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A Special Week:
Easter, Passover
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Hello
Wishing everyone blessings for whatever you are celebrating however you are doing it. This is a time for creativity and
 compassion. And kindness.
And for managing anxiety and stress, a former SEAL counsels this:
"You have to surrender the emotional and mental horsepower on the things that you can't control and only focus on the things that you can, which is specifically yourself," said Stumpf. "You can't control what happens to you but you can control how you receive what happens to you. Being scared, allowing that to affect the decision-making process for you, is what gets people in substantial trouble.
"People tend to spend a lot of time in the big circle, worrying about things they don't have control over, like what's going on in the stock market or what's happening in the news.
"The only thing that you should spend your time, energy and effort working on are the things directly inside of your circle of influence, which are "the things that come out of your mouth, how you behave ... the way that you communicate.
"If you focus on those things,"you're going to get through stressful situations just fine.
Try dialing down your exposure to the news, sticking to a routine and practicing mindfulness." 
I add, And how better to do this than diving into a book?
We are managing at The Pen by:
Staggered staff hours to maintain distancing
. We are closed on Sundays to phone orders. There is no guarantee that a staffer is available to talk by phone on Saturdays. Saturdays will be staffed on a week by week basis. Weekday hours are 10:00 to 6:00
We have discontinued curbside pickup.
As we are doing free shipping
please order as usual:
On
weekdays 10:30-6:00 PM by phone
888-560-9919 or
480-947-2974.
The webstore and email operate 24/7 but please realize that there is no guarantee someone can answer the phone.
We will however return messages as fast we we can
Thank you for your heartening and deeply appreciated support. A special shout out to those who have purchased our
Gift Cards
Watch recent and older programs on
our
YouTube channel
and on
Facebook Live video
New videos include Matthew Quirk, Rhys Bowen in a Book Chat, and Don Winslow with Patrick.
Do check our BLOG regularly.
Much love to our social media team which includes Susan on Twitter and Kathy on Pinterest as well as me on Instagram
And thank you for supporting the authors!
Barbara and all The Pens
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Thank you for supporting The Poisoned Pen, frequently named Best Specialty Bookstore by the
New Times
and by the
Arizona Republic
, one of 45 Great American Indie Bookstores 2013; Best Locally Owned and Operated Business: Scottsdale 2016; and Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, winner of the 2010 Ellery Queen Award from the Mystery Writers of America and named the 2011 Best Local Publisher by the
Arizona Republic and now the mystery imprint at Sourcebooks.
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The April Booknews
Part One
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The entries, most of them, publish between now and April 17.
I will do a second one. Things are changing so rapidly it's easier for you and for us if I do more frequent Booknewses
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For You:
Free Shipping on orders of $25+ within the US
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We always need good books however we define them to be, and right now more than ever.
THROUGH APRIL: FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OF $25 and up within the United States.
PLEASE PREORDER TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT
As I predicted, printers and warehouses and shippers are showing the strain. We are experiencing some delays in stocking books who knows how April will fare Remember amazon prime has slowed down too.
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Looking for Good Reads?
For you?
For family and friends?
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We have long offered subscription
Books of the Month. So one way to discover something you will enjoy is to order one of the selections. Or just sign up for a club.
For years we've offered a
Mystery of the Month membership. You fill out a profile and we pick the book to send to you. Or
enroll someone in MOM, book to them, charge to you.
This would be an excellent time to order a Book Care Package  to ship to a family member or friend.
One way to do this would be to go to our WebStore, select books and enter the billing information and the shipping addresses.
OR call us at
888-560-9919 or email
[email protected] and let us pick out the books for you.
The Book Care Packages will ship free through April.
OR buy a Poisoned Pen Gift Card for a family member or a friend. It's a thoughtful gift, and books never spoil on the shelf.
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Buy Audio Books from The Pen via Libro.fm
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This is a great time to start a Libro.fm account for audiobooks
.
You'll get two audiobooks for the price of one ($14.99), and
100% of your payment will go to The Pen. Once enrolled, you just click on the BuyAudioBook green button on the webstore page for a book.
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What Are Virtual Events?
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All our April Events will be Virtual
Please note that all the Facebook Live events can be viewed at any time after the event. They start on Scottsdale Time, 3 hours later than Eastern Daylight Time. Or 3 hours earlier depending on how you envision the time difference.
The programs will appear on our YouTube channel the next day, giving you a choice where to watch them.
Zoom can be made safe is there is a host approving participants. We are setting up a couple of workshops. And Pat plans on hosting The SciFi Friday and Croak and Dagger Clubs for April via Zoom. For questions email
[email protected]
Pat's store hours are on Saturday 10-6 for now. So Email is best
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Two Extra Treats to View
Clive Cussler
Phryne Fisher
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While transferring older Livestream Events to our YouTube Channel I came across an video program with the late Clive Cussler talking to Justin Scott and to me
Miss Fisher returns in a feature film! Miss Fisher and the Crypt  of Tears.
Watch it on Acorn
It's very much Indiana Jones style with some scenery that almost makes up for not traveling. And the potential for a sequel set in India.
Many of you are addicted to Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series. I am happy to say that a new one is written. Publishing information to come... Meanwhile you can binge on the
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Julia Spencer-Fleming
Today 5:00 PM
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TUESDAY APRIL 7 5:00 PM Virtual Book Launch
Julia Spencer-Fleming
chats with Jenn McKinlay about
Catch a preview of this event by watching a conversation I had with Rhys Bowen who is Julia's blog mate. View it HERE
Signed copies. Please preorder to secure yours
Karen reviews: Millers Kill is a small town with a lot going on. The recent murder of a young woman is reminiscent of one from 1952 and another in 1972. There is no identification for the victim, no obvious cause of death. The Police Chief, Russ Van Alstyne, was a suspect in the 1972 crime, as he was the one who found her body.
 The current crime, leaves few clues and, because of the time span, it seems impossible that all three crimes could be executed by the same person. Meanwhile, there are other issues. Van Alstyne is facing a citizen's committee which has determined that Millers Kill is too small to finance a police department and wants to turn it over to the State Police.
At home, there is a new baby and wife, Clare, who has concerns of her own. She is a new Mom, trying to juggle her counseling duties along with her ministerial responsibilities and her battle to remain sober. Spencer-Fleming does a great job in creating a small town with flawed, but decent, characters.
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Paige Shelton
Tuesday 6:00 PM
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TUESDAY APRIL 7 6:00 PM Virtual Book Launch
Paige Shelton chats with Jenn McKinlay about
The Stolen Letter
(St Martins $26.99)
Scottish Bookshop Series
Signed copies in stock now.
Delaney Nichols is back in Edinburgh from her honeymoon, eager to return to her job at the Cracked Spine, "the most wonderful bookstore in the entire world." On the street, she literally bumps  into a woman who looks a lot like herself-the same frizzy red hair and lots of freckles. By chance, the woman, who introduces herself as Mary Stewart, was on her way to the Cracked Spine.
At the bookshop, Mary reveals that she's the reincarnation of Mary, Queen of Scots. Delaney and Mary soon become friends. Meanwhile, the Edinburgh City Council threatens to close the bookshop for code violations. Eventually, other people who believe they have past lives end up playing supporting roles in the main action: Delaney's investigation of the death of Mary's husband, a member of the council, in a car bombing.
Vivid descriptions of Edinburgh enhance the well-crafted plot.
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Dean Koontz
Wednesday
3:00 PM
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WEDNESDAY APRIL 8 3:00 PM Virtual Event
Dean Koontz
chats about
Devoted
(Thomas & Mercer $28.99)
Signed copies. Please preorder to secure yours. We have a limited supply due to the closure of the publisher's warehouse so don't delay
The thing to keep in mind about the imaginative and prolific Koontz is that he truly loves Golden Retrievers. His are family. So  it's no surprise that Kipp, "a uniquely gifted dog with a heart as golden as his breed," is the protector, rather in the spirit of animal totems, to eleven-year-old Woody Bookman.
And naturally in a Koontz novel this child, mute from birth, is under mysterious threat. His father died in freak accident. Woody believes some monstrous evil was behind dad's death and is threatening his mom, Megan, and Woody himself. And-he's right. A man has set a depraved plan into motion. Only a force for good like Kipp can stop it....
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CS Harris
Wednesday
5:00 PM
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WEDNESDAY APRIL 8 5:00 PM Virtual Event
(Berkley $26)
Signed copies in stock now
In June 1814, as royalty from Austria, Russia, and the German states gather in London at the Prince Regent's invitation to celebrate Napoleon's defeat with a sumptuous round of parties, exhibits, and celebrations, the dissolute third son of the late Earl of Seaford is found fatally stabbed at a no longer fashionable London tea garden.
 Sebastian
St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, is astonished to learn from Jules Calhoun, his valet, that the dead man is Nicholas Hayes, an old friend of Calhoun. Like most of Society, St. Cyr believed that Hayes had died a few years after he was convicted of murder and transported to Australia 18 years earlier in 1796. In fact, Calhoun reveals that Hayes, who managed to return to England by stealing a dead man's identity, got in touch with him and asked for his help. But for what?
St. Cyr delves into the related questions of why Hayes took the step of coming to London at the risk of summary execution and who was responsible for his murder, which inevitably require probing the crime that led to Hayes's being sent to Australia-the killing of the wife of a French count.
Figuring into the plot is St. Cyr's wife Hero and her powerful father and, in time, ties to the East India Company, by now an exemplar of capitalism run rampant.
This is truly one of my favorite series, historically accurate and respectful, cannily plotted, fabulous characters, plus a cliff hanger at the end of every entry. But this one operates as a standalone so you can read it and then go back to book one
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A Saturday Double Header
Darynda Jones 2:00 PM
John Scalzi 2:30 PM
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The plan is to use Zoom to bring the authors in and if it goes right with Pat King as host, they may occupy a split screen at the half hour for a bit. Or maybe the whole time. Be flexible, we're figuring this one out.
Signed copies coming for both titles, Scalzi sooner than Jones. Please order ASAP to secure yours as quantities are limited
A missing girl, a flasher named Doug, and an old flame that refuses to burn out. What else could go wrong on newly sworn-in sheriff Sunshine Vicram's first day? She finds her cup o' joe more than half full when the small village of Del Sol, New Mexico, becomes the center of national attention for a kidnapper on the loose. Del Sol is known for three things: its fry-an-egg-on-the-cement summers, its strong cups of coffee-and a nationwide manhunt?
The Del Sol native has returned to town as the elected sheriff-an  election her meddlesome parents entered her in-and she expects her biggest crime wave to involve an elderly flasher named Doug. But a teenage girl is missing, a kidnapper is on the loose, and all of it's reminding Sunny why she left Del Sol in the first place. Add to that trouble at her daughter's new school and a kidnapped prized rooster named Puff Daddy. Then enter sexy almost-old-flame Levi Ravinder and a hunky US Marshall, both elevens on a scale of one to blazing inferno, and the normally savvy sheriff is quickly in over her head.
Scalzi, John. The Last Emperox (Forge $26.99). The hugely popular Scalzi gets a true rave for this:
"Hugo Award-winner Scalzi knocks it out of the park with the tightly plotted, deeply satisfying conclusion to his  Interdependency Sequence space opera trilogy. The Flow streams, trade routes that connect the planets governed under the Interdependency, face an imminent collapse that will leave every world but the small planet End isolated and cause countless deaths. Emperox Grayland II works to thwart coup attempts long enough for her lover, physicist Marce Claremont, to work out how to save the population from this impending disaster. Meanwhile, Grayland's enemy Nadashe Nohamapetan consolidates her control of End while promising disgruntled, powerful noble families exclusive access to the planet in exchange for their political support.
Scalzi allows the flaws, foibles, and core personalities of the returning characters-careful Grayson, ruthless Nadashe, and especially foul-mouthed mercenary Kiva Lagos-to steer the story, and his careful, long-game planning allows for pitch-perfect pacing that will keep readers energized from start to finish. Balancing existing character dynamics and surprising-but well-earned-reveals with interstellar politics and pressing ethical questions of sustainability and power, Scalzi sends his series out with a bang."
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More Virtual Events
Please check back from time to time
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Please note that all the Facebook Live events can be viewed at any time after the event and will appear on our YouTube channel the next day, giving you a choice where to watch them. Times are all Scottsdale, ie PDT
MONDAY APRIL 13 5:00 PM
A Book Chat with James Rollins
MONDAY APRIL 13 6:00 PM Virtual Book Launch
The Terminal List #3 James Reece
Signed copies. The first 200 will also get a signed bookplate. Please preorder to secure yours
TUESDAY APRIL 14 Virtual Book Launch 5:00 PM
Our April Crime Collectors Book of the Month
Signed copies. Please preorder to secure yours
TUESDAY APRIL 14 6:00 PM Virtual Event
30th Book Party for Lucas Davenport
Signed copies. Please preorder to secure yours
THURSDAY APRIL 16 5:00 PM
Our April Historical Fiction Book of the Month
Signed Books. Please preorder
to secure yours
SATURDAY APRIL 18 2:00 PM Virtual Event
Signed copies. Please preorder to secure yours
TUESDAY APRIL 21 5:00 PM
Marcia Clark speaks about
Final Judgment (Thomas & Mercer $24.95/$15.95)
Samantha Brinkman
The publisher's warehouse is closed. Please preorder and when we can we will secure signed copies from Marcia
In the works:
Angie Kim
Kate White
Jeffery Deaver May 11
Michael Connelly May 25
James Lee Burke May 26
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Classic Crimes...Anew
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What better time to go back in time?
Travel to Paris this spring is out. So why not evoke the City of Light in this British Library Crime Classic?
In the smoke-wreathed gloom of a Parisian salon, Inspector  Bencolin has summoned his allies to discuss a peculiar case. A would-be murderer, imprisoned for his attempt to kill his wife, has escaped and is known to have visited a plastic surgeon. His whereabouts remain a mystery, though with his former wife poised to marry another, Bencolin predicts his return. Sure enough, the Inspector's worst suspicions are realized when the beheaded body of the new suitor is discovered in a locked room of the salon, with no apparent exit. Bencolin sets off into the Parisian night to unravel the dumbfounding mystery and track down the sadistic killer.
"In this standout entry in the British Library Crime Classics series from Gilbert (a pseudonym of Lucy Malleson, 1899-1973), first published in 1933, lawyer Tony Keith and his friend Jeremy Freyne travel to Feltham Abbey at the request of the Home  Office, which is unsettled by a baffling rash of suicides of people who had either money or "rank and position." That each of the dead raised large sums of money for various unstated purposes leads officials to believe that a sophisticated blackmailer known as the Spider was responsible for the suicides. Hilary Feltham, the fiancée of a Foreign Office employee, is believed to be the Spider's next target, and Keith and Freyne hope their presence at Feltham Abbey will avert disaster. A murder occurs, despite their best efforts. The ingenious story line is enhanced by ample doses of wit (of Freyne, Keith states, 'when you heard of some white man with the reputation of a lunatic, doing anything particularly futile in some obscure British protectorate, you could bet your boots Jeremy wasn't far off'). Gilbert neatly combines Wodehousian humor with a fair play puzzle."
Another Starred Review for the first Crime Classic in the new series published with our own National Library
"First published in 1897, this cleverly plotted mystery from Greene (1846-1935) introduces Amelia Butterworth, an elderly spinster 'of Colonial ancestry and no inconsiderable importance in  the social world,' who lives alone in Manhattan's exclusive Gramercy Park neighborhood. One night, she's awakened by the sound of a horse-drawn cab pulling up outside the mansion next door. A man and a woman alight and enter the house, which Miss Butterworth knows to be empty. Ten minutes later, the man leaves. She subsequently summons the police, who investigate and find the body of a woman lying crushed beneath 'a fallen piece of furniture.' Detective Ebenezer Gryce arrives, and the competition begins: who will solve the murder first? Much of the book's enjoyment stems from Miss Butterworth's spirited discussions with the 77-year-old Gryce and her seeming lack of self-awareness...
those around her see her as pushy and nosy. This inaugural volume in the Library of Congress Crime Classics series, featuring the first woman sleuth in a series, is a must for genre buffs."
Marsh, Richard.
The Beetle
(The Haunted Library $14.99).
This is the second volume in The Haunted Library Series presenting classics of the gothic, horror, and shivery stories. If creepy is a hook, this is your book with its Introduction by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and annotations by Leslie S Klinger.
The story? First published in 1897, Richard Marsh's classic work  of gothic horror opens with Robert Holt, an out-of-work clerk seeking shelter in an abandoned house. He comes face to face with a fantastical creature with supernatural and hypnotic powers; a creature who can transform at will between its human and beetle forms and who wrecks havoc when he preys on young middle-class Britons.
The first Haunted Library release complete with footnotes and discussion questions, as all are and will be, is Gaston Leroux's
The Phantom of the Opera
($14.99). If you've only seen the play or the movie, you haven't experienced the full story.
Rinehart, Mary.
The Haunted Lady
(Penzler $15.95).
In this twisty and atmospheric whodunit from Rinehart (1876-1958) featuring astute nurse and police ally Hilda Adams, Hilda's friend Inspector Fuller, who believes Hilda "can see more with those blue eyes of hers than most of us could with a microscope,"  wants her to help an elderly widow, Eliza Fairbanks. Mrs. Fairbanks claims her house has been invaded by animals. Her account is supported by her granddaughter, and Hilda agrees to join the household as the woman's nurse to keep an eye on things. Her charge reveals that someone previously put arsenic in her sugar bowl, bolstering the theory that the current campaign, which includes odd noises at night, is also aimed at bringing about Mrs. Fairbanks's untimely demise. Things turn violent when a member of the household is stabbed to death in a locked room. The capable Hilda proves herself to be a savvy sleuth with superior powers of observation. Rinehart keeps the pages turning without stinting on characterization. First published in 1942.
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Our April Books of the Month
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OUR APRIL BOOKS OF THE MONTH
One unsigned hardcover or paperback per month
One unsigned hardcover or paperback per month
One Signed First per month
TBA
One Signed First per month
One Signed First per month
One Signed First per month
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Mystery-of-the-Month Club
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Looking for something new to read each month and aren't sure what to choose? Let us help... And it makes a great gift for Dad!
The Mystery-of-the-Month Club is individually tailored to each customer's specific tastes. Just let us know what kinds of mysteries you enjoy, whether your looking for signed hardcover books or paperbacks, and we'll take it from there!
For more information, drop Patrick King a line at
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We Don't Want to Lose You!
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If you change your email address you will disappear from our Enews mailing list automatically.
We can't tell unless you either
Go to the very bottom of any Enews and Click on
UPDATE PROFILE or go here and fill in the form. You can choose whether to get the Enews alone or the Enews and Event invitations.
or
Email us your new Email address so we can input it for you into The Enews list. Please tell us that's what you want because we cannot just subscribe you.
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Buy Poisoned Pen Gift Cards Online
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The Poisoned Pen
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Is a full service general bookstore with a specialty in fiction of all kinds, and in history. When books are not on our shelves we can order them for you quickly or, if British, it takes a little longer.
Email any requests to
[email protected]. It's all part of the experience. Thank you for supporting The Poisoned Pen.
Winner, 2001 Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America! Winner,
2012 The Arizona Republic and the New Times Best of Phoenix and Best of Scottsdale, Best Bookstore! 2013 Arizona Republic's Critics' Choice and Reader's Choice Best Specialty Bookstore
12-time Nominee, Publishers Weekly's Bookseller of the Year
Winner, James Patterson Page-Turner Award
Poisoned Pen Press, Winner, The 2010 Ellery Queen Award from The Mystery Writers of America
Member of the Crime Writers of Canada, British Crime Writers Association, The American Booksellers Association,
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