November 14, 7 PM EST
Please join us for a magical hour of books with Jess Lourey, Robin Cook, Francine Mathews, & Vaseem Khan. They’ll not only read from their brand-new mysteries, they’ll answer your questions and divulge writing secrets, such as: How do they keep us readers riveted? We can’t wait to hear! Emcee is our very own Lisa Black.
Not only is the event FREE, you and three other attending readers can win the drawing for one of their exciting new novels. Wishing you the best of luck!
The Quarry Girls by Jess Lourey
Night Shift by Robin Cook
Death On A Winter Stroll by Francine Mathews
The Lost Man Of Bombay by Vaseem Khan
As always, our guests’ (or their characters’) favorite snacks with recipes are posted below. Feel culinary and adventurous? Dining and drinking will commence at the start of the show. Bring your favorite beverage!
Sign up soon! If you’re among the first 100 in the Zoom room, you can personally debrief these best-selling authors. You can also catch them on Facebook Live and interrogate via comments.
JESS LOUREY is the bestselling Edgar®, Agatha, and Lefty-nominated, Anthony and Thriller Award winning author of crime fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, YA adventure, and magical realism. She retired from being a professor of creative writing and sociology and regularly posts pictures of her adorable foster kittens. She lives in Minnesota.
The Quarry Girls, November 1, 2022
Teenage friends Heather and Brenda witness something they shouldn’t have, and swear each other to secrecy. But it might be connected to the disappearance of their friend, and the more Heather probes, the more she discovers that no one in their small town is exactly who they seem to be—not even her own family.
See below for recipe cards from 1977 that her character might have used to learn how to become the perfect dinner party hostess.
Night Shift, December 6, 2022
Married doctors Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton have enough going on in their lives—but when Laurie has to autopsy the body of a close friend who died under mysterious circumstances at Manhattan Memorial, Jack must take on a deadly chess game with the clever and deranged killer.
Both Jack and Laurie love white wines, especially those made with the voignier grape. And for a snack, Jack always has time for chocolate chip cookies.
FRANCINE MATHEWS also writes as Stephanie Barron, and between the two, her characters include World War Two spies, CIA agents, Jane Austen, and Merry Folger, a police detective on Nantucket Island. Francine attended both Princeton and Stanford, and from there became an intelligence analyst for the CIA, only leaving the Agency to write full time. She lives in Denver.
Death on a Winter Stroll, November 1, 2022
No-nonsense Nantucket detective Merry Folger hopes that the Christmas Stroll, one of Nantucket’s favorite traditions, in which Main Street is transformed into a winter wonderland, will lift the island’s post-pandemic spirits. But the arrival of a large-scale TV production, along with the Secretary of State and her troubled stepson, complicates matters significantly. When two bodies turn up, and Merry and Detective Howie Seitz have to first find a connection between the two and catch the killer.
Merry loves split pea soup and drinks a lot of cafe au lait and pinot noir. Her favorite snack is either smoked bluefish pate, or Scotch Irish cake from Nantucket’s Downyflake restaurant. See below for a sample recipe!
VASEEM KHAN was born in England but spent a decade working in India, where he set his two award-winning crime series. His first book, The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, was selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 40 best crime novels published 2015-2020, and is translated into 17 languages. Other books won the Shamus Award and the Crime Writers Association Historical Dagger, the world’s premier award for historical crime fiction. When he isn’t writing, he works at the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science at University College London, and also co-hosts the popular crime fiction podcast, The Red Hot Chili Writers.
The Lost Man of Bombay, December 13, 2022
It’s the year 1950 in turbulent post-colonial India. The body of a white murder victim is found frozen in the ice of the Himalayan foothills. As the Ice Man’s trail leads Inspector Persis Wadia and Metropolitan Police criminalist Archie Blackfinch into the dark heart of conspiracy, two new murders grip the city. Is there a serial killer on the loose, targeting Europeans?
Vaseem is partial to Mango Lassi (see recipe below); the mango can be substituted with a different flavor should mangos prove elusive. As far as snacks, he’ll go for anything Indian–like samosas!
Our MC:
Lisa Black is the New York Times bestselling author of 16 suspense novels, including works that have been translated into six languages, optioned for film, and shortlisted for the inaugural Sue Grafton Memorial Award. She is also a Certified Latent Print Examiner and a Certified Crime Scene Analyst, beginning her forensics career at the Coroner’s office in Cleveland Ohio and then the police department in Cape Coral, Florida. She has spoken to readers and writers at numerous conferences, been a consultant on CourtTV and was a Guest of Honor at 2021 Killer Nashville.
Recipes
Soft and fudgy with a brownie flavor, topped with a rich fudgy nut icing
Ingredients
Cake:
1 cup margarine
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Icing:
1/2 cup margarine
4 tablespoons cocoa
1/4 cup cream or milk
1 pound confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup nuts
Method
Cake: In a large saucepan, combine the margarine, cocoa and water. Bring to a rapid boil and remove from heat, Mix in the remaining ingredients until no lumps remain. Pour into a greased 9×13″ pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Five minutes before cake is done, prepare the icing and pour over the cake while it is hot right out of the oven.
Icing: combine the margarine, cocoa and cream in saucepan and bring to boil. remove from heat and add remaining ingredients.
MANGO LASSI
1 ripe mango OR 4 tablespoons Mango pulp (or another soft fruit of your choice)
1 cup yogurt
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 cup cold water OR ice cubes
pinch of cardamom
Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until thick and combined.
Mango Lassi is ready! Serve in tall Glasses.
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