Bad Lies tells the story of Eddie Bennison, who is over 50 when he makes it into the professional golf circuit. In two years, he wins millions of dollars in endorsements and prize money. Then a leading golf magazine publishes articles that suggest he unfairly tampered with his clubs and used performance-enhancing drugs. < Back Bad Lies Shelby Yastrow and Tony Jacklin November 1, 2018 Questions about freedom of the press, defamation, libel and slander have been in the news quite a bit lately. Bad Lies (Mascot Books, 2017) tells the story of Eddie Bennison, who is over 50 when he makes it into the professional golf circuit. In two years, he wins millions of dollars in endorsements and prize money. Then a leading golf magazine publishes articles that suggest he unfairly tampered with his clubs and used performance-enhancing drugs. Bennison loses all his endorsements and his ability to play the game. His lawyer, Charlie Mayfield, files a libel and slander lawsuit against the magazine and its powerful corporate owner. Then a woman accuses Bennison of sexually assaulting and beating her. While the lawyers on both sides build their arguments and tensions rise, we’re kept guessing right up to the moment when the jury foreman announces the verdict. Lawyer and author Shelby Yastrow , formerly General Counsel and Executive Vice President for McDonald’s Corporation, wrote two previous novels based on civil lawsuits that he litigated, and one non-fiction book about franchising the world’s largest hair-salon franchise. World-famous British professional golfer Tony Jacklin , who won many tournaments and helped popularize golf around the world, was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2002. He is also the author of several autobiographical books about golf. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Christopher Fowler: Bryant and May Mysteries < Back Christopher Fowler Author of The Bryant and May Mysteries March 9, 2021 “Do you enjoy reading?” “I enjoyed Fifty Shades of Grey.” Bryant quailed at the thought. “That’s not really reading, is it? More like staring at an assortment of words.” “It’s very popular.” “So is taking photographs of your dinner for Facebook, but that doesn’t mean it adds to the total sum of human knowledge.” This is the kind of passage that makes me question those reviewers who claim that Christopher Fowler’s writing is just a jumble of words. His stories, his characters, and his murders are all complex and nuanced. His writing is sometimes abstruse, and one is occasionally reminded that Brits tend to have much more refined vocabularies than, say, Americans. I can understand some readers being stymied by Fowler’s clever dialogue, snappy retorts, and sly Briticisms, but I coasted along in a (London) fog of pleasure. I don’t enjoy horrendous murders, and usually dislike blood and gore. But I also dislike when murders are described as if the victims are only cartoon versions of humans so as not to disturb our sense of decorum. Sometimes it feels like we’re being spared the icky details of what death looks like. Fowler doesn’t let the reader get away with any kind of laziness – he makes it clear when a victim suffers and when it happens too quickly for suffering to occur. He also dumps a number of characters on us and we’d better just follow along if we expect to understand London’s irritating police administration, the professional rivalries between departments, and the lack of esteem in which the Peculiar Crimes Unit is held by everyone not in it. We also need to get past our confusion about why someone as old and dotty as Bryant is still employed as a public servant – although the brilliance of his deductions is made clear again and again. Those of us who approached the millennium as fully formed adults are probably all cheering him on against that most universally accepted prejudice: Ageism. Not even a bout of unexplained dementia stops him from figuring out who did it. Previous Next

Only 4 ingredients and great for last minute cookies anytime of year, but I make these during Passover, when we don't use flour or leavening of any kind. < Back Chocolate Passover Cookies April 5, 2023 Prep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: About 12 minutes, remove from oven, cool about 15 minutes before tasting. Serves: 18 Cookies Tags: Cookies and Brownies About the Recipe These cookies are also good for dipping in the chocolate sauce that I usually serve with dessert - Ingredients 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 6 eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 cups fine almond flour Preparation Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C and line two baking pans. In a medium glass bowl, microwave the chocolate chips 1 minute, stir. Microwave an additional minute. Stir until smooth. Crack the eggs into a small bowl and add the vanilla extract. Stir to break up yolks. Add egg mixture to melted chocolate and stir (don't stop stirring until mixture is smooth). Add almond flour to mixture and stir until blended. Pour tablespoonfuls on the lined pans, leave room for them to spread. Optional: sprinkle an additional 1/4 cup of chocolate chips into the mixture before pouring spoonfuls onto the baking pan. You could also add 1/4 cup of sugar (when you add the almond flour) for a sweeter cookie, although we like them just the way they are! Previous Next

