LAST POLICEMAN  by  BEN WINTERS

October 2013

Ben H. Winters' writing combines literary fiction with horror and steampunk, social commentary with psychological suspense, science fiction with mystery. He writes both for adults and older kids. Whichever melange or audience he chooses, Winters brings a certain pulp sensibility to the proceedings. He books move at a brisk pace, seldom languishing in digression or introspection. Clear, exuberant writing and straightforward plotting keep the reader engaged, amused, and slightly on edge. Winters's settings are wildly divergent, veering from 19th-century Russia to Regency-era England to modern-day Brooklyn, New York. Start with: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (Adults); The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman (Older kids).

Writings:

Countdown City: the last policeman book II (Jul 2013)

Set three months before a deadly asteroid is due to hit Earth, this Last Policeman sequel chronicles the further adventures of Hank Palace. The Concord Police Department is now operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, and Hank is out of a job-until he's hired by a business tycoon to help find the man's estranged son. It isn't long before Hank's missing-person case turns into a murder investigation.

The last policeman (Jul 2012)

When the Earth is doomed by an imminent and unavoidable asteroid collision, New Hampshire homicide detective Hank Palace considers the worth of his job in a world destined to end in six months and investigates a suspicious suicide that nobody else cares about.

Bedbugs (Sep 2011)

After Susan and Alex Wendt find their dream apartment, Susan wakes up with small welts believing it to be bedbugs until an exterminator turns up nothing and further investigation points towards something sinister.

Android Karenina (Jun 2010)

When revolutionaries launch an attack on Russian high society's high-tech lifestyle, Anna Karenina and Count Alexei Vronsky must fight back with courage and a sleek new cyborg model like nothing the world has ever seen

Sense and sensibility and sea monsters (Sep 2009)

"As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels?"

For Children:

The mystery of the missing everything (Sep 2011)

When a treasured trophy disappears from the display case at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School and the principal cancels the eagerly anticipated eighth grade class trip, Bethesda Fielding has no choice but to solve the mystery.

The secret life of Ms. Finkleman (Sep 2010)

Spurred by a special project from her social studies teacher, seventh-grader Bethesda Fielding uncovers the secret identity of her music teacher, which leads to a most unusual concert performance and a tutoring assignment.

Read-alikes from NoveList:

Fuerst, James  Huge

Reason:  Mediocre "detectives" feature in these two hardboiled mysteries, which also contain excellent characterizations and -- for entirely different reasons -- a dark tone. Huge stars  an angry pre-teen, while The Last Policeman is set in a pre-apocalyptic world. -- Shauna Griffin

Heller, Peter   The dog stars

Reason:  In these dystopian novels, the main characters are not heroes saving the day against zombies; rather, they're ordinary men trying to do the best they can with what they have. In both cases, civilization's collapse is memorably rendered. -- Shauna Griffin

McCarthy, Cormac  The road

Reason:  Though The Road is a much bleaker, grimmer read, set as it is in a menacing post-apocalyptic United States, its main characters, like in The Last Policeman, embody hope in the face of hopelessness. -- Shauna Griffin

Walker, Karen Thompson The age of miracles

Reason:  Though The Last Policeman is a mystery while The Age of Miracles is literary fiction, both are set in pre-apocalyptic worlds in which the main characters must still continue with their day-to-day lives as the end of the world approaches. -- Shauna Griffin

Author's website: http://benhwinters.com/

Death Comes to Pemberley -- October 2013 meeting

P. D. JAMES -- DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY

P.D. JAMES   aka

James, Phyllis Dorothy,James White, Phyllis Dorothy,White, Phyllis Dorothy James,Baroness James of Holland Park;  Born August 3, 1920, in Oxford, England;  married Ernest Conner Bantry White (a medical practitioner), August 8, 1941 (died, 1964); children: Clare, Jane

Awards:

First prize, Crime Writers Association contest, 1967, for short story, "Moment of Power"; Order of the British Empire, 1983; created Life Peer of United Kingdom (Baroness James of Holland Park), 1991; Diamond Dagger Award, Crime Writers Association for services to crime writing; Silver Dagger Awards, Crime Writers Association, for Shroud for a Nightingale and The Black Tower; Edgar Award, Mystery Writers of America, for Shroud for a Nightingale; Scroll Award, Mystery Writers of America, for An Unsuitable Job for a Woman; Litt.D., University of Buckingham, 1992; Doctor of Literature, University of London, 1993

Although P. D. James is best known for her Adam Dalgliesh mysteries, she has based this novel on Pride and Prejudice, written by Jane Austen, and upon the characters within it. Six years after her marriage, Elizabeth Darcy is happily living with her husband and two sons at Pemberley, when, after the end of their annual autumn ball, an uninvited guest arrives in a chaise from the woods surrounding the estate screaming that her husband has been murdered, thereby shattering Elizabeth's peaceful life.

Read-alikes from NoveList

Novels based on Jane Austen’s characters or featuring Jane Austen have become something of a cottage industry.  Here are some that are classified at mysteries.

Lady Catherine's Necklace by Joan Aiken

More character-driven than Death Comes to Pemberley, Lady Catherine's Necklace is

another sequel to Pride and Prejudice that adds elements of mystery to the familiar world and

characters of Jane Austen's classic novel. -- Gillian Speace

Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen by Lindsay Ashford

Upon its publication in the UK, Lindsay Ashford's fictional interpretation of the few facts surrounding Jane Austen's mysterious death sparked an international debate and uproar. None of the medical theories offer a satisfactory explanation of Jane Austen's early demise at the age of forty-one.

Jane Austen Mysteries by Stephanie Barron

Author Jane Austen is thrust into the role of detective.

Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mysteries by Carrie Bebris

In these engaging, atmospheric historical mysteries -- both "sequels" to Jane Austen's

Pride and Prejudice -- Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy's lives are complicated by murders and other misfortunes, prompting the couple to engage in some amateur sleuthing. -- Gillian Speace

Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen by Syrie James

Discovering a letter written by Jane Austen inside of an old book, Samantha investigates the letter's suggestions about a possible undiscovered manuscript.

Murder Most Austen by Tracy Kiely

Attending a Jane Austen festival in Bath, Elizabeth Parker meets a self-proclaimed Austen expert who suggests that a darker story is hidden within each Austen novel and that he knows unsettling truths about the author's death.

Murder in Abbot’s Folly by Amy Myers

Peter Marsh and his daughter Georgia expect to be investigating an old, unsolved murder case when they are invited to a summer gala at a Georgian mansion in honor of Jane Austen, but find themselves embroiled in a new murder

Murder at Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd

Readers who don't mind some playful reconfiguring of Jane Austen's novels may enjoy both

Murder at Mansfield Park (in which Fanny Price is murdered!), and Death Comes to Pemberley (in which Elizabeth Darcy has a murder to solve). -- Victoria Caplinger

Adam Dalgliesh series:

1.  Cover her face (May 2001)

2. A mind to murder (Jan 1963)

3. Unnatural causes (Jun 1967)

4. Shroud for a nightingale (Jan 1971)

5.The black tower (Aug 1975)

6. Death of an expert witness (Oct 2001)

7. A taste for death (Nov 1986)

8. Devices and desires (May 2004)

9. Original sin (Feb 1995)

10. A certain justice    (Dec 1997)

11. Death in holy orders (Apr 2001)

12. The murder room (Nov 2003)

13. The lighthouse   (Nov 2005)

14.The private patient (Nov 2008)

Cordelia Gray

An unsuitable job for a woman (1972)

The skull beneath the skin(Jan 1983)

