September 24, 7 PM ET
Join authors Jeff Abbott, Sara DiVello, Angie Kim, and Joshua Moehling along with Back Room hosts Karen Dionne and Hank Phillippi Ryan for an evening of great conversation!
The Authors
Jeff Abbott is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of many mystery and suspense novels. He has been called “one of the best thriller writers in the business” (Washington Post). His novels have been called “compulsively readable” (Chicago Sun Times), “outstanding. . .genuinely moving” and “fresh, original… intricately woven” (Publishers Weekly), “nail-bitingly suspenseful and totally original” (Irish Independent), and “extremely compelling” (Associated Press). He is published in many languages and has been a bestseller in the US, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Australia, Portugal, and other countries.
Jeff’s novel Adrenaline was a Summer Great Reads choice by both The Today Show and Good Morning America. His novel Inside Man was a Summer Book Pick by O, The Oprah Magazine, and a Best Beach Reads pick by USA Today. Jeff is a winner of the Thriller Award (for The Last Minute) and was nominated for the Thriller Award for Panic. He is a three-time nominee for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award and a two-time nominee for the Anthony Award. Jeff’s first novel, Do Unto Others, won both the Agatha Award and the Macavