|
JANUARY 2010
 Paul Auster, SUNSET PARK
Henry Holt & Co., $25.00 (unsigned first edition)
Not a conventional crime novel, but an exploration of the mysteries of the human heart. Miles Heller has been on the run for seven years, fleeing his guilt over a crime he was never accused of. He lands in Brooklyn, where his friend Bing has put together a household in an abandoned building. As the economic collapse of 2008 unfolds, Miles, Bing, and their housemates Alice and Ellen all find themselves living on the edge in more ways than one – as are Miles' parents, as is everyone. This gorgeous, insightful book will stand as a snapshot of our time for generations to come.
DECEMBER 2010
 Ken Harmon, THE FAT MAN: A Tale of North Pole Noir
Dutton, $19.95 (unsigned first edition)
Grizzled veteran Gumdrop Coal created the Naughty List, delivering coal to rotten kids until public opinion at the North Pole turned against him. Forced out, he decides to launch his own campaign against what he perceives as the true source of the problem: the naughty kids' parents. But he didn't mean for anyone to die, and when a bad kid's father is shot in the eye with a Red Ryder BB gun, Gumdrop is the prime suspect. Great fun, full of hilarious asides, highly recommended for fans of Jasper Fforde's Tuesday Next novels.
CLAIR'S TOP TEN TOP TEN OF 2010 (alphabetical by author)
John Connolly, THE WHISPERERS. Atria, $26.00. Charlie Parker investigates the suicide of a recently–returned Iraq war veteran, and discovers a smuggling ring that is transporting uniquely dangerous goods across the US–Canadian border. Both thriller and social history, a deeply compassionate look at the plight of the men who went to war and came back changed.
Paul Doiron, THE POACHER'S SON. Minotaur, $24.99. One of the year's best debuts. Mike Bowditch, a rookie Maine Game Warden, gets a mysterious late–ight phone message from his estranged father, an alcoholic wilderness guide who's always supported himself on the fringes of the law. The next day, Mike learns that his father is the prime suspect in the fatal shootings of a real estate developer and a sheriff's deputy. Convinced of his father's innocence, Mike puts his own career at risk to get the truth.
Tom Franklin, CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER. William Morrow, $24.99. A gripping, heartbreaking, ultimately redemptive story about the power of old secrets. A teenaged girl disappears without a trace, and the prime suspect is her shy classmate Larry Ott, who was the last person known to have seen her. Twenty–five years later, Larry is a recluse, permanently suspected of a crime that may not even have happened, and another girl goes missing.
Tana French, FAITHFUL PLACE. Viking, $25.95. Frank Mackey and his first love, Rosie Daly, were going to leave their desperate Dublin neighborhood for a new life in London – but Rosie never showed, and Frank spent the rest of his life believing she'd stood him up, and gone off on her own. Twenty–two years later, Rosie's suitcase turns up, hidden for decades in an abandoned building. Gripping, heartbreaking, beautifully observed.
Jesse Kellerman, THE EXECUTOR. Putnam, $25.95. Perpetual graduate student Joseph Geist answers a cryptic ad for a "Conversationalist," and seems to have his entire life solved for him. His patron, an elderly woman named Alma Spielmann, offers him everything he needs and wants – and sets up a situation that plunges Joseph into a nightmare he could not have imagined. This book asks some big questions, and trusts the reader enough not to answer them all.
Declan Hughes, CITY OF LOST GIRLS. William Morrow, $24.99. Dublin PI Ed Loy confronts the deepest secrets of his own past when an old friend, charismatic film director Jack Donovan, returns to Dublin to shoot a movie.
Vicki Lane, THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. Dell, $7.99 (paperback original). Reminiscent of both Sharyn McCrumb and Daniel Woodrell, but entirely original. A baby girl christened Least and raised in isolation grows to be a wise, beloved woman named Birdie, who has powers she's promised never to use. When a young relative falls under the control of a predator, Birdie must break that promise to set things right.
Laura Lippman, I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE. William Morrow, $25.99. Less a crime novel than a meditation on how people survive the unimaginable, how we become who we are, and what we owe the living, the dead, and ourselves.
Lisa Lutz, THE SPELLMANS STRIKE AGAIN. Simon & Schuster, $25.00. Isabel Spellman's quest to bring down a rival PI leads to her determination to free a wrongly convicted prisoner, which doesn't really have anything to do with her sister Rae's campaign to free another wrongly convicted prisoner, except that both files came from the office of their brother's girlfriend, Maggie, who used to date Rae's friend Henry, whom Izzy used to have a crush on. And the Spellman parents are acting strangely, and things keep disappearing, and Isabel's mother makes her agree to a series of blind dates with lawyers – until everything becomes clear, cases are more or less resolved, and they all live happily ever after.
Alexandra Sokoloff, BOOK OF SHADOWS. St. Martin's, $25.99. Detective Adam Garrett and his partner investigate a gruesome murder with Satanic overtones. Sokoloff does an excellent job of blending police procedural elements with the supernatural, leaving the nature of the attacks in doubt almost to the end.
NOVEMBER 2010
 Bruce DeSilva, ROGUE ISLAND
Forge, $24.99 (signed first edition)
Rhode Island's small, tightly intertwined political community has always been fertile ground for corruption, but it's taken a long time to see a really good crime novel set there. Bruce DeSilva's debut fills the bill, and promises to make several awards short–lists next year. Burnt–out journalist Liam Mulligan grew up in the Providence neighborhood of Mount Hope. When someone starts setting it on fire, building by building, Mulligan makes it his business to find out why – even if it means putting his career, his freedom and his life at risk.
OCTOBER 2010
 Peter Quinn, THE MAN WHO NEVER RETURNED
Overlook, $24.95 (unsigned first edition)
Peter Quinn may be one of the best prose stylists working in crime fiction today. In this, his second novel to feature 1950s–era New York PI Fintan Dunne, he tackles one of the city's most intriguing real–life mysteries: what happened to Judge Joseph Crater, who disappeared into thin air one night in 1930? As the disappearance approaches its 25th anniversary in 1955, Fintan Dunne takes one last crack at the case, and finds some witnesses who are willing to talk at last.
SEPTEMBER 2010
 Tana French, FAITHFUL PLACE
Viking, $25.95 (first U.S. edition with tipped-in signature page)
Frank Mackey and his first love, Rosie Daly, were going to leave their desperate Dublin neighborhood for a new life in London — but Rosie never showed, and Frank spent the rest of his life believing she'd stood him up. Twenty-two years later, Frank, an undercover police detective, gets a frantic call from his sister. Rosie's suitcase has turned up, hidden for decades in an abandoned building. It's only a matter of time before Frank finds out what happened to Rosie, and why, although it means the destruction of everything he thought he knew about his life. French gets everything right here: the delirium of young love, the complicated alliances of siblings, the way the things we believed at 19 shape who we are at 40.
Please contact us directly to purchase this title. You may email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or telephone us on our toll–free number, (800) 821-9017.
  SARA PARETSKY discusses and signs HARDBALL
Signet Select paperback, $9.99 (paperback reprint).
We are beyond excited about this visit from the legendary Sara Paretsky, who has only an hour to spend with us in celebration of the paperback release of HARDBALL, the 13th V.I. Warshawski novel. We're also hoping she’ll give us some clues about the 14th, BODY WORK, which hits stores at the end of this month. HARDBALL, which made both Linda and Clair's Best of 2009 lists, starts with a cold, cold case: the disappearance of a man on the South Side of Chicago in 1967. Things turn hot again when Vic's questioning rattles old skeletons. Some of those may be in the Warshawski family closet, as Vic's investigation turns up hints that her own father might have been a sleazy cop.
Please contact us directly to purchase this title. You may email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or telephone us on our toll–free number, (800) 821-9017.
We know many of you have already purchased the hardcover edition of HARDBALL from The Mystery Bookstore. We ask you to consider purchasing a paperback copy to be donated to Adult Literacy Services Program of the Los Angeles Public Library. Alternatively, we will be collecting monetary donations to this program at this event. Donations are not mandatory, but this cause is near and dear to Ms. Paretsky, and any donation is much appreciated.
SIGNING RULES: Because of Ms. Paretsky's time constraints, she will sign only books purchased at The Mystery Bookstore. Limit two (2) per customer. Thank you for your understanding.
 John Connolly, THE WHISPERERS
Atria, $26.00 (first edition with signed tipped–in page and limited edition CD)
Connolly's latest Charlie Parker novel is one more advance in a series that gets sharper and deeper with every book. This time out, the Maine–based PI investigates the suicide of a recently–returned Iraq war veteran, and discovers a smuggling ring that is transporting uniquely dangerous goods across the US–Canadian border. The author is well–known and loved at The Mystery Bookstore; Clair says, "I had a front–row seat for some of the research for this book, so I can't pretend to be objective – but THE WHISPERERS worked for me as both thriller and social history, a deeply compassionate look at the plight of the men who went to war and came back changed." Each book comes with a copy of Love & Whispers, a CD compilation of music that inspired or is mentioned in the Parker novels.
Please contact us directly to purchase this title. You may email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or telephone us on our toll–free number, (800) 821-9017.
 Martyn Waites, SPEAK NO EVIL
Pegasus, $25.95 (unsigned first U.S. edition)
Thirty years after her 11-year-old self murdered a little boy, Anne Marie Smeaton is ready to tell her story to former journalist Joe Donovan, now running his own PI agency. When another young boy is murdered, however, Donovan is not the only one wondering about the connection between that death and the woman who used to be Mae Blacklock. Meanwhile, Donovan's long-term search for his missing son moves toward its own startling resolution. Martyn Waites has an uncanny empathy for even the most vicious of his characters; few authors handle material this dark so well.
Please contact us directly to purchase this title. You may email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or telephone us on our toll–free number, (800) 821-9017.
 P.J. Tracy, SHOOT TO THRILL
Putnam, $25.95 (first edition signed by both authors)
The Monkeewrench crew is back after too long an absence, and this time they're working for the FBI. Special Agent John Smith leads an urgent investigation into a series of horrifying but apparently unrelated murders, all of which are being filmed live and uploaded to YouTube and other social networking sites. When an apparent accidental drowning in Minneapolis shows up as an Internet murder video, police detectives Gino Rolseth and Leo Magozzi join the hunt. The plot keeps twisting to the final page, but as always, the real pleasure is the time spent with the members of Monkeewrench and especially Detective Magozzi, whose point–of–view dominates this story.
Please contact us directly to purchase this title. You may email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or telephone us on our toll–free number, (800) 821-9017.
|
