Not everyone can attend our events so these webcasts provide yet another passport to you readers.

TUESDAY DECEMBER 18 7:00 PM

Hardboiled Crime Club Christmas Party

The club discusses Sean Doolittle, Lake Country (Random $15)

THURSDAY DECEMBER 20 7:00 PM

Richard Paul Evans signs A Winter Dream (Simon Schuster $20)

Joseph Jacobson is the twelfth of thirteen siblings, all of whom are employed by their father's successful Colorado advertising company. But underneath the success runs a poisonous undercurrent of jealousy; Joseph is his father's favorite and the focus of his brothers' envy and hatred. When the father seems ready to anoint Joseph as his heir, the brothers make their move, forcing Joseph from the company and his Denver home, severing his ties to his parents and ending his relationship with his soon-to-be fiancée. Alone and lonely, Joseph must start a new life. Joseph joins a Chicago advertising agency where his creativity helps him advance high up in the company. He also finds hope for a lasting love with April, a kind woman with a secret. However, all secrets hold consequences, and when Joseph learns the truth about April's past, his world is again turned upside down.

Monday December 24 and 31: Hours 10 AM - 5 PM

Closed Dec. 25 and January 1 

Sun. Jan. 6 Betty Webb 2 PM signs The Llama of Death ($25 or $15)

New: Mon. Jan. 7: Sharan Newman signs Death Before Compline (Byrum $9.95), 7 stories of Catherine Levendeur and her family

Wed. Jan. 9:  Rollins & Cantrell sign The Blood Gospel ($28)

Sat. Jan. 12: Coffee and Crime 10:30 AM

Tues. Jan. 15: Thomas Caplan signs The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen ($16 paperback edition)

Wed. Jan. 16: Sue Grafton signs Kinsey and Me ($28)

Sat. Jan 19: Priscilla Royal 2 PM signs Sanctity of Hate ($25 or $150

Mon. Jan. 21: Brad Meltzer 6:30 PM signs The Fifth Assassin ($29)

Tues. Jan 22: Steven Hunter signs The Third Bullet ($27)

Thurs. Jan 24: Hardboiled Crime Club

Sun. Jan. 27 Ian Rankin 2 PM signs Standing in Another Man's Grave ($26)

Wed. Jan 30: Erica Bauermeister signs The Lost Art of Mixing ($26)

Thurs. Jan. 31: Charles Todd signs Proof of Guilt ($26)

Feb. 2: Earlene Fowler 2 PM signs The Road to Cardinal Valley ($26)

Finally Signed and on its way to us now:

DeMille, Nelson. The Panther Signed (Grand Central $29)

Anti-Terrorist Task Force agent John Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, have been posted overseas to Sana'a, Yemen-one of the most dangerous places in the Middle East. While there, they will be working with a small team to track down one of the masterminds behind the USS Cole bombing: a high-ranking Al Qaeda operative known as The Panther. Ruthless and elusive, he's wanted for multiple terrorist acts and murders-and the U.S. government is determined to bring him down, no matter the cost. As latecomers to a deadly game, John and Kate don't know the rules, the players, or the score. What they do know is that there is more to their assignment than meets the eye-and that the hunters are about to become the hunted.

In stock now:

Carnoy, David. The Big Exit Signed (Overlook $26).

I always like a good legal thriller and here is an unusual version. It begins with Richie Forman who, newly out of prison and struggling for work, makes a buck by impersonating Frank Sinatra in San Francisco clubs and corporate parties. He spots a job on Craigslist for persons interested in the criminal justice system who have "strong analytical skills and attention to detail" at the Exoneration Foundation and goes for an interview. We sense immediately that Richie's story isn't the obvious one, and so does the interviewer. In a new twist, Richie's former best friend, Mark, the guy who stole Richie's fiancé, the guy who was a passenger the night the two were drunk at a bachelor party and then T-boned a car and killed  a young woman, sending Richie the driver to prison, is found hacked to death in his garage. Mark is found by his wife. And the cops zero right in on Richie. So, off we go with a big cast, a twisty plot, and a surprisingly sympathetic hero. Maybe.... Our December Thriller Pick.

Doherty, Paul. The Straw Men Signed (Severn $4.).

January, 1381. Guests of the Regent, John of Gaunt, Brother Athelstan and Sir John Cranston have been attending a mystery play performed by the Straw Men, Gaunt's personal acting troupe, when the evening's entertainment is rudely interrupted by the sudden, violent deaths of two of Gaunt's VIP guests, their severed heads left on stage. The Regent orders Athelstan to find out who committed such a heinous act, leading Athelstan to tackle his most baffling case yet. Follows on Bloodstone ($16), a welcome return for the sleuthing monk.

Rickman, Phil. The Heresy of Dr Dee Signed (Corvus $34).

