Lindsey Davis: Marcus Didius Falco and Flavia Albia Mysteries < Back Lindsey Davis Author of The Marcus Didius Falco and Flavia Albia Mysteries December 25, 2021 Lindsey Davi s was born in Birmingham, England, studied at Oxford, and worked as a civil servant for 13 years. After a romantic novel she’d written was runner-up for the 1985 Georgette Heyer Historical Novel Prize, she became a full-time writer. She wrote twenty delightful novels about an informer and all-around solver of problems (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries). Set in ancient Rome, her protagonist is delightfully human, happy when his hair looks good and disappointed in himself when he screws up. I loved his courtship of Helena Justina, the senator’s daughter who becomes his wife and the mother of his children. Now Ms. Davis is writing about Marcus and Helena’s British-born adopted daughter, Flavia Alvia, who solves murders when she isn’t taking care of her busy household, supervising slaves and planning family gatherings. These are action packed stories set in a violent society, but I loved spending cold winter afternoons back in Davis’s Ancient Rome. Ms. Davis won the 2011 Cartier Diamond Dagger for her outstanding contribution to the mystery genre. She was honorary president of the Classical Association and is a lifetime member of the Council of the Society of Authors. Previous Next

Sisters Nadia and Cass are heirs to a company that builds yachts for the super wealthy, and both are excited about a commission that will introduce them to the huge Asian market. < Back The Drowning Game Barbara Nickless January 1, 2025 Two sisters are heirs to a company that builds yachts for the super wealthy, and both are excited about a commission that will introduce them to the huge Asian market. Shortly after arriving in Singapore, Nadia learns that her sister, Cass has plummeted from a 40th floor balcony. Numb with grief, Nadia takes over Cass’s job of finishing a yacht for a high-level Chinese scientist whose work is important to the repressive Chinese government. In gripping prose, Nickless delves into yacht design, espionage, the world of high-stakes yachting, and China’s repressive regime. Figuring out why Cass died could tear the company apart and might get Nadia killed in this suspenseful intrigue-filled novel about family history, loyalty, and secrets. Barbara Nickless is the Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author of Play of Shadows , Dark of Night , and At First Light in the Dr. Evan Wilding series, as well as the Sydney Rose Parnell series, which includes Blood on the Tracks , a Suspense Magazine Best of 2016 selection and winner of the Colorado Book Award and the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence; Dead Stop , winner of the Colorado Book Award and nominee for the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence; Ambush ; and Gone to Darkness . In addition to her career as a technical writer and instructional designer, Barbara worked as a raptor rehabilitator, piano teacher and performer, and a sword fighter. She served as the Director of Education for the country’s largest public astronomical observatory. It was all great fun. But then a wildfire burned down her family’s home. For Barbara, losing everything also meant she had everything to gain. Her essays and short stories have appeared in Writer’s Digest and on Criminal Element, among other markets. She lives in Colorado, where she loves to cave, snowshoe, hike, and drink single malt Scotch―usually not at the same time. Connect with her at www.barbaranickless.com . Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Lila, a proud Filipino American who bakes awesome fusions of Filipino and American pastry, is a 25-year-old who has been asked to guest judge a local beauty pageant that she won as a teenager. The first sign of trouble is a threat about the competition, and then one of Lila’s fellow judges is found dead. < Back Homicide and Halo-Halo Mia P. Manansala February 22, 2022 Homicide and Halo-Halo (Berkley, 2022) is the second cozy mystery in the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen mystery series. Written in first person, baker Lila Macapagal is about to open the Brew-Ha Café in Shady Palms, a fictional town about 2 hours outside of Chicago. Lila, a proud Filipino American who bakes awesome fusions of Filipino and American pastry, is a 25-year-old who has been asked to guest judge a local beauty pageant that she won as a teenager. The first sign of trouble is a threat about the competition, and then one of Lila’s fellow judges is found dead. Cozy mysteries are usually lightweight and amusing – while Homicide and Halo-Halo is written in a light-hearted style, characters grapple with serious issues such as PTSD, fatphobia, fertility and pregnancy