When racing yacht “The Revonoc” went down in the Bermuda Triangle’s Sargasso Sea during a freakish storm in January of 1958, the sailing world was dumbfounded. The boat and five people on board, all well-known in the sailing world, completely vanished. < Back Set Adrift: A Mystery and A Memoir Sarah Conover June 27, 2023 When racing yacht “The Revonoc” went down in the Bermuda Triangle’s Sargasso Sea during a freakish storm in January of 1958, the sailing world was dumbfounded. The boat and five people on board, all well-known in the sailing world, completely vanished. Only the dinghy showed up a few days later, but all searches over the following months turned up nothing at all. Sarah Conover, the youngest of the two daughters of Lori and Larry, and granddaughters of Dorothy and Harvey, became an orphan that day. As an adult, Sarah began to ask questions about her parents and grandparents – her memoir weaves interviews with family members, articles, and official Coast Guard reports that Sarah studies to understand her ongoing feelings of loss, loneliness, and depression. Ultimately, her final thought is “There is no true story. Only mercy.” Sarah Conover holds a BA in comparative religions from the University of Colorado, and an MFA in creative writing from Eastern Washington University. She has worked as a television producer for PBS and Internews (an international media NGO), a social worker for Catholic Charities, a public school teacher, and taught creative writing through the community colleges of Spokane, Washington. She is the author of six books on world wisdom traditions and spirituality published by Skinner House Books, the educational publishing arm of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Her poetry, essays and interviews have been published in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies. She is a feature writer and columnist for Tricycle Magazine: the Buddhist Review and has taught meditation for many years at Airway Heights Corrections Center and within the Spokane community. Ms. Conover was a recipient of Washington State’s Grants for Artist’s Projects (GAP grant) and writing fellowships from the Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, Wyoming, and the Willapa Bay Artist Residence Program in Oysterville, Washington. She lives in a condo in Spokane, Washington and in her beloved yurtiverse at the base of the North Cascades in Winthrop, Washington, where she and her husband are building a small hermitage for monastic retreats. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Martin Walker: Bruno, Chief of Police Mysteries < Back Martin Walker Author of The Bruno, Chief of Police Mysteries July 25, 2019 Martin Walker works at a private think-tank, is Editor Emeritus and writes an award – winning syndicated column for UPI, writes for the Guardian and other papers, has presented several BBC television series, serves on all kinds of boards, writes acclaimed history books, and authors the delightful Bruno, Chief of Police mystery series. You’re probably one of those gifted individuals who need only four hours of sleep, Mr. Walker, but I just made challah dough and hummus, roasted vegetables, washed the dishes, swept the floor, and set the table, so you’re not the only one who knows how to get things done. I’m admittedly in love with the hero, Benoît Courrèges, aka Bruno, who lives and works as a policeman in the fictional village of St. Denis in the South of France (where the real Mr. Walker and his wife have a home). The townsfolk fondly refer to Bruno as the Chief of Police, but he’s just a policeman, an injured veteran who carries a gun but never uses it. He’s also a gourmet chef who whips up fabulous meals after a trip to the local market. And he instinctively discerns the correct wine pairing at every enticing-sounding meal. A truffle omelet? Yum. I first met Bruno (and in real life I’m sure that if I came over for dinner, he would avoid cooking all those gross-sounding meats), when he first appeared in 2008. When he’s not helping his fellow St Denis townies with problems big and small or participating in the town’s many activities, Bruno actively helps foil aggressive EU inspectors that try to meddle with tradition. He relishes his slow-paced village life, and he’s passionate about the land. In the first book of the series, an elderly immigrant is found murdered, and suspicion falls on anti-immigrant militants. Working with an attractive young officer from the city, Bruno remembers that the victim fought for the French Army during WWII. He slowly figures out the connection between the victim and the war, which was a dark chapter in the history of France. Neither Mr. Walker nor Bruno shy away from difficult or sensitive subjects, and each of the Bruno tales include some kind of societal issues that require Bruno’s sensitivity and finesse. I hope you will continue writing these books, Mr. Walker – they are just delicious. Previous Next

In 1979 during her freshman year at Denver East High School in 1979, Suzanne’s mother was murdered by an armed robber while working in her record store. < Back Anyone But Her Cynthia Swanson October 1, 2024 Today I talked to Cynthia Swanson about Anyone But Her (Columbine York, 2024). In 1979 during her freshman year at Denver East High School in 1979, Suzanne’s mother was murdered by an armed robber while working in her record store. Suzanne has always sensed ghosts, so she’s not surprised when soon after, she hears her dead mother warning her about her father’s new girlfriend. Now it’s 2004, and Suzanne is back in Denver with her husband, a mouthy teenage daughter, and a nine-year-old son with behavioral problems. The old record store space is available, and Suzanne follows her dream of selling women’s art and craft, but she can’t stop feeling like someone is watching her. At the same time, she starts researching her family history to figure out if there’s a genetic component to her son’s behavior. Suzann is strong, but she’s challenged in this suspenseful mystery about relationships, fidelity, and family secrets. Cynthia Swanson started out in college majoring in Architecture, because she's always loved design, and she thought she needed to pursue a "practical" career. (She can hear all the architects in the room laughing.) But after a few years, she returned to her first love—writing—changing her major to English and becoming a technical and marketing writer. Today, she writes psychological suspense, freelance edits, and occasionally teaches writing classes and seminars. She is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the novels The Bookseller , The Glass Forest , and Anyone But Her , as well as the editor of the Colorado Book Award winning anthology Denver Noir . She lives with her family in Denver, where in addition to writing, editing, and scoping out creepy locales for future books, she raises chickens and grows an extensive vegetable garden. Find Cynthia online and follow her on Facebook (Cynthia Swanson, Author) , Instagram (cynswanauthor) , and Threads (cynswanauthor) . Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

