Peggy Townsend is an award-winning journalist and author. Her work has appeared in Catamaran literary magazine, Santa Cruz Noir, The Boston Globe Magazine, Memoir, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. Twice she lived for seven weeks in her van, traveling to Alaska and along the back roads of the U.S.
Townsend's new novel is The Botanist's Assistant.
At CrimeReads she tagged four favorite academia-centered mystery novels, including:
Jean Hanff Korelitz, The PlotRead about another entry on the list.
This is the kind of mystery thriller that makes you regret again any questionable decision you ever made. Jacob Bonner is a struggling writer and MFA teacher at alow-level college who finds himself reluctantly agreeing with an unpleasant student’s claim that his idea for a novel is a guaranteed bestseller.
Years later, when Bonner learns the student died without ever writing his book, the failing author persuades himself that appropriating his student’s idea is not theft if he writes the manuscript himself. When Bonner’s book becomes a runaway hit and makes him a rich man, anonymous notes that threaten to expose him as a thief begin to appear.
I found myself flipping through the pages, my heart racing, as Bonner tries to find his accuser. This is a book that will keep you up at night, but in the best possible way.
The Plot is among Ayden LeRoux's seven top books about authorship hoaxes, Jane L. Rosen's nine books about book people, Elyse Friedman's eight novels featuring schemers & opportunists, E.G. Scott's five best books-within-books, Kimberly Belle's four thrillers with maximum escapism, and Louise Dean's top ten novels about novelists.
--Marshal Zeringue
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