Authors & Titles: T.G. Wolff: Exacting Justice

                              A.C. Frieden: The Pyongyang Option 

Date: April 14, 2019

Day: Sunday

Time: 2:00 to 4:00 PM

Description

An unknown killer is waging a war on drugs. The murders are horrendous but with a silver lining--now stop signs are the only objects lingering on corners in the city's toughest neighborhoods. Half the city calls for the police to end the killer's reign. The other half cheers the killer on, denouncing the tactics but celebrating the progress police haven't been able to achieve. The gritty details of Cleveland's drug underworld are nothing new to Homicide Detective Jesus De La Cruz. Two years earlier, Cruz worked undercover narcotics and was poised for a promotion that would have placed him in a coveted position within the drug organization. The deal went bad. Now he has a new face, a new job, and a new case. The killer moves through the streets with impunity, identity still unknown. Demands for progress from his superiors, accumulated grief of the victim's relatives, growing pressure from the public, and elevated stress from his family quietly pull Cruz apart. With no out, the detective moves all in, putting his own head on the line to bait a killer.

About the Author

I am TG Wolff, mystery writer and Civil Engineer. I have always loved puzzles. It doesn't matter if the puzzles are made of words, numbers, or pictures. I dig on "figuring it out." Becoming an engineer was a natural, because that what I do -- figure out why things are broken, figure out how to fix them. In my day job, I am a Civil Engineer. I hold a Bachelor’s from Case Western Reserve University and a Master’s from Cleveland State University. I started in the Transportation field, designing roadways and the water systems that support them. After working nights on my Master’s degree, I began working in the water and wastewater industry, specializing in Clean Water Act compliance. Currently, I work for one of the largest self-performing General Contractors in the Midwest, helping with the projects that keep our water clean and our communities strong. I love reading mysteries for the "figuring it out." Over ten years ago while living in Cleveland, Ohio and working on a project in Northern Kentucky, with little to fill the time along the I-71 corridor, I began create puzzles, mini “whodunits” that kept my mind alert. The  puzzles became short stories and, eventually, full length mysteries. While I am an avid reader of mysteries and thrillers, I love, in capital letters, LOVE, creating mysteries for the reader to solve and enjoy. As a mystery writer, I create the whodunits, and then work backwards to create the story that will be read front-to-back. I’m not a cop or a lawyer. My stories aren’t police procedurals or legal thrillers. My stories are about the plot, the mystery, with a fun twist of humor that makes life entertaining. I like to make you think but give you everything you need to solve the problem.

Description

New Orleans lawyer Jonathan Brooks is desperate to rebuild his law firm after Hurricane Katrina. Short on clients, he takes the only work he can find: to negotiate a business deal in Ukraine. But soon after he lands in Kyiv, his client's executive vanishes. Suspecting foul play and having received little assistance from local police, Jonathan enlists the help of a U.S. diplomat. But the next day they are brutally ambushed. Injured and fearing for his life, Jonathan embarks on a risky hunt for clues through the back alleys of Kyiv to an abandoned town near Chernobyl. Meanwhile Jonathan's ex-wife--journalist Linda Fabre--lands in Pyongyang to report on historic nuclear disarmament talks. Upon hearing of Jonathan's ordeal, she begins probing North Korean officials without realizing that she and Jonathan are both on a collision course with a vicious web of hackers, spies and assassins that even the CIA knows little about. Soon, Jonathan realizes he may have only one option left: head to the hermit kingdom with as much leverage as possible, find Linda and try to get out alive.

About the Author

After leaving his birthplace in Senegal, Africa, A.C. Frieden spent several years in India, Switzerland and the UK before emigrating with his parents to the southern United States. After high school, he returned to his native Switzerland to serve in the Swiss Army, where he trained as a marksman. He later came back to the U.S. to complete undergraduate and graduate studies, and then earned two law degrees, a pilot’s license, and scuba instructor license. Today, aside from his thriller writing career, you’ll find him practicing law as one of the country’s preeminent technology lawyers.

Frieden’s interest in writing fiction began during his legal studies in Russia, Austria and Hungary. What began as short stories, diaries and poems, many written during his travels, soon emerged as ingredients for future novels. Mysteries and thrillers soon became his passion. His first manuscript, Canvas Sunsets Never Fade, a mystery delving into nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, was published in 2004. His second novel, Tranquility Denied, is set in post‐Cold War Moscow, Stockholm and Southern Louisiana, and is the first in a series featuring hotshot maritime lawyer Jonathan Brooks. The book was launched in Russia and in the U.S. in late 2006, followed by the sequel, The Serpent's Game, in 2013. His publishers recently announced the upcoming release of two more Jonathan Brooks thrillers, The Pyongyang Option and Letter From Istanbul. Frieden’s work has also appeared in anthologies, including the recent published Down, Out and Dead. He is also launching a new globetrotting thriller series packed with political and espionage intrigue featuring former JAG lawyer Kaden Black.

To bring action and realism to his novels, Frieden has extensively researched the most challenging conflicts of the Cold War, including the Korean War, the U.S. intervention in Chile, the invasion of Panama, CIA counterinsurgencies in Bolivia, and the August Coup in the former Soviet Union, among other conflicts and crises. He’s also researched key events in the changing post‐Cold War era, such as the sinking of the K‐141 Kursk, the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, and the Libyan and Syrian civil wars. His interest in researching on‐site has brought him face‐to‐face with key political figures, diplomats, journalists and former military officials in Cuba, Venezuela, Turkey, Russia, India, and more than sixty‐five other countries. His research also led him to witness the 2009 Honduran coup d'étatfirsthand, to interview former combatants in Nicaragua, to visit once‐secret underground mountain bunkers in Switzerland and to visit the former Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine. Frieden also went to China and Vietnam to research another novel, and he recently published a photography book capturing hisjourney through North Korea, including Pyongyang, Kaesong and the Korean Demilitarized Zone. In addition, his non‐fiction works have appeared in numerous legal, technology and international business publications worldwide.

Title: The Mykonos Mob (10th Chief Inspaector Andreas Kaldis Mystery set in Modern Greece)

Author: Jeffrey Siger

Date; May 3, 2019

Day: Friday

Time: 7-9:00 PM

Description:

The Mykonos Mob reveals the wildly lucrative dark side of an internationally renowned Greek island playground for the world’s rich and famous, those battling for control of its vices, and the innocents affected by it all.

The case begins for Athens’ Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis with a literal bang—a corrupt former police colonel who runs a protection racket on Mykonos is gunned down. And Kaldis is suddenly face to face with Greece’s top crime bosses, all just as surprised and baffled as he is at the assassination. Who is making a move—if a move it is—and what else might it be?—to take over the island’s vice operations. Maybe legitimate businesses too?

One of the Aegean’s Cyclades islands, Mykonos was poor until a few decades ago, but today is a renowned 24/7 summer hot spot filled with tourists who enjoy its beaches and iconic landmarks by day and party in its bars and massive dance clubs by night. As an international playground and cruise port, Mykonos is just begging for more exploitation—and not just by the Greeks.

While Andreas and his Special Crimes unit wrestle for answers, his wife Lila is similarly engaged but her focus is what meaningful role beyond wife and mother will she fill? Daughter of a wealthy family, it isn’t about money. Her quest takes her to her parents’ home on Mykonos where she meets Toni, an American ex-pat, a fixer and finder of stolen goods, playing piano in a gender-bending bar with a zest for life and no apparent regard for rules. How does what Lila and Toni discover together about themselves—and how they mentor young island girls trapped in an exploitative and patriarchal culture—intersect with Andreas’ investigation?

Dangerously… !

The Mykonos Mob is 10th in a series of “…thoughtful police procedurals set in picturesque but not untroubled Greek locales.”—The New York Times. They are thoughtful, and attuned to both ancient and modern Greek society, but they are also unsparingly filled with thrills.The Mykonos Mob reveals the wildly lucrative dark side of an internationally renowned Greek island playground for the world’s rich and famous, those battling for control of its vices, and the innocents affected by it all.

Jeff

I am an American living on the Aegean Greek island of Mykonos. A Pittsburgh native and former Wall Street lawyer, I gave up my career as a name partner in my own New York City law firm to write mystery thrillers that tell more than just a fast-paced story. My novels are aimed at exploring serious societal issues confronting modern day Greece in a tell-it-like-it-is style while touching upon the country's ancient roots.

The New York Times Book Review has honored my work by designating me as Greece’s thriller novelist of Record, and the Greek Government’s General Secretariat of Media and Communications has selected me as one of six authors—and the only American—writing mysteries that serve as a guide to Greece.

Some Mykonian friends told me if I started sprinkling murders with a message across my adopted country's tourist paradises, I'd likely be banished, if not hung. No one was more amazed than I when my debut novel, Murder in Mykonos (a sort of Mamma Mia setting for a No Country for Old Men story), became Greece's #1 best selling English-language novel (and a best-seller in Greek, as well).

As of April 2019 there are ten Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis novels out there and I receive no more than the customary number of death threats. I'm diligently trying to improve my percentage in that regard with posts about Greece each Saturday on the Murder is Everywhere blogsite I share with nine renowned mystery writers from around the world.

It's been a remarkable journey, punctuated most notably by The New York Times selecting the fourth in my Andreas Kaldis series (Target: Tinos) as one of its five "picks for the beach" while calling the entire series, "thoughtful police procedurals set in picturesque but not untroubled Greek locales;" Left Coast Crime's nomination of the fifth in the series (Mykonos After Midnight) in 2014 as Best Mystery in a Foreign Setting; a 2016 Barry Award Best Novel Nomination for my seventh in the series (Devil of Delphi); Library Journal selecting my ninth book as “one of the best books of 2018” (An Aegean April); starred reviews and official government citations; and this quote from Fodor's Greek Islands Travel Guide under a section titled "Mykonos After Dark," which colleagues say I should consider the equivalent of winning an Oscar: "Some say that after midnight, Mykonos is all nightlife—this throbbing beat is the backdrop to Jeffrey Siger's popular mystery, Murder in Mykonos."

Title: Death in a Budapest Butterfly (A Hungarian Tea House Mystery) A NEW SERIES...

Author: Julia Buckley

Date: August 4, 2019

Day: Sunday

Time: 1:00 - 3:00 PM

Description

Hana Keller serves up European-style cakes and teas in her family-owned tea house, but when a customer keels over from a poisoned cuppa, Hana and her tea-leaf reading grandmother will have to help catch a killer in the first Hungarian Tea House Mystery from Julia Buckley.

Hana Keller and her family run Maggie's Tea House, an establishment heavily influenced by the family's Hungarian heritage and specializing in a European-style traditional tea service. But one of the shop's largest draws is Hana's eccentric grandmother, Juliana, renowned for her ability to read the future in the leaves at the bottom of customers' cups. Lately, however, her readings have become alarmingly ominous and seemingly related to old Hungarian legends... When a guest is poisoned at a tea event, Juliana’s dire predictions appear to have come true. Things are brought to a boil when Hana’s beloved  Anna Weatherley butterfly teacup becomes the center of the murder investigation as it carried the poisoned tea. The cup is claimed as evidence by a handsome police detective, and the pretty Tea House is suddenly endangered.  Hana and her family must catch the killer to save their business and bring the beautiful Budapest Butterfly back home where it belongs.

About the Author

Julia Buckley is the author of the Undercover Dish mysteries and the Writer's Apprentice mysteries. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and the Chicago Writer's Association. She has taught high school English for twenty-nine years. Other books by Julia Buckley are listed below.

Author: Patricia Skalka

Title: Death by the Bay (5th Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery)

Date: May 19, 2019

Day: Sunday

Time: 2:00 - 4:00 PM

Description

On a chilly Monday in late spring, Sheriff Dave Cubiak is at the Green Arbor Lodge for lunch when a scream from a nearby medical conference disrupts the scene. Leaping into action, he finds the ninety-three-year-old director of the prestigious Institute for Progressive Medicine collapsed on the floor, dead of a suspected heart attack. As Cubiak interrogates the witnesses, he’s struck by the inconsistencies in their stories. Some evade questions while others offer contradictory statements. Then suddenly another scream pierces the air. . . . Past and present merge as long-buried secrets rise to the surface. The resourceful sheriff must rely on his skills and wits, along with the advice and memories of friends and family, to uncover the dark truth behind the Institute for Progressive Medicine. Dedicated and new fans alike will find themselves captivated by this intelligently plotted story as Cubiak untangles the twisted threads of this intricate mystery.

About the Author

Patricia Skalka is the author of Death Stalks Door County, Death at Gills Rock, Death in Cold Water, and Death Rides the Ferry, the first four books in the popular Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery series. She is president of the Chicagoland chapter of Sisters in Crime and divides her time between Chicago and Door County, Wisconsin. A former staff writer at Reader’s Digest, she presents writing workshops throughout the United States.

Meeting of the G.K. Chesterton Society

Date: July 13, 2019

Day: Saturday

Time: 2 PM

Title: What I saw in America

Author: G. K, Chesterton

Title: Death of An Art Collector (14th Archie & Nero Mystery)

Author: Robert Goldsborough

Date June 2, 2019

Day: Sunday

Time: 2:00 PM

No matter how fabulously he’s being courted, infamously dour “art hog” Arthur Wordell isn’t keen on favoring the new Guggenheim Museum with his extensive collection. Even at the urging of his beloved daughter, Nadia. Then, the night after the museum’s fête, Arthur takes a twenty-story plunge from the window of his Times Square office. Nadia thinks it’s no mere coincidence. Eccentric, yes. Suicidal, no. Private investigator Nero Wolfe and his assistant, Archie Goodwin, agree. Especially after eyeballing Arthur’s enemies and sycophants, including his ex-wife, a covetous curator, a troika of obsequious advisors, and an outré Greenwich Village artist anxious to see her work out of storage and on the walls of the “Guggie.” For Wolfe, there’s a problem: Arthur didn’t leave a will. Without a beneficiary not a soul in Arthur’s circle is set to benefit from his death. Nor do they show any customary indication of guilt. If anybody can solve a seemingly unsolvable masterpiece of murder, it’s Wolfe. Unfortunately, this time, New York’s artful investigator is, admittedly, stumped.
 
Continuing the acclaimed series—which also includes The Battered Badge, Archie Meets Nero Wolfe, Murder in the Ball Park, Archie in the Crosshairs, and Murder, Stage Left—Nero Award–winning author Robert Goldsborough “does a masterly job with the Wolfe legacy” (Booklist).

Robert Goldsborough (b. 1937) is an American author best known for continuing Rex Stout’s famous Nero Wolfe series. Born in Chicago, he attended Northwestern University, and upon graduation went to work for the Associated Press, beginning a lifelong career in journalism that would include long periods at the Chicago Tribune and Advertising Age. While at the Tribune, Goldsborough began writing mysteries in the voice of Rex Stout, the creator of iconic sleuths Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Goldsborough’s first novel starring Wolfe, Murder in E Minor (1986), was met with acclaim both from critics and devoted fans, winning a Nero Award from the Wolfe Pack. Six more novels followed, including Death on Deadline (1987) and Fade to Black (1990). In 2005, Goldsborough published Three Strikes You’re Dead, the first in an original series starring Chicago Tribune reporter Snap Malek. His most recent novel is Terror at the Fair (2011).

"Archie and Nero Wolfe fans rejoice! Robert Goldsborough, who so deftly and ably continued the Wolfe series a few years back, has returned to tell the story every fan wanted to hear: the origin of the Wolfe/Goodwin partnership. This book has a hardboiled sheen worthy of the period it recreates and captures Stout's recurring characters—not just Archie and Wolfe—with a fidelity that is damn near supernatural. And Archie's voice and Wolfe's grand demeanor are spot on. Here's hoping Goldsborough finds a dozen more untold cases as he channels the great Rex Stout." —Max Allan Collins, author of Bye Bye, Baby

Author: Gail Lukasik

Title: White Like Her: My Family's Story of Race and Racial Passing

Date: May 5, 2019

Day: Sunday

Time: 2:00 PM

White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing (Hardcover)

By Gail Lukasik

Forward by  Kenyarra Berry   

Description

White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing is the story of Gail Lukasik’s mother’s “passing,” Gail’s struggle with the shame of her mother’s choice, and her subsequent journey of self-discovery and redemption. In the historical context of the Jim Crow South, Gail explores her mother’s decision to pass, how she hid her secret even from her own husband, and the price she paid for choosing whiteness. Haunted by her mother’s fear and shame, Gail embarks on a quest to uncover her mother’s racial lineage, tracing her family back to eighteenth-century colonial Louisiana. In coming to terms with her decision to publicly out her mother, Gail changed how she looks at race and heritage. With a foreword written by Kenyatta Berry, host of PBS's Genealogy Roadshow, this unique and fascinating story of coming to terms with oneself breaks down barriers.

About the Author

Gail Lukasik was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a ballerina with the Cleveland Civic Ballet Company. She has worked as a choreographer, freelance writer, editor, and college lecturer. Recently, Gail appeared on PBS Genealogy Roadshow (St. Louis Central Public Library). She said, "I'm a mystery author who's never been able to solve my own family mystery." The show solved the mystery and revealed her mother's life-changing secret. PBS was so intrigued by her story that they invited her back to update her story. She is also the author of several mystery novels featuring the character Leigh Girard. 

Kenyatta D. Berry is a genealogist, businesswoman, and lawyer with more than fifteen years experience in genealogical research and writing. She is a host of the PBS broadcast Genealogy Roadshow and is the Past President of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) and on the Council of the Corporation for the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) in Boston. A frequent lecturer and writer, her area of focus is African American and Slave Ancestral research.

Topic: Patriotic Traitors: The True Story of the First American Spies Who Loved Russia.

Guest Speaker: David Krugler

Date: April 6, 2019

Day: Saturday

Time: 2:00 PM

David Krugler grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. He left his home state to attend Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. After graduating with degrees in English and history, he earned a M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He moved back to Wisconsin in 1997 to teach at the University of Wisconsin—Platteville, where he’s now Professor of History. A historian of the modern United States, he has published books on several different topics: Cold War propaganda, nuclear warfare, and racial conflict in the United States. Krugler is the author of The Voice of America and the Domestic Propaganda Battles, 1945-1953 (University of Missouri Press, 2000), This Is Only a Test: How Washington, D.C., Prepared for Nuclear War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), and 1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back (Cambridge University Press, 2014). His first novel, The Dead Don’t Bleed (Pegasus Crime, 2016), a World War II spy thriller set in Washington, D.C., came out in 2016. The sequel, Rip the Angels from Heaven,  was published on July 3, 2018 (please see Fiction tab for more information). 

Krugler has served as a faculty leader for teacher education programs at the Newberry Library in Chicago and the Master of American History and Government program at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio. He is the past recipient of research grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Organization of American Historians, and the White House Historical Association. In Spring 2011, he was a fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. In 2010, he appeared in the National Geographic Channel documentary American Doomsday. He has written for TheDailyBeast.com and has been interviewed by the New York Times, Slate.com, the New York Post, the Washington Post, San Francisco Weekly, the Karen Hunter Show, BBC Mundo, CJOB Talk Radio, WUSA (Washington, D.C.), and Milwaukee Public Television's I Remember (see Press page for details). When he’s not teaching and writing, Krugler enjoys overseas travel (most recent trip:  Mexico City), going to art museums, and reading mysteries.

The personalities below and a few more will be discussed in David Krugler's program:

             Theodore Alvin Hall                                Harry Dexter White

           Lauchlin Currie                                  Julius & Ethel Rosenberg

             David & Ethel Greenglass                                      Alger Hiss

Ross Macdonald  vs  John D. MacDonald   

(Two giants of the mystery genre in the twentieth century who were at loggerheads with one another.)

Leader: Michael A, Black (Author, Educator & Retired Police Detective)*

Date: April 27, 2019

Day: Saturday

Time: 2:00 PM

*There will be two $5/ticket Raffles for two very collectible books from Michael Black's peronal collection: The Illustrated Ross Macdonald Archives (Interviews and Pictures) The Life of the Man Who Created Lew Archer by Paul Nelson & Kevin Avery with Jeff Wong and Introduction by Jerome Charyn. And Barrier Island the last novel of John D. McDonald.

                        Ross Macdonald                                     John D. MacDonald

                         [1915-1983]                                                       [1916-1986]

Ross Macdonald, whose real name was Kenneth Millar, was born Dec. 13, 1915, Los Gatos, California, and died on July 11, 1983, Santa Barbara, California. He is generally credited with elevating the  mystery and  detective novel to the level of literature with his compactly written tales of murder and despair. Though born in California, Millar spent and served in the Navy in World War II. After the war he  received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan while trying to build a career a writer. He was married to Margaret Millar, an established mystery writer in her own right, and so as not to create confusion, Kenneth Millar began using the pseudonym John Ross MacDonald, which he later shortened to Ross MacDonald. He is best known for his series of detective novels featuring private investigator, Lew Archer.

John D. MacDonald was born on July 24, 1916, Sharon, Pennsylvania and died December 28, 1986, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was an extremely prolific and talented writer whose published works spanned numerous genres ranging from mystery, suspense, science fiction, and nonfiction. In all, he wrote over 70 books in his lifetime. After obtaining his MBA from Harvard, MacDonald served in the Army in the OSS (precursor to the CIA) in World War II. He is best remembered for his series of 21 crime novels featuring private investigator Travis McGee.

In what started as a misunderstanding, grew to a lifelong feud between the two men, both of whom made enormous contributions to the mystery/suspense field. Learn what caused the riff and how it eventually played out in the discussion of these two men and their works.

 Michael A. Black is the award winning author of 30 books, the majority of which are in the mystery and thriller genres, although he has written in sci-fi, western, horror, and sports genres as well. A retired police officer, he has done everything from patrol to investigating homicides to conducting numerous SWAT operations. Black was awarded the Cook County Medal of Merit in 2010. He is also the author of over 100 short stories and articles, and has written two novels with television star, Richard Belzer (Law & Order SVU). Black is currently writing the Executioner series under the name Don Pendleton. His Executioner novel, Fatal Prescription, won the Best Original Novel Scribe Award given by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers in 2018. His latest novels under his own name are Blood Trails and Legends of the West.

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