MysteryPeople Pick of the Month: ‘Ranchero’ by Rick Gavin

MysteryPeople Pick for November: Ranchero by Rick Gavin Review by MP Crime Fiction Coordinator Scott M. “The Delta is different” is a repeated phrase in Ranchero, Nick Gavin’s rollicking debut. He proves that statement time and again in a crime adventure with a satirical bent that takes us through a Mississippi that makes Carl Hiassen’s [...]

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Eat Pizza, Read Books: Austin’s Pizza Review of ‘Colonel Roosevelt’

Every so often, our friends over at Austin’s Pizza select a book to read and review. We’re happy to sponsor this reading habit. Pizza and books, it’s a happy marriage.  This month, the book is Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. Here’s J. D. Torian’s review: “My father always wanted to be the corpse at every [...]

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Read This Book: ‘Pulphead’ by John Jeremiah Sullivan

It happens like this: A reader surfaces in EJ’s office, or maybe it gets sent to Marketing because there’s an event coming up, and someone reads the blurb and goes, “Hmm, might not be bad.” And the bookseller takes it home, reads it, and starts speaking to his or her coworkers in hushed and reverential [...]

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Mustache Montage: A Tribute to John Hodgman

Tomorrow at 9am, seat tickets go on sale for our event with John Hodgman on Tuesday, November 8, 7p. Now, if you’ve seen any of the recent footage of Hodgman (photos; video) then you’ll notice that he is currently sporting quite a remarkable mustache indeed. Given the high ratio of mustaches to upper lips in [...]

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Book Review: ‘Troubled Bones’ by Jeri Westerson

Book: Troubled Bones by Jeri Westerson Reviewed by: MysteryPeople Crime Fiction Coordinator Scott M. In most of my reviews about crime fiction, I’ve praised the book’s social awareness or look at the human condition. Of course, we also read genre fiction for fun and few have been demonstrating that fun better lately than Jeri Westerson [...]

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MysteryPeople Q&A with Medieval Noir Author Jeri Westerson

~Post by MysteryPeople Crime Fiction Coordinator Scott M. One of the great reader memories I’ll have of 2011, a year of many great ones, is discovering the work of Jeri Westerson. She has found a way to please both historical and hardboiled mystery fans alike with a style she describes as medieval noir. She literally [...]

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November Top Shelf: ‘The Chronicles of Harris Burdick’

November’s issue of The Independent, our monthly print newsletter, will be available on the first of the month. For now, here’s a sneak preview of this month’s Top Shelf, The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales by Chris Van Allsburg with an introduction by BookKids favorite Lemony Snicket. ________________________________________ ~Post by [...]

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Sale! Sale! $5.99 eBooks!

Gather ’round, kiddos, it’s time for another eBook sale. This one’s a good one, too – titles by Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Ondaatje, and more, all for $5.99 each. That’s right, we’re talking about books you’ll want to read at low (limited time only) prices. Click the pretty banner and discover the glory:

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Creepy, Spooky Teen Books

With Halloween just around the corner, I asked some of the folks on staff to tell me some of their favorite creepy books.  Here’s what they said: Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey Will Henry is an orphan, but he’s been apprenticed to a monstrumologist, or one who studies monsters.  A creepy, scary, gruesome book. The Marbury [...]

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MysteryPeople Book Review: ‘The Burning Soul’ by John Connolly

Book: The Burning Soul by John Connolly Reviewed by: MysteryPeople Crime Fiction Coordinator Scott M. John Connolly’s Charlie Parker is unique to crime fiction’s damaged and haunted private eyes, in the sense that he is truly haunted. After losing his wife and child, Parker finds himself on cases where human evil entwines with the supernatural. [...]

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