Heresy by S. J. Parris

Heresy by S. J. Parris

August, 2013

S.J. Parris is the pen name of Stephanie Merritt (born 1974, in Surrey, England) who began reviewing books for national newspapers while she was reading English literature at Queens' College, Cambridge. After graduating, she went on to become Deputy Literary Editor of The Observer in 1999. She continues to work as a feature writer and critic for the Guardian and the Observer and from 2007-2008 she curated and produced the Talks and Debates program on issues in contemporary arts and politics at London's Soho Theatre. She has appeared as a panelist on various Radio Four shows and on BBC2's Newsnight Review, and is a regular chair and presenter at the Hay Festival and the National Theatre. She has been a judge for the Costa Biography Award, the Orange New Writing Award and the Perrier Comedy Award. She lives in the south of England with her son.

by Stephanie Merritt:

• Gaveston, Faber & Faber (London, England), 2002.
• Real, Faber & Faber (London, England), 2005.
• The Devil Within: A Memoir of Depression, Vermilion (London, England), 2009.

Has written for the Times, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, Zembla, and Die Welt, and served as deputy literary editor and a staff writer at the Observer.

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Merritt's first novel written under the pseudonym S.J. Parris is Heresy. Set in the late sixteenth century, the novel's protagonist is Giordano Bruno. An actual historical personage, Bruno was a Franciscan monk who fled Italy when he was accused of heresy for embracing scientific and astronomical theories at that time considered threatening by the Vatican. Bruno ultimately took shelter in England. In the novel, Bruno is employed by the Queen of England as a spy sent to diffuse a brewing treasonous conspiracy at Oxford, only to find himself also investigating a series of locked-room murders.

Series:

Heresy: an historical thriller ( 2010)

Condemned for his heretical belief that the Earth orbits the sun, scientist and occult researcher Giordano Bruno runs away from the Holy Roman Inquisition and is unexpectedly recruited by Elizabeth I, who dispatches him to Oxford to investigate a Catholic rebellion and foreign plots to assassinate her.  Series: Giordano Bruno thrillers, 1  

Prophecy ( 2011)

The alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, the two most powerful planets, is known as the Great Conjunction and only happens once every one thousand years. Rumours of black magic are stirred when some of Queen Elizabeth's maids are found dead and she calls on her personal astrologers to try and solve the crime.  Series: Giordano Bruno thrillers, 2  

Sacrilege (2012)

Sir Francis Walsingham, spymaster to Queen Elizabeth, has long suspected an undercurrent of Catholic resistance in the city that was once England's greatest centre of pilgrimage. He calls Giordano Bruno, his maverick secret agent, but when Bruno arrives in Canterbury, he has no idea of the dark secrets he's about to uncover.  Series: Giordano Bruno thrillers, 3  

Treachery (2013)

Summer, 1585: As English ships are held captive in Spain, fear mounts of an Invincible Armada, built by King Philip II, and intended to invade English shores. Sir Francis Drake prepares to embark on an expedition by royal commission to cross the Atlantic and seize major Spanish ports, diverting Philip's American treasure supplies to Queen Elizabeth. Giordano Bruno, radical philosopher and spy, accompanies his friend Sir Philip Sidney to Plymouth to oversee Drake's departure.  Series: Giordano Bruno thrillers,  4

Read-alikes from NoveList:

Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville is sent to investigate charges of heresy against Franciscan monks at a wealthy Italian abbey but finds his mission overshadowed by seven bizarre murders

The Scottish prisoner by Diana Gabaldon

In the 18th century, paroled prisoner-of-war Jamie Fraser and his old friend Tobias Quinn must travel from London to Ireland on a mission of intrigue surrounding packet of documents and an ancient relic. By the best-selling author of Outlander.

Justin de Quincy mysteries by Sharon Kay Penman

A series of historical mystery novels set in the late 12th century, featuring Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine's personal sleuth Justin de Quincy

Matthew Shardlake novels by C. J. Sansom

Matthew Shardlake, a keenly intelligent hunchback lawyer in the service of Thomas Cromwell, seeks to create a world in which faith and charity would be enough to settle differences.

Kit Marlowe mysteries by M. J. Trow

The Giordano Bruno and Kit Marlowe mysteries are both set in Elizabethan England and feature educated men as the undercover sleuths at court. The fast-paced stories are filled with rich historical details and a strong sense of place. -- Merle Jacob

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