How It Works
1. Register
2. Log in
3. Program introduction
4. Breakout rooms
Outstanding Winter Reads
December 14, 2025 at 7pm ET
Andrew Child
Tracy Clark
Hannah Mary McKinnon
Ryan Steck
Registration for this event is closed.
By registering for this event you agree to receive event notifications from The Back Room. You can unsubscribe at any time, however please be aware that if you unsubscribe before the event, you will not receive log in information.
Andrew Child
Andrew Child, who also writes as Andrew Grant, is the author of RUN, False Positive, False Friend, False Witness, Invisible, and Too Close to Home. Child and his wife, the novelist Tasha Alexander, live on a wildlife preserve in Wyoming. He is the #1 bestselling co-author of the Jack Reacher novels The Sentinel, Better Off Dead, No Plan B, The Secret, and In Too Deep.
Exit Strategy
First—a Baltimore coffee shop. A seat in the corner, facing the door. Black coffee, two refills, no messing around. A minor interruption from two of the customers, but nothing he can’t deal with swiftly. As he leaves, a young guy brushes against him in the doorway. Instinctively Reacher checks the pocket holding his cash and passport. There’s no problem. Nothing is missing.
Second—a store to buy a coat. Nothing fancy. Something he can ditch when he heads to warmer climates. Large enough to fit a man the size of a bank vault. As he pulls out his cash, he finds something new in his pocket. A handwritten note. A desperate plea for help.
Third—wherever this bend in the road takes him. Impressed by the guy’s technique and intrigued by the message, Reacher makes it his mission to find out more . . .
Tracy Clark
Tracy Clark is the author of the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery and Detective Harriet Foster series, award-winning books that feature tough, smart, Black female characters working the mean streets of the Windy City. Her debut novel, Broken Places, was CrimeReads’ Best New PI Book of 2018 and made Library Journal’s Best Crime Fiction list that same year. A finalist for Anthony, Lefty, Macavity, Edgar, and Shamus Awards, Tracy has won two G. P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Awards and one Sara Paretsky Award. She is a proud member of Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime and sits on the board at the Midwest Mystery Conference.
Edge
When a tainted drug starts claiming lives across the city, Detective Harriet Foster and her team race to track down the source…before it takes one of their own.
Chicago’s finest are scouring the city for a tainted new opioid making the rounds, but they’re coming up empty. With five people already dead–a college kid, a new mother, and three poker players–all they really know is the drug’s name: Edge. Where it’s coming from is still anyone’s guess.
Detective Harriet Foster doesn’t have time for guessing games. She needs answers. And when the next overdose hits Homicide where it hurts most, Harri is determined to get what she wants. But keeping her eyes squarely on the prize proves harder than expected.
Still reeling from her last case (and the stain of suspicion it left on her career), Harri finds herself at a tipping point. The drug isn’t the only edge she needs to worry about. If she can’t come back from her own, there’s no telling whether this investigation will lead to a satisfying conclusion…or her own demise.
Hannah Mary McKinnon
Internationally bestselling author Hannah Mary McKinnon is the author of eleven novels, including the thrillers THE REVENGE LIST, ONLY ONE SURVIVES (a Toronto Star Top-20, and a Globe & Mail Top-100 book of 2024), and A KILLER MOTIVE. Her work has been optioned for the screen, too. It’s rumored Hannah Mary also still has a softer side because she writes holiday romantic comedies as Holly Cassidy, the second of which is THE CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN. Born in the UK, Hannah Mary grew up in Switzerland and now lives near Toronto, Canada with her husband and three sons.
A Killer Motive
To Stella Dixon, sneaking her teenage brother out of their parents’ house for a beach party was harmless fun–until Max disappeared without a trace.
Six years later, Stella’s family is still broken, and she can’t let go of her guilt. The only thing that keeps her going is helping other families find closure through A Killer Motive, her true crime podcast.
In a bid to find new sponsors and keep making episodes, Stella goes on a local radio show. But when she says on air that if she had just one clue, she’d find Max and bring whoever hurt him to justice, someone takes it as a challenge.
A mysterious invitation to play a game arrives, with the promise that if Stella wins, she’ll get information about what happened to Max. Stella thinks it’s a sick joke…until Max’s best friend vanishes. And she’s given new instructions: tell nobody or people will die.
Desperate and unable to trust anyone, Stella agrees. But beating a twisted, invisible enemy seems impossible when they make all the rules…
Ryan Steck
Ryan Steck is the author of Fields of Fire, Lethal Range, Redd Christmas, Out for Blood, and Ted Bell’s Monarch, an Alex Hawke thriller. He’s also the founder and editor in chief of The Real Book Spy website and an official Amazon Influencer. Praised as “one of the hardest-working and fairest reviewers out there” (author Lisa Scottoline), Steck is considered by some as “the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (author A. J. Tata). Steck’s fourth Matthew Redd novel, Gone Dark, is due out in 2025.
His new book, The Second Son, is the first book in a new series he’s co-writing with author Simon Gervais.
The Second Son
Soldier-turned-sommelier Chase Burke may have traded his rifle for bottles of wine, but violence and conspiracy aren’t through with him yet. First, his intelligence analyst brother is killed in a covert op gone wrong and branded a traitor. Then a brutal ambush at the restaurant where Chase works leaves the woman he is romantically involved with–a congresswoman–clinging to life.
Scrambling to clear the family name and protect his secret love, Chase teams up with NYPD Detective Alice Doyle, a single mother fighting battles of her own. Together they uncover a powerful criminal syndicate whose unscrupulous influence sweeps the globe–and strikes painfully close to home.
As elite mercenaries close in, Chase is dragged back into the dangerous world he thought he’d escaped. Facing a mother losing her memory and a past that never forgets, he fights to win a zero-sum game where trust can be lethal. But when all seems lost, an unlikely ally could help turn the tide…
Meet Your Hosts
The Back Room is the brainchild of bestselling authors Hank Phillippi Ryan and Karen Dionne.
Learn more about how they conceived of The Back Room, how it works, and about their books too!