Seattle Mystery Bookshop

Big Hairy Werewolf Love

Today, at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, I bit each of the booksellers. I came here, after all, to spread the infection. That's the premise behind my new novel -- Red Moon (Grand Central/Hachette) -- a post-9/11 reinvention of the werewolf myth. My werewolves -- or lycans, as I call them -- are infected with prions, the misfolded protein responsible for Mad Cow and Chronic Wasting Disease. In prehistoric times, it leapt out of the wolf population and mutated in humans, targeting the brain, leading to rage and sexual impulse. Fast forward to today and roughly 5% of the population is infected. They are unable to hold certain jobs -- they are part of a public registry similar to a sex offenders' list -- they have to take an emotionally deadening drug and succumb to monthly blood tests. And of course there is an uprising -- and a swift government response. Hijinks ensue. And the Pacific Northwest will never be the same. Neither will this bookstore, where I signed some books in blood and chewed on everyone I could get my paws on. If you stop by, you're next...

Benjamin Percy

Fran's Review:

All teenagers believe they’re different, but in Claire Forrester’s case, it’s true.

In Benjamin Percy’s new novel, Red Moon, there’s a group of people living among us who are definitely different, even though they’re trying to fit in. They’re lycans, werewolves living as if they’re human. For those who don’t want to try to fit in, there’s the Lupine Republic, but that’s heavily guarded, really nothing more than a containment camp, and life there is incredibly hard. But with the proper medication, lycans have been living among us, mostly peacefully. 

However, when a lycan explodes into deadly fury on an airplane, leaving human Patrick Gamble the only survivor, the tenuous balance is shifted, and containing lycans becomes a political juggernaut. In this atmosphere, Claire’s family is slaughtered by the government, and she alone escapes. 

Red Moon is the beginning of what may be a series, is certainly headed for a trilogy (because I don’t see how he’ll wrap up everything he started here in a single follow-up book!), and Benjamin Percy has created a grim and powerful world where discrimination is expected, where political manipulation is expected, and where moments of joy and love stand out all the more for their passion and desperation.

Percy has created some fabulous, dynamic people and put them in a struggle that is nothing less than epic. His bad guy has an air of evil masked in smiles that is decidedly creepy. I liked not only his main characters, but some of his secondary characters are equally vibrant. I know I want to see more of Miriam! My only whine -- and it is just that – is that it’s becoming more and more difficult for me to read present-tense novels, so it took me a while to get into it because I had to twist my head into a space that can read and enjoy that style. But that’s just my own quirk, and I’m more than willing to tackle it for the sequel!

 

April Top Kids/ YA Books

1. Lissa Evans - Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms - Sterling

2. Ben H. Winters - The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman - Harper

3. Jasper FForde - The Last Dragonslayer - Harcourt

4. William Joyce - The Fantastic Flying Books Of Morris T. Lessmore - Atheneum

5. Geronimo Stilton - Crepella Von Cacklefur: Meet Me At Horrorwood - Scholastic

6. Thea Stilton - The Dancing Shadows - Scholastic

It's Always Sunny in Seattle

So this is my first visit to Seattle. What I know about this city is quite limited. Grunge. The Space Needle. Rain. Singles (the movie with Matt Dylan and Wyona Ryder). Here are my initial thoughts. Very hilly, in a San Fransico kind of way. The residents are all smiley and friendly and it could have something to do with the fact that it’s sunny out (something I’ve been told by everyone I’ve spoken with never happens this time of year). Apparently, you usually can’t see the nearby mountains because of the gloomy cloud cover, but I can see them and that’s why everyone is happy. I came here on book tour. It sounds romantic and exciting, and it is, but like all good road stories it’s also a lonely place to be. I miss my wife and kids. I miss my office. I think I should be writing, but I need to be out and about, spreading the good word about my new novel, STOLEN.

What isn’t particularly sunny is my novel. It’s actually it wee bit terrifying, "dark" some might say. The lovely folks at Publishers Weekly called it an “unrelentingly suspenseful thriller.” It’s about a couple that doesn’t have health insurance coverage to cover the cost some pretty astromomical health care bills. The book asks the question, what would you do to save the person you love the most? In the case of STOLEN the answer is stealing another’s identity for the purpose of committing medical fraud. Unfortunately, this lovely couples ends up stealing the worst identity imaginable, that of a psychopatic killer with a twisted mind for playing very twisted games. Soon the couple from STOLEN (John and Ruby) are drawn into this dark world, forced to play a game called Criminal where they must commit more real crimes and the stakes are life and death.

So even though STOLEN isn’t a sunny tale, even though its dark as that side of the moon, gruesome even, it does provide a good deal of suspense, and my promise that you won’t be able to turn the pages fast enough. And you can trust me. I brought the sun.

 

Daniel Palmer

April Mass Market Bestsellers

1. Pamela Beason, UNDERCURRENTS, Berkley

2. Ridley Pearson, THE RISK AGENT, Jove

3. K.W. Jeter, INFERNAL DEVICES, Angry Robot

4. Victoria Abbot, THE CHRISTIE CURSE, Berkley

Tied For 7. 

Louise Penny, STILL LIFE, St. Martins

C.J. Box, FORCE OF NATURE, Berkley

Waverly Curtis, DIAL C FOR CHIHUAHUA, Kensington

Tied For 10.

J.D. Robb, DELUSION IN DEATH, Berkley

Ace Atkins, ROBERT B. PARKER'S LULLABY, Berkley

Harlan Coben, STAY CLOSE, Signet

Waverly Curtis, CHIHUAHUA CONFIDENTIAL, Kensington

Robert Dugoni, WRONGFUL DEATH, Pocket

Mary Lou Kirwin, KILLER LIBRARIAN, Pocket

April Trade Paperback Bestsellers

1. Jess Walter, BEAUTIFUL RUINS, Harper, Signed Copies Available

2. Urban Waite, THE TERROR OF LIVING, Back Bay Books, Signed Copies Available

3. Jess Walter, WE LIVE IN WATER, Harper, Signed Copies Available

4. Michael Connolly, THE BLACK BOX, Grand Central

5. Peter Spieglman, THICK AS THIEVES, Vintage

Tied For 8.

Jacqueline Winspear, MAISIE DOBBS, Penguin

Jussi Adler-Olsen, THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES, Plume

A.J. Kazinski, THE LAST GOOD MAN, Scribner 

Tied For 10.

Gillian Flynn, SHARP OBJECTS, Broadway 

T. Jefferson Parker, JAGUAR, NAL

Robert Goldsbourough, ARCHIE MEETS NERO WOLFE, Open Road Media

Ben H. Winter, THE LAST POLICEMAN, Quirk

Fuminori Nakamura, THE THIEF, SOHO, Signed Copies Available

April Hardcover Bestsellers

1. Amanda Quick, THE MYSTERY WOMAN, Putnam, Signed Copies Available

2. Jacqueline Winspear, LEAVING EVERYTHING MOST LOVED, Harper, Signed Copies Available

3. Urban Waite, THE CARRION BIRDS, William Morrow, Signed Copies Available

4. Donna Leon, THE GOLDEN EGG, Atlantic Monthly

Tied for 6.

Harlan Coben, SIX YEARS, Dutton

Linda Barnes, PERFECT GHOST, Minotaur

7. Phillip Margolin, SLEIGHT OF HAND, Harper, Signed Copies Available

8. Roger Hobbs, GHOSTMAN, Knopf

Tied for 10. 

Elizabeth Lowell, DANGEROUS REFUGE, William Morrow

Burt Weissbourd, INSIDE PASSAGE, Rare Bird

Lissa Evans, HORTEN'S MIRACULOUS MECHANISMS, Sterling

William Kent Krueger, ORDINARY GRACE, ATRIA

Signed Fuminori Nakamura' The Thief

Fuminori Nakamura - The Thief

The trade paperback is signed & in stock now! 

