Peter Swanson and Diane Les Becquets at Belmont Books

From the hugely talented author of The Kind Worth Killing comes an exquisitely chilling tale of a young suburban wife with a history of psychological instability whose fears about her new neighbor could lead them both to murder . . .

Hen and her husband Lloyd have settled into a quiet life in a new house outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Hen (short for Henrietta) is an illustrator and works out of a studio nearby, and has found the right meds to control her bipolar disorder. Finally, she’s found some stability and peace.

But when they meet the neighbors next door, that calm begins to erode as she spots a familiar object displayed on the husband’s office shelf. The sports trophy looks exactly like one that went missing from the home of a young man who was killed two years ago. Hen knows because she’s long had a fascination with this unsolved murder—an obsession she doesn’t talk about anymore, but can’t fully shake either.

Could her neighbor, Matthew, be a killer? Or is this the beginning of another psychotic episode like the one she suffered back in college, when she became so consumed with proving a fellow student guilty that she ended up hurting a classmate?

The more Hen observes Matthew, the more she suspects he’s planning something truly terrifying. Yet no one will believe her. Then one night, when she comes face to face with Matthew in a dark parking lot, she realizes that he knows she’s been watching him, that she’s really on to him. And that this is the beginning of a horrifying nightmare she may not live to escape. . .

Peter Swanson is the author of three novels: The Girl With a Clock For a Heart, an LA Times Book Award finalist; The Kind Worth Killing, winner of the New England Society Book Award, and finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger; and his most recent, Her Every Fear. His books have been translated into 30 languages, and his stories, poetry, and features have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Atlantic Monthly, Measure, The Guardian, The Strand Magazine, and Yankee Magazine. A graduate of Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College, he lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with his wife.

 

 

 

From the national bestselling author of Breaking Wild, here is a riveting and powerful thriller about a woman whose greatest threat could be the man she loves.…

Marian Engström has found her true calling: working with rescue dogs to help protect endangered wildlife. Her first assignment takes her to northern Alberta, where she falls in love with her mentor, the daring and brilliant Tate. After they’re separated from each other on another assignment, Marian is shattered to learn of Tate’s tragic death. Worse still is the aftermath in which Marian discovers disturbing inconsistencies about Tate’s life, and begins to wonder if the man she loved could have been responsible for the unsolved murders of at least four women.

Hoping to clear Tate’s name, Marian reaches out to a retired forensic profiler who’s haunted by the open cases. But as Marian relives her relationship with Tate and circles ever closer to the truth, evil stalks her every move.…

Diane Les Becquets, a former professor of English and MFA director, is an avid outdoorswoman, enjoying backpacking off the grid, snowshoeing, archery, and swimming. A native of Nashville, she spent almost fourteen years living in a small Colorado ranching town before moving to New Hampshire. Breaking Wild, her debut novel, was an Indie Next pick.

How do male and female authors differ when writing crime stories?

Moderator, Christine Bagley, author of five short mystery stories, and a finalist for the Al Blanchard Award in Best Short Crime Fiction, will discuss the differences between male and female authors when writing crime stories. Guest authors will be Bruce Robert Coffin, a former detective sergeant, short story writer, and author of the novel, Beyond The Truth, Christine Eskilson, a finalist for both the Al Blanchard Award for Best Short Crime Fiction, and Women’s National Book Association, and Gabriel Valjan, short story writer, and author of the Roma series, and The Company Files: The Good Man.  Differences to be discussed include violence, sex, swearing, POV, whether readers prefer female or male crime writers, and who publishes more often.  Authors will read from their stories appearing in Level Best Book’s Best New England Crime Stories: Landfall and Snowbound. A Q&A and signing will wrap up the panel discussion.

 

Using What You Know To Write A Mystery

In this panel, award winning mystery writers Gina Fava, Sheila Connolly, and Sharon Healy-Yang discuss the tools you need to write the mystery that can only come from you.

“Hundred-Year Retroactive Book Award” at the Boston Public Library

The Associates of the Boston Public Library cordially invite you to their Hundred-Year Retroactive Book Award, a competition that weighs the enduring literary merits of three bestsellers, all published in 1917. Contenders for the prize are T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock and Other Observations, Mohandas Gandhi’s Third Class in Indian Railways, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s His Last Bow: An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes. The books will be defended by poet and author Charles Coe, Michael Patrick MacDonald, memoirist, and suspense author Jacquelyn Mitchard respectively. Author Stona Fitch will moderate the irreverent debate, after which the audience will vote to determine the winner. A reception with the panelists will follow.

Book launch for CLEA SIMON’s Boston Noir Mystery, “World Enough”

Harvard Bookstore is pleased to host a reading and discussion of Clea Simon‘s new Boston noir mystery, World Enough (Severn House).

About World Enough:

The Boston club scene may be home to a cast of outsiders and misfits, but it’s where Tara Winton belongs; the world she’s been part of for the past twenty years. Now, one of the old gang is dead, having fallen down the basement stairs at his home.

With her journalist’s instincts, Tara senses there’s something not quite right about Frank’s supposedly accidental death. When she asks questions, she begins to uncover some disturbing truths about the club scene in its heyday. Beneath the heady, sexually charged atmosphere lurked something darker. Twenty years ago, there was another death. Could there be a connection? Is there a killer still at large … and could Tara herself be at risk?

FRED DEVECCA Shares his Mystery Novel, The Nutting Girl

Trident Booksellers hosts longtime screenwriter, photographer, director, actor, and free-lance writer/author FRED DEVECCA for a reading of his novel The Nutting Girl.

Middle-aged Frank Raven used to be a lot of things–a blind monk, a cop, a private detective, and a hard drinker. Now he doesn’t do much except run a funky old movie theater in bucolic Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, dance and sing with the local troupe of Morris Dancers, and record bird songs on his phone.  A lanky young wunderkind director, Nick Mooney, brings his Hollywood film crew to town and hires the “retired” Raven to protect his star: the wild, unpredictable, gorgeous, and prodigiously talented twenty-one-year-old Juliana Velvet Norcross, aka VelCro.  Reluctant at first, Raven takes on the job and slowly sees that there is more to VelCro than the troubled rebel she appears to be.  On the eve of filming, storms ravage the small village, and the river that runs through the center of town floods its banks.  The storm passes, VelCro recovers from illness that Raven’s girlfriend’s daughter, Sarah, helped nurse, and filming begins.  But during the first shot, she is swept away into the river, leaving no trace.

This event is free and open to the public.

 

Bestselling Mystery Novelist MICHAEL CONNELLY reads The Late Show

Brookline Booksmith welcomes MICHAEL CONNELLY with his latest mystery novel: The Late Show.  A once up-and-coming detective, Renée Ballard is stuck on the Hollywood night shift since accusing a supervisor of sexual harassment. But after catching two cases she can’t let go of—the brutal beating of a prostitute, and the shooting of a young woman in a nightclub—Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn.

This event is not ticketed.

Thriller Novelist LEE MATTHEW GOLDBERG in conversation with Mystery Novelist HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN

Join Brookline Booksmith as they host LEE MATTHEW GOLDBERG and HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN, who will discuss GOLDBERG’s The Mentor.

When his favorite college professor mentions that he’s writing a novel, Kyle is overjoyed. He’s eager to read the opus his mentor has toiled over…until it turns out to be not only horribly written, but depraved, and uncannily close to a real unsolved murder.

This event is not ticketed.