issues, predatory behavior, unresolved grief, parental death, and dismissive attitudes toward mental health. Mia P. Manansala is a writer and certified book coach who earned her undergraduate degree in English at Northeastern Illinois University. A 2017 alum and 2018-20 mentor for Pitch Wars, a volunteer-run writing program, Manansala uses humor (and murder) to explore aspects of the Filipino diaspora, queerness, and her millennial love for pop culture. She is the winner of the 2018 Hugh Holton Award, the 2018 Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award, the 2017 William F. Deeck - Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers, and the 2016 Mystery Writers of America/Helen McCloy Scholarship. A lover of all things geeky, Mia spends her days procrastibaking , playing JRPGs and dating sims, reading cozy mysteries, and cuddling her dogs Gumiho, Max Power, and Bayley Banks (bonus points if you get all the references). Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

In Instructions for the Working Day by Joanna Campbell (Fairlight Books, 2022), Neil Fischer has inherited his father's former hometown of Marschwald in East Germany. < Back Instructions for the Working Day Joanna Campbell September 6, 2022 In Instructions for the Working Day by Joanna Campbell (Fairlight Books, 2022), Neil Fischer has inherited his father's former hometown of Marschwald in East Germany. He drives there from England, remembering stories about his father’s brutal behavior, the split from his mother and sister, and the loneliness he experienced throughout his childhood. He picks up a chatty hitchhiker who helps him get through part of the journey. An inability to understand people, especially his father, has always plagued Neil, but now he faces the task of deciphering his demanding father's last wish and restoring the derelict village to its former glory. He plans to renovate and revive Marschwald, but is met with hostility, mistrust and underlying menace by nearly all the old people in the town. His only friend in Marschwald is Silke, who is coming to terms with her traumatic experiences during the Cold War and has recently uncovered a shocking truth, concealed from her for years by her controlling brother. As tensions rise, a series of surreal encounters force Neil to contend with his own troubled past – but right now, all signs point to danger. Joanna Campbell lives in Gloucestershire, England. She studied German at university and as a student spent a year living in West Germany. Joanna has worked as a teacher of both German and English, and now writes full-time. She is very interested in the Cold War − particularly the communist state of East Germany − partly as a result of studying the era for her university course and also from living with West Germans devastated by the division of their country and separated from their loved ones. She loves to write about the themes of separation and isolation as a result of this interest. She is learning to paint and most of her efforts involve abstract cityscapes reminiscent of battle-scarred Berlin. Her debut novel Tying Down the Lion was published in 2015, and her short story collection When Planets Slip Their Tracks (2016) was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. Her novella Sybilla won the 2021 National Flash Fiction Day Novella-in-Flash Award. Her short fiction has been published in many anthologies and literary magazines and has won several awards including the London Short Story Prize. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

After a night in the refrigerator, it will be thick like a ganache. < Back Dairy-free Chocolate Frosting September 3, 2019 Prep Time: 10 Minutes Cook Time: Varies Serves: 2 Cups of Spread Tags: Vegan, Gluten Free, Baking, Dips and Sauces, Cakes & Pies & Icing About the Recipe P.11 Battered: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery Alene cut through the alley, unlocked the back entrance and stepped into Whipped and Sipped’s kitchen. The comforting smell of yeast, the enticement of cinnamon and the complexity of chocolate all soothed Alene, who realized she’d been holding her shoulders and neck in awkward stiffness. Ruthie approached with a steaming cup of her favorite espresso topped with whipped almond milk, cocoa and cinnamon powder.” Ingredients 1 ¼ cup water 1 small baked sweet potato (with skin) ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (Higher quality powder will taste better!) 1 TBSP instant decaf or coffee powder or crystals 1 tsp cinnamon (optional – you can also just use 1/2 tsp) ½ cup pure maple syrup 1 tsp pure vanilla extract ¼ tsp salt Other options: replace ¼ cup of water with a liquor Replace ¼ cup of water with any kind of milk add a whole peeled orange add ¼ brown sugar for a sweeter frosting or sauce only 1/2 tsp of cinnamon replaced with extra 1/2 tsp of pure vanilla extract Preparation In a high-powered blender, use the ‘soup’ setting that heats up the ingredients. This heat is enough to temper the chocolate, which will turn shiny. It should be smooth enough to pour or spread. If you don’t have a soup setting, use your blender to mix everything until completely smooth, pour into a microwave-safe container, then zap in the microwave for one minute. Stir, zap another 30 seconds, and stir again until the sauce is a little steamy and silky looking. Add one of the options if you like it sweeter, or more liquid if you need it to be thinner right away. After a night in the refrigerator, it will be thick like a ganache. Zap it again if you need it to be easily spreadable after being in the fridge. Use it to frost a cake, or dip strawberries, or enjoy teaspoonfuls of it all week (if it lasts that long). Previous Next

Daniel Shapiro was a successful attorney in his early forties when his wife, Susan, suffered a brain bleed and a diagnosis that her future was uncertain. Stunned, and with three young children, the couple made the most of the few years that followed, before a massive second hemorrhage changed everything. < Back The Thin Ledge Daniel Shapiro July 27, 2021 Daniel Shapiro was a successful attorney in his early forties when his wife, Susan, suffered a brain bleed and a diagnosis that her future was uncertain. Stunned, and with three young children, the couple made the most of the few years that followed, before a massive second hemorrhage changed everything. Physically, Susan was badly compromised in her ability to speak, see, and walk. Mentally, she spiraled into depression and experienced a drastic personality change. The Thin Ledge: A Husband’s Memoir of Love, Trauma, and Unexpected Circumstances (River Grove Books, 2021) is about coping (often unsuccessfully) with the wreckage left in the wake of an illness that destroys a loved one. Shapiro addresses the questions that people living through unspeakable tragedy may never mention, but almost always ask. Daniel P. Shapiro completed his undergraduate degree as a member of Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Illinois, and earned a J.D. at the University of Chicago Law School. He grew up in the northern Chicago suburbs, his mother a homemaker and his father a professional artist. Daniel has always loved both photography and writing. Before practicing law, he was a contributing writer for a local newspaper. Over the years, and especially while undergoing the events described in his memoir, he found writing to be an effective way to access his inner thoughts and to think in a constructive way about the challenges he needed to address. Writing classes and working with excellent teachers (to whom he is immensely grateful) helped him hone his skills, with the result being his memoir, The Thin Ledge. He is already at work on a second book, a novel. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Going back and forth in time, Evangeline (Evie) recalls the challenges of being raised on a lush island off the coast of California. Her mother has left Evie and her father, and her father raises Evie from the age of three.  < Back Creatures Crissy Van Meter June 30, 2020 Going back and forth in time, Evangeline (Evie) recalls the challenges of being raised on a lush island off the coast of California. Her mother has left Evie and her father, and her father raises Evie from the age of three.  He’s a jack-of-all-trades but survives by selling a specially grown variety of marijuana. And although he provides her with adventure and a deep love of the ocean, Evie’s father doesn’t show up as a consistent adult in her life. The book opens just before her wedding, when a storm is brewing, her fiancé is out at sea, and a dead whale beaches, which causes a pervading smell of decay across the island. Evie’s mostly absent mother suddenly shows up wanting to participate in the joy of her daughter’s wedding. In flashbacks and musings, Evie confronts her abandonment, guilt, anger and ultimately her love for all creatures - including her parents, her husband, her best friend, and her best friend’s child. With sporadic notes from Evie’s research on wales and sea life, this is a novel to savor while either gazing out to sea or imagining it. Crissy Van Meter is a writer based in Los Angeles. Creatures: A Novel (Algonquin Books) is her debut novel. She teaches creative writing at  The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the founder of the literary project Five Quarterly and the managing editor for Nouvella Books. She serves on the board of directors for the literary non-profit Novelly.  Crissy loves going to Disneyland and has been an annual passholder since she was 5. She’s been to Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Walt Disney World, and she plans to visit the remaining Disney parks in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Imagine a Jewish village hidden in the forests of Poland that somehow escapes the Holocaust. Eighty years later, a young woman divorces her husband and runs into the surrounding forest. The town sends a young man to find her. He’s an orphan and expendable because he’s not that good a marriage prospect, but suddenly he finds himself in modern-day Poland. < Back The Lost Shtetl Max Gross February 16, 2021 Today I spoke with Max Gross about his book The Lost Shtetl (HarperCollins, 2020). Imagine a Jewish village hidden in the forests of Poland that somehow escapes the Holocaust. Eighty years later, a young woman divorces her husband and runs into the surrounding forest. The town sends a young man to find her. He’s an orphan and expendable because he’s not that good a marriage prospect, but suddenly he finds himself in modern-day Poland. He finds it hard to believe that all the Jews of Poland have been murdered along with most of Europe’s Jewry. Officials toss him in an institution and study him for months until a Yiddish translator is found. And when they fly him home in a helicopter, the townspeople think the Messiah has finally come. The Lost Shtetl is about love, family, community, religion, class, government, politics, antisemitism, assimilation, and history itself. Although the town never heard of electricity, running water, or cars, never advanced in science or medicine, and never even heard of sliced bread, it’s not clear that progress is going to be good for everyone in Kreskol. Max Gross was born in New York City in 1978 and is the son of two writers. After attending Saint Ann’s School and Dartmouth College, he worked at the Forward and as a travel correspondent for the New York Post before becoming the Editor-in-Chief of Commercial Observer. He wrote a book about dating called "From Schlub to Stud" but has since been rescued from the single man's fate by his beloved wife and son, with whom he lives in Queens, New York. The Lost Shtetl, his first novel, is a winner of the National Jewish Book Award, a recipient of an honorable mention for the Sophie Brody Medal, and winner of the Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award. Gross is also a lifelong traveler, having studied in Scotland and London, and having lived in Arad, Israel for a year. When not writing, he is a degenerate poker player who once had the distinction of beating the 2003 World Series of Poker champion, Chris Moneymaker , in a media versus professional tournament. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

In lyrical, moving prose, with characters that reach across the years, Billy O’Callaghan describes births, deaths, war, and the life of his family. < Back Life Sentences Billy O'Callaghan March 22, 2022 Life Sentences (Godine, 2022) tells three interconnected stories about a family in his home country of Ireland. In lyrical, moving prose, with characters that reach across the years, Billy O’Callaghan describes births, deaths, war, and the life of his family. The book begins in the 1920’s with Jeremiah, who survived as a soldier in the Great War. He’s drunk and jailed on the night before his sister’s funeral to prevent him from killing his sister’s husband. “Life had its struggles,” he says as he muses about his family and experiences, “but we bore them in the way that our kind always do.” The second part goes back to the 1880’s, and Jer’s mother, Nancy, recounts being the only member of her family to survive the Great Potato Famine. Starving, she left her tiny island home to find work on the mainland and was wooed by Michael Egan, the man who fathered her two children and haunted her for years. The third section is in the voice of Nellie, Jer’s youngest daughter, who is nearing the end of her life. This is a beautifully written novel about family, home, poverty, loss, and the struggle to live in a difficult world. Billy O’Callaghan, from Cork, Ireland, is the author of four short story collections (In Exile , In Too Deep , The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind , and The Boatman ) and the novels The Dead House and My Coney Island Baby . His work has been translated into a dozen languages and earned him numerous honours, including four Bursary Awards for Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland and, in 2013, a Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Award for the Short Story of the Year, as well as shortlistings for the COSTA Award and the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award. His short stories have appeared in such literary journals and magazines around the world as: Agni, the Chattahoochee Review, the Kenyon Review, London Magazine, Los Angeles Review, Narrative Magazine, Ploughshares, the Saturday Evening Post and Winter Papers. A new novel, The Paper Man , will be published in the UK and Ireland by Jonathan Cape in 2023. When Billy isn’t reading or writing, he’s a big fan of Liverpool Football Club (called soccer in the U.S.). Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Sitting on the porch swing at her family’s vacation house, Mazie sees an old woman cutting through the orchard across the way and offers her a glass of water. Before long, they are playing cards every morning, and Mazie, triggered by the place that holds many childhood memories, begins sharing stories with her new friend, Lula. < Back The Rocky Orchard Barbara Monier June 26, 2020 Sitting on the porch swing at her family’s vacation house, Mazie sees an old woman cutting through the orchard across the way and offers her a glass of water. Before long, they are playing cards every morning, and Mazie, triggered by the place that holds many childhood memories, begins sharing stories with her new friend, Lula. As Mazie reveals more about her past, she begins to question how Lula happened to come into view that morning, and how she herself made her way back to the orchard. Today I talked to Barbara Monier about her new novel The Rocky Orchard (Amika Press, 2020). Monier studied writing at Yale University and the University of Michigan, but she has been writing since she could hold a chubby pencil. While at Michigan, she received the Avery and Jule Hopwood Prize. Before The Rocky Orchard’ s release, her three previous novels are You, In Your Green Shirt , A Little Birdie Told Me , and Pushing the River . Ms. Monier lives in Chicago, where a breathtaking view of Lake Michigan inspires her writing, except when it distracts her and makes writing anything completely impossible. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Sujata Massey: Perveen Mistry and Rei Shamuro Mysteries < Back Sujata Massey Author of The Perveen Mistry and Rei Shamuro Mysteries January 5, 2022 Born in England to parents from India and Germany, Sujata Massey was raised primarily in St. Paul, Minnesota, and she’s lived for over thirty years in Baltimore, Maryland. She’s written fourteen novels, two novellas, and numerous short stories published in eighteen countries. Sujata earned a B.A. in Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and wrote features for the Baltimore Evening Sun newspaper before becoming a novelist. Her novels have won the Agatha, Lefty and Macavity awards and been finalists for the Edgar, Anthony and Mary Higgins Clark prizes.Sujata spoke about her journey, “The Journalist’s Guide to Mystery,” at our Sisters-in-Crime-Chicagoland November 2021 Zoom meeting! What a lovely, engaging woman! Her story included pictures of her at different times of her life and she gave us glimpses of her writing process. I already loved the first three books in her Purveen Mistry series – set in 1910 India and filled with observations about the cultural/political landscape. Good thing I’ve only read the first book in her Rei Shimura series, set in contemporary Japan, so I’ll have more time with Sujata down the road. Previous Next

Trevor McFarquhar is haphazardly running a struggling bicycle shop, with few friends, little ambition, and an inability to form a lasting relationship. Then, during the chaos of the 1995 Transit Strike in Paris, Trevor does something horrible. Five years later, he gets a chance to redeem himself. < Back The Art of Regret Mary Fleming December 3, 2019 Trevor McFarquhar was traumatized by the silence following the deaths of his sister and father. He was again traumatized when his mother moved him and his brother to Paris, remarried, and expected him to treat her new husband as his new father. In his late thirties, he’s haphazardly running a struggling bicycle shop, with few friends, little ambition, and an inability to form a lasting relationship. Then, during the chaos of the 1995 Transit Strike in Paris, Trevor does something horrible. Five years later, he gets a chance to redeem himself. Originally from Chicago, Mary Fleming moved to Paris in 1981, as a freelance journalist and consultant. Before turning full time to writing fiction, she was the French representative for the American foundation: The German Marshall Fund. A long-time board member of the French Fulbright Commission, Fleming continues to serve on the board of Bibliothèques sans Frontières. She and her husband have five grown children and split their time between Paris and Berlin. The Art of Regret (She Writes Press, 2019) is Fleming’s second novel. She writes a blog called A Paris-Berlin Diary . She is also an amateur photographer and fights a puzzle addiction; crosswords and Sudoko, specifically. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next