At the end of the sunless summer of 1560, black rumor shrouds the death of the one woman who stands between Lord Robert Dudley and marriage to the young Queen Elizabeth. Did Dudley's wife, Amy, die from an accidental fall in a deserted house, or was it a calculated murder? Even Dr John Dee, astrologer royal, adviser on the Hidden and one of Dudley's oldest friends, is uncertain. Then a rash promise to the Queen sends him to his family's old home on the Welsh Border in pursuit of the Wigmore Shewstone, a crystal credited supernatural properties. With Dee goes Robert Dudley, considered the most hated man in England. They travel with the entourage of a London judge sent to try a sinister Welsh brigand with a legacy dating back to the Battle of Brynglas, in which close to a thousand Englishmen died at the hands of the Welsh. After the battle, many of the bodies were, according to legend, obscenely mutilated. Now, on the same haunted hill, another dead man has been found, similarly slashed. Devious politics, small-town corruption, twisted religion and a brooding superstition leave John Dee isolated in the land of his father... 2^nd in series. Note: I recommend a visit to this author's wonderful website:

http://www.philrickman.co.uk 

Wilson, F Paul. Cold City Signed (St Martins $28).

The first of three Repairman Jack prequels, revealing the past of one of the most popular characters in contemporary dark fantasy: a self-styled "fix-it" man who is no stranger to the macabre or the supernatural, hired by victimized people who have no one else to turn to. We join Jack a few months after his arrival in New York City. He doesn't own a gun yet, though he's already connected with Abe. Soon he'll meet Julio and the Mikulski brothers. He runs afoul of some Dominicans, winds up at the East Side Marriott the night Meir Kahane is shot, gets on the bad side of some Arabs, starts a hot affair, and disrupts the smuggling of preteen sex slaves. And that's just Book One. Note from Wilson: "Cold City (which has no paranormal) is not only right up crime fiction fans' dark alley, but also a great place to get started with Repairman Jack, the first of three prequels."

And here and going to ship this week, our sold out order of Robin Sloan's wonderful Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. You can order an unsigned copy (FSG $26) for anyone on your gift list who will enjoy a novel blending new (and imagined) technology with the love of printing and books, with a mysterious code thrown in. For book lovers, a feel good pleasure.

K

insey and Me 

It's not even a clue. It's a whisper, a trace, a ghost echo, drifting down through the decades via chance connections so fragile that they would disintegrate in the puff of a breath. But it's enough to get legendary former Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger interested in the events of November 22, 1963, and the third bullet that so decisively ended the life of John F. Kennedy and set the stage for one of the most enduring controversies of our time. Swagger begins his slow night stalk through a much-traveled landscape. But he's asking questions that few have asked before:

From John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, there have been more than two dozen assassination attempts on the President of the United States. Four have been successful.

But now, Beecher White--the hero of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Inner Circle--discovers a killer in Washington, D.C., who's meticulously re-creating the crimes of these four men. Historians have branded them as four lone wolves. But what if they were wrong? Beecher is about to discover the truth: that during the course of a hundred years, all four assassins were secretly working together. What was their purpose? For whom do they really work? And why are they planning to kill the current President? Beecher's about to find out. And most terrifyingly, he's about to come face-to-face with the fifth assassin.

An earthquake in Masada, Israel, kills hundreds and reveals a tomb buried in the heart of the mountain. A trio of investigators-Sergeant Jordan Stone, a military forensic expert; Father Rhun Korza, a Vatican priest; and Dr. Erin Granger, a brilliant but disillusioned archaeologist-are sent to explore the macabre discovery, a subterranean temple holding the crucified body of a mummified girl.

But a brutal attack at the site sets the three on the run, thrusting them into a race to recover what was once preserved in the tomb's sarcophagus: a book rumored to have been written by Christ's own hand, a tome that is said to hold the secrets to His divinity. The enemy who hounds them is like no other, a force of ancient evil directed by a leader of impossible ambitions and incalculable cunning.

After a productive trip to Bel-Air, Stone Barrington is back in Manhattan-and back in his element, ready to return to the world of deluxe fine dining and elegant high society that New York does best. But then an unexpected visit from his friend and periodic lover, CIA assistant director Holly Barker, draws Stone into a dangerous game of murder and vengeance, against an enemy with plans bigger than they could ever imagine....

MOM: OUR MYSTERY OF THE MONTH CLUB

And check our other book clubs: a good book is the best gift!

Need a gift for someone who is difficult to buy for? Would you like to treat yourself to a surprise? We have the perfect gift for you, a gift that lasts the year though. With this club there is no single selection. Instead we collect a member profile and match it. The monthly selection can be tailored to any taste and budget. It can be a paperback or a hardcover. Can be monthly or bimonthly. In fact there are few limitations. Selections can be from the ranks of the traditional mystery or any other genre the recipient would prefer.

This club makes a terrific gift idea: once a month a book and shipping is charged to the giver's card and the selection is then mailed to the recipient. While most often membership is a gift, some people enroll themselves into this premier club to get a regular, hand-picked, surprise treat!

Contact pat@poisonedpen.com or phone (888 560 9919) or (480 947-2974).

MOM most often is a paperback of the month club. If you want to be more specific, you can enroll someone in one of our other book clubs - click here to see what they are and the 2012 Picks for each.