It's 1917 during WWI, and Rand Brandt is living with two dangerous secrets, either of which could destroy him: 1) he can grow any plant or tree, but everything he grows will die within days, and 2) he is gay during a time when the army does not accept homosexuality. < Back Dry Land B. Platek October 3, 2023 Rand Brandt, a forester in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, discovers that his touch can grow any plant or tree. In this tale of Magical Realism, he dreams of using his gift to restore landscapes ruined by the lumber industry, but first needs to test his powers. Gabriel, his fellow forester, and secret lover, finds and saves Rand after he’s pushed himself by spending his nights sneaking into the forest instead of sleeping. It’s 1917 and the foresters are drafted to join in the fight in France. An old friend of Rand’s joins the press covering his unit and helps him cover his tracks. A commanding officer learns about Rand’s gift and demands that he grow forests for the wood needed to win the war, but Rand learns that everything he grows will die within days. Now, he’s keeping two major secrets, either of which, if discovered, could destroy him. Ben Pladek is associate professor of literature at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His first novel, Dry Land , appeared in September 2023 with the University of Wisconsin Press. He’s previously published short fiction in Strange Horizons, The Offing, Slate Future Tense Fiction, and elsewhere. As a colleague pointed out to him, his short fiction is often set in the near-future and his longer fiction in the near-past; other recurring interests include ecology, messy relationships, messier bureaucracy, and people feeling guilty. He’s also written an academic book called The Poetics of Palliation: Romantic Literary Therapy, 1790-1850, that came out from Liverpool University Press in 2019, as well as a number of articles on British Romanticism. Before getting hired at Marquette, he did his PhD at the University of Toronto and taught for a year in the fantastic Foundation Year Programme at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When he moved to Wisconsin, he fell in love with the landscape and the state’s fascinating history of conservation, including the writings of Aldo Leopold. Ben and his husband have hiked all over Wisconsin. They especially enjoy the Northwoods, Horicon Marsh, and the southwest “driftless” area. In Ben’s spare time you can find him reading, birdwatching, taking long walks around Milwaukee, admiring wetlands, eating peanut butter, and taking pictures of informational signs at historical monuments that he’ll never go back and read. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Caitlin Hamilton Summie’s award-winning collection of short stories is peopled with characters who leave home, return home, or dream of home. The stories alternate between sweet, thoughtful, and sad, all expressing a universal longing for family, friendship and connection. < Back To Lay to Rest our Ghosts Caitlin Hamilton Summie February 14, 2019 An 8-year-old awaits her father’s return from the war. A young man returns home to northern Minnesota for his sister’s funeral. A woman struggles to survive in New York City. Caitlin Hamilton Summie’s award-winning collection of short stories is peopled with characters who leave home, return home, or dream of home. The stories alternate between sweet, thoughtful, and sad, all expressing a universal longing for family, friendship and connection. To Lay to Rest our Ghosts (Fomite Press, 2017) won Silver in the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Short Stories, was selected for 35 Over 35’s annual 2017 list, and was named a Pulpwood Queen Book Club Bonus Book. It is also the winner of the fourth annual Phillip H. McMath Post Publication book award. Summie, who earned an MFA at Colorado State University, is the co-founder/owner of a book marketing firm and is online at caitlinhamiltonsummie.com . Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Neal bought her a beer and invited her to a Cubs game. That had been her first stout, and she thought it was so... < Back Cocoa-Bear Cake (AKA Dragon’s Milk Cake) July 30, 2019 Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 50-55 Minutes Serves: 12 Slices of Cake Tags: Vegetarian, Cakes & Pies & Icing About the Recipe 173 Battered: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery Alene had gone off to college and forgotten all about Neal Dunn, until a summer day after her third year at Northwestern, when they had bumped into each other at a Wrigleyville bar. Neal bought her a beer and invited her to a Cubs game. That had been her first stout, and she thought it was so yummy she bought a six-pack and shared it with Ruthie, who went on to invent a stout cake. They changed “beer” to “bear” so as not to alarm the customers, and it worked. Ingredients For the Cake 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup packed dark brown sugar ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder 2 tsp instant decaf or coffee powder 2 tsp baking soda ¼ tsp salt ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) 1 tsp pure vanilla extract 1 1/4 cup Dragon’s Milk (room temp) or any dark beer ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips For the Icing 1 can full fat coconut milk ½ cup cocoa powder ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips ¼ cup dark brown sugar 1 tsp pure vanilla extract 1 tsp instant decaf or coffee powder 1 tsp ground cinnamon Pinch of salt Preparation Preheat oven to 350 degrees Grease and sugar an 8” springform Combine dry ingredients in food processor Add wet ingredients except beer, pulse a few times Add beer and mix enough to blend well Pour batter into greased and sugared prepared pan. Bake 50-55 minutes until cake springs under pressure Cool before removing from springform pan Drizzle with icing (recipe below) While the cake is in the oven, mix the icing ingredients in a blender until it’s completely smooth Previous Next

Deanna Raybourne: Veronica Speedwell Mysteries and Lady Gray Mysteries < Back Deanna Raybourne Author of The Veronica Speedwell Mysteries and Lady Gray Mysteries July 7, 2021 Deanna Raybourne (Veronica Speedwell Mysteries and Lady Gray Mysteries) combines romance and mystery in the Victorian era, with charming details about food, dress, and manners of the time. Although there must have been free-thinking young women in the 1900’s, it was probably rare, but I set aside any concern about the appropriation of modern thinking and just enjoyed Veronica’s adventures (A Treacherous Curse, A Perilous Undertaking, A Murderous Relation) as a butterfly collector and amateur sleuth (along with her handsome sidekick, the aristocratic Stoker, who helps solve mysteries when he isn’t stuffing and mounting animal specimens). I read three of these in a row during a vacation and enjoyed every minute, no matter how improbable the situations. Previous Next

In Side Effects of Wanting (Main Street Rag, 2022), author Mary Salisbury spent nearly twenty years gathering together the pieces of humanity she saw reflected in the lives around her and distilled them into a poetically written, beautifully curated short story collection. < Back Side Effects of Wanting Mary Salisbury February 14, 2023 In Side Effects of Wanting (Main Street Rag, 2022), author Mary Salisbury spent nearly twenty years gathering together the pieces of humanity she saw reflected in the lives around her and distilled them into a poetically written, beautifully curated short story collection. In this debut, small-town stories speak of love and belonging, longing and regret. The people who populate these tales yearn for companionship and comfort, but face the trauma of fractured relationships and the ache of not quite becoming the person they hoped to be. Mary Salisbury’s short fiction and essays have been published in Fiction Southeast , The Whitefish Review , Flash Fiction Magazine , Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts , and Cutthroat’s Truth to Power . Her chapbooks Come What May and Scarlet Rain Boots were published by Finishing Line Press , and her poetry has appeared in Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women . Salisbury is an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship recipient and a graduate of Pacific University’s MFA in Writing Program. She is passionate about spending time with her two grandchildren. Monroe is almost four and Roscoe is one and a half—they play hide and seek and read picture books together. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Jacqueline Winspear: Maisie Dobbs Mysteries < Back Jacqueline Winspear Author of The Maisie Dobbs Mysteries July 5, 2019 Jacqueline Winspear was born and raised in England. She began working on her dream of becoming a writer after emigrating to the United States in 1990. Inspired by her grandfather, who was wounded at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, she decided to set her first novel in England during the tumultuous first decades of the twentieth century. Maisie Dobbs, the debut book in a series of fifteen, was published in 2004. Winspear outlines Maisie’s early years, filling in the details about why she is working as a servant for an aristocrat and how she gets an education. Then, WWI breaks out while she’s in her first year at Cambridge, and Maisie enlists in the overseas nursing service. We learn bits and pieces about her life, about her experience during the war, and about why she goes to work for a distinguished detective after the war ends. Then, in 1929, she sets up her own detective agency. I loved the historical details, the attention to period manners and nuance, and Maisie’s gift at working out the psychology behind human behavior. There was just enough romance to assure readers that she’s a healthy, normal young woman. Reviewers who complain about Maisie’s openness (to people with disabilities, for example) need to remember that there were attitudes across the spectrum even back then. It was refreshing to see a woman (of any nationality) who is not marinated in the prejudices that were common to that era. So far, I’ve only read five of the Maisie books. I liked them all despite an occasional need to suspend disbelief (It wasn’t all that easy to fool the SS during WWII, for example). Having gotten through way too many cozy mysteries that lack literary merit, cohesive plot, or interesting characters, I’d spend an afternoon with Maisy Dobbs any day of the week. So what if she has a tendency to be a know-it-all? So what if she’s a little smug on occasion? When it comes to mysteries, I’d much prefer to read about crimes solved by an imperfect but charming female sleuth who knows how to serve tea. Thank you, Ms. Winspear. I look forward to reading the rest of the series. Previous Next