perhaps better than anyone, thought he knew how it had been done. Shakespeare’s people, which is how he described the characters of Shakespeare’s invention, “act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species.”

The characters - their feelings, their motives, their vanities and ambitions - are known to us because we have observed them, and experienced them, ourselves. Shakespeare understands that. But what about...[read on]

Visit D.W. Buffa's website.

Third reading: The Great Gatsby. 

Third reading: Brave New World.

Third reading: Lord Jim.

Third reading: Death in the Afternoon.

Third Reading: Parade's End.

Third Reading: The Idiot.

Third Reading: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Third Reading: The Scarlet Letter.

Third Reading: Justine.

Third Reading: Patriotic Gore.

Third reading: Anna Karenina.

Third reading: The Charterhouse of Parma.

Third Reading: Emile.

Third Reading: War and Peace.

Third Reading: The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Third Reading: Bread and Wine.

Third Reading: “The Crisis of the Mind” and A Man Without Qualities.

Third reading: Eugene Onegin.

Third Reading: The Collected Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Third Reading: The Europeans.

Third Reading: The House of Mirth and The Writing of Fiction.

Third Reading: Doctor Faustus.

Third Reading: the reading list of John F. Kennedy.

Third Reading: Jorge Luis Borges.

Third Reading: History of the Peloponnesian War.

Third Reading: Mansfield Park.

Third Reading: To Each His Own.

Third Reading: A Passage To India.

Third Reading: Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

Third Reading: The Letters of T.E. Lawrence.

Third Reading: All The King’s Men.

Third Reading: The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.

Third Reading: Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of ancient Egypt.

Third Reading: Main Street.

Third Reading: Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part I.

Third Reading: Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part II.

Third Reading: Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Third Reading: Fiction's Failure.

Third Reading: Hermann Hesse's Demian.

Third Reading: Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and The Fourth of July.

Third Reading: Caesar’s Ghost.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Steve Tibble's "Crusader Criminals"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land by Steve Tibble.

About the book, from the publisher:

A vivid new history of the criminal underworld in the medieval Holy Land

The religious wars of the crusades are renowned for their military engagements. But the period was witness to brutality beyond the battlefield. More so than any other medieval war zone, the Holy Land was rife with unprecedented levels of criminality and violence.

In the first history of its kind, Steve Tibble explores the criminal underbelly of the crusades. From gangsters and bandits to muggers and pirates, Tibble presents extraordinary evidence of an illicit underworld. He shows how the real problem in the region stemmed not from religion but from young men. Dislocated, disinhibited, and present in disturbingly large numbers, they were the propellant that stoked two centuries of unceasing warfare and shocking levels of criminality.

Crusader Criminals charts the downward spiral of desensitisation that grew out of the horrors of incessant warfare—and in doing so uncovers some of the most surprising stories of the time.

Visit Steve Tibble's website.

The Page 99 Test: Templars.

The Page 99 Test: Crusader Criminals.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books about yearning

August Thompson was born and raised in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire, before he attended middle school in West LA. After surviving California optimism, he moved to NYC for his bachelor’s, studied in Berlin, and taught English in Spain for two years. He recently received his MFA at New York University’s creative writing program as a Goldwater Fellow.

Thompson's new book is Anyone’s Ghost.

At the Guardian the author tagged "five novels that capture that lightning-struck feeling" that "is one of the great rites of passage of youth – wanting someone, wanting to be them, wanting to be wanted." One title on the list:

Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was by Sjón

A period piece set in Reykjavík in 1918, Sjón has written a novel about desire from the fringe. In a plague-ridden world cursed with mass death but blessed with the light of the birth of cinema, the novel’s queer main character Máni Steinn Karlsson is unfit for a bigoted society in every way. Yet his pining for a more beautiful world filled with that dissolving, projected light offers a warped, heartbreaking hope.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue