January 21, 7 PM ET
Join authors Charlaine Harris, Eriq La Salle, Hank Phillippi Ryan, and Danielle Trussoni along with Back Room host Karen Dionne for an evening of great conversation!
The Authors
2023 marks Charlaine Harris’s forty-second year as a published writer. She has written two stand-alones, and her series include the Aurora Teagarden mysteries, the Lily Bard mysteries, the Sookie Stackhouse urban fantasies, the Harper Connelly urban fantasies, the Midnight, Texas novels, the Cemetery Girl graphic novels (with Christopher Golden), and the Gunnie Rose books, set in an alternate history America. Charlaine has also written many short stories, and together with Toni L.P. Kelner she edited seven themed anthologies (and had great fun). Her books have sold over 39 million copies worldwide.
The television series “True Blood” was based on Charlaine’s Sookie Stackhouse novels. Hallmark Movies and Mysteries is still showing a series of movies created about the Aurora Teagarden character, and for two seasons “Midnight, Texas” was on the air. Two of her other series are in production.
Charlaine belongs to several professional organizations and is an avid reader. She and her husband live on a cliff overlooking the Brazos River with their rescue dogs. Charlaine has the joy of being a grandmother, and she attends the Episcopalian church.
Learn more at charlaineharris.com.
Actor, director, producer, and masterful storyteller Eriq La Salle is best known to worldwide television audiences for his award-winning portrayal of Dr. Peter Benton on the medical drama ER. Educated at Juilliard and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, his credits range from Broadway to film roles, starring alongside Eddie Murphy in Coming to America, Robin Williams in One Hour Photo, and Hugh Jackman in Logan. La Salle has maintained a prolific acting career while also taking the helm as director for HBO, Showtime, Netflix, Amazon Prime, ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS productions.
His craft as a crime writer was honed over his many seasons as a key member of the Dick Wolf Entertainment team, which include four years as executive producer and director on Chicago PD, in addition to directing episodes of Law & Order, Law and Order SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime. La Salle is also executive producer, director, and one of the lead actors of “On Call,” Dick Wolf’s first venture into streaming, which was picked up by Amazon Prime Video, out in 2024.
Learn more at iameriqlasalle.com.
Hank Phillippi Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of 15 psychological thrillers, winning the genre’s most prestigious awards: five Agathas, five Anthonys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. She’s also investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, winning 37 EMMYs for her groundbreaking journalism.
National reviewers have called her “a superb and gifted storyteller, and a master of suspense.” Her newest is the page-turning standalone ONE WRONG WORD, a cat and mouse thriller about the power of persuasion. She is the host of CRIME TIME on A Mighty Blaze, and co-host of First Chapter Fun and The Back Room. She lives with her husband, a renowned civil rights and criminal defense attorney, in Boston.
Learn more at hankphillippiryan.com.
Danielle Trussoni is the New York Times best-selling author of The Ancestor, Angelology, and Angelopolis, all New York Times Notable Books and the memoirs The Fortress and Falling Through the Earth, the latter named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review.
Her latest novel is The Puzzle Master and its sequel, The Puzzle Box, is coming Fall 2024. She previously wrote the monthly horror column for The New York Times Book Review. She is a graduate of the Iowa Workshop and winner of the Michener-Copernicus Society of America Fellowship, and her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. Learn more at danielletrussoni.com.
Authors’ Books
All the Dead Shall Weep by Charlaine Harris
Following the murderous events of the “gripping…thrill-ride” (Karin Slaughter) Serpent of Heaven, Lizbeth Rose is awaiting the arrival of her sister Felicia and her husband’s younger brother Peter in Texoma. Both needed to leave the seat of the Holy Russian Empire in San Diego after Felicia’s burgeoning wizardly power in death magic became the reason for kidnapping and assassination attempts from her mother’s family of high-powered wizards in Mexico.
Yet bad news has traveled ahead of them, as Eli is called back to San Diego, taking Peter along with him, splitting them apart in more ways than one as their enemies’ plans for revenge come to fruition. In this fifth installment in the beloved and bestselling Gunnie Rose series, #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Charlaine Harris has crafted a family drama of murderous and magical thrills.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
Laws of Annihilation by Eriq La Salle
It’s another blistering summer in New York City, and a sweltering heat wave stifles the area. Hostility between the Hasidic and Black communities has been steadily increasing since a tragic incident left a Black teenager dead. When two rabbis are killed in a gruesome attack on their synagogue, it has all the signs of retaliation.
The entire city is on edge.
Through it all, Agent Janet Maclin’s dreams of becoming the FBI’s first female director come crashing down when she receives some devastating news. In spite of it all, she’s determined to help NYPD detectives Quincy Cavanaugh and Phee Freeman find the rabbis’ killer as more hate crimes put the city on the brink of all-out war. As the body count climbs with the temperature and the tensions, time is running out for Maclin in more ways than one.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
One Wrong Word by Hank Phillippi Ryan
One wrong word can ruin your life. And no one knows that better than savvy crisis management expert Arden Ward. Problem is, she’s now forced to handle a shocking crisis of her own. Unfairly accused of having an affair with a powerful client, Arden’s life and dreams are about to crash and burn. Then, Arden is given an ultimatum. She has just two weeks to save her career and her reputation. Is Cordelia Bannister the answer to her prayers?
Cordelia needs Arden’s help for her husband Ned, a Boston real estate mogul. Though he was recently acquitted in a fatal drunk driving accident, his reputation is ruined, and the fallout is devastating not only to the Bannisters’ lives, but the lives of their two adorable children.
Arden devotes her skill and determination -and maybe her final days on the job–to helping this shattered family, but soon, revelations begin to emerge about what really happened the night of the accident. And then–another car crash throws Ned back into the spotlight. This case is Arden’s final chance to protect her own future and clear her name. But the more she tries to untangle the truth, the more she’s haunted by one disturbing question–what if she’s also protecting a killer?
Gossip. Lies. Rumors. Words like that can hurt you. And Arden knows the reality. Sometimes one wrong word can kill.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
The Puzzle Master by Danielle Trussoni
All the world is a puzzle, and Mike Brink–a celebrated and ingenious puzzle constructor–understands its patterns like no one else. Once a promising Midwestern football star, Brink was transformed by a traumatic brain injury that caused a rare medical condition: acquired savant syndrome. The injury left him with a mental superpower–he can solve puzzles in ways ordinary people can’t. But it also left him deeply isolated, unable to fully connect with other people.
Everything changes after Brink meets Jess Price, a woman serving thirty years in prison for murder who hasn’t spoken a word since her arrest five years before. When Price draws a perplexing puzzle, her psychiatrist believes it will explain her crime and calls Brink to solve it. What begins as a desire to crack an alluring cipher quickly morphs into an obsession with Price herself. She soon reveals that there is something more urgent, and more dangerous, behind her silence, thrusting Brink into a hunt for the truth.
The quest takes Brink through a series of interlocking enigmas, but the heart of the mystery is the God Puzzle, a cryptic ancient prayer circle created by the thirteenth-century Jewish mystic Abraham Abulafia. As Brink navigates a maze of clues, and his emotional entanglement with Price becomes more intense, he realizes that there are powerful forces at work that he cannot escape.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
Your Hosts
Karen Dionne is the USA Today and #1 internationally bestselling author of two psychological suspense novels set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wilderness, The Marsh King’s Daughter and The Wicked Sister, both published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the US and in dozens of other languages.
Praised by The New York Times Book Review as “subtle, brilliant, and mature,” The Marsh King’s Daughter is now a major motion picture starring Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn.
Visit Karen at www.karen-dionne.com
Karen’s newest novel is The Wicked Sister. “Dionne paints a haunting portrait of a family hurtling toward the tragic destiny they can foresee but are powerless to stop.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review; best book of 2020)
Purchase The Wicked Sister online at www.bookshop.org.
Hank Phillippi Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of 15 psychological thrillers, winning the genre’s most prestigious awards: five Agathas, five Anthonys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. She’s also investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, winning 37 EMMYs for her groundbreaking journalism. National book reviewers call her “a superb and gifted storyteller.”
Hank is the co-host of The Back Room and First Chapter Fun, as well as host of her CRIME TIME interview show on A Mighty Blaze. She lives with her husband, a criminal defense and civil rights attorney, in Boston.
Learn more at www.HankPhillippiRyan.com.
Her newest is the page-turning standalone ONE WRONG WORD – taut and tense psychological drama exploring gossip, rumor, greed and revenge. Two smart women face off in a high-stakes psychological cat and mouse game to prove their truth about a devastating betrayal—but which woman is the cat, and which woman is the mouse? Publishers Weekly says “Ryan is a master of suspense!”
Purchase One Wrong Word online at www.bookshop.org.