The Thief is a seasoned pickpocket. Anonymous in his tailored suit, he weaves in and out of Tokyo crowds, stealing wallets from strangers so smoothly sometimes he doesn’t even remember the snatch. Most people are just a blur to him, nameless faces from whom he chooses his victims. He has no family, no friends, no connections.... But he does have a past, which finally catches up with him when Ishikawa, his first partner, reappears in his life, and offers him a job he can’t refuse. It’s an easy job: tie up an old rich man, steal the contents of the safe. No one gets hurt. Only the day after the job does he learn that the old man was a prominent politician, and that he was brutally killed after the robbery. And now the Thief is caught in a tangle even he might not be able to escape.

An Interesting Fact....

Did you know that Craig Johnson’s Longmire Series is seriously popular in France? Well they are!

Here is a video interview with Craig from the land of cheese, wine, baguettes and Frenchmen! The first few seconds is an introduction in French, however Craig answers in English with some interesting tid bits about his books!

 

 

Saturday July 13^th at Noon - Craig Johnson signs A Serpent’s Tooth

A Mormon boy wanders into the homecoming festivities asking for help in finding his mother. Sheriff Longmire begins to look for answers and stumbles onto an interstate polygamy group that is armed to the teeth and planning something ugly.

He will be on hand to sign books and speak informally to his fans. All we ask is you purchase one of his new books at our store, so we can continue to host these great events! 

Happy Birthday to the Nation's Library

Happy Birthday to the Library of Congress, founded on April 24, 1800 when President John Adams signed the Congressional Act that created it. $5,000 was alotted for the collection. 740 books and 3 maps were ordered from England specifically to start the collection which was intended for use of the elected officials. Originally, it was housed in the US Capitol.

Ironically, during the War of 1812, the British burned the collection when they set fire to the Capitol Building. To reconstitute the Library, Thomas Jefferson sold his personal collection of 6,487 volumes to the nation. Nice move, Tom.

Here's a string of shots of the permanet library's construction,
 from July 8, 1888 to May 15, 1894.

The Library currently hold 151,785,778 items - books, maps, "incunabula (books printed before 1500), monographs and serials, music, bound newspapers, pamphlets, technical reports, and other printed material, and 109,029,796 items in the nonclassified (special) collections".

for more information and history, see the wikipedia page on the Library of Congress

Together, We Can Save the Independent Bookstores

The following is a post by William Kent Krueger which he posted on his own blog today, April 22nd. He kindly gave us permission to repost it.

When I was a kid, every town had a bookstore. An independent bookstore. Some towns had several. They were as ubiquitous as local drugstores with soda fountains and as important as any other element to the life of a community. It’s not like that now. Our local, independently owned bookstores are an endangered species. They’re the victims of big chains and of Amazon, yes. But they’re also endangered because of our own lethargy and our insensitivity to both the necessity and the importance of these very valuable resources.

Borders has gone the way of the dodo bird. If what we hear is true, Barnes and Noble is on the ropes. And when that chain is gone, know who’s left? Amazon. The big faceless corporation for whom books are simply another commodity and each of us is simply a revenue source.

Buying from independents is in our own best interest. It assures that no one large entity will control what’s available to us as readers. Freedom—and it does come down to this—is all about choice.

Most of the signings I do are at independents. I’ll be signing on Friday at a wonderful small bookstore in Hudson, Wisconsin, called Chapter2Books. Like most independents, they walk a fine line between red ink and black. If you live in the area, I would consider it a personal favor if you came and experienced this lovely shop and began to do your book buying there. Here’s a link to a great blog about these folks and their plight.

Thanks for listening. And remember: Think globally. Shop locally.

Thanks, Kent, for your efforts on behalf of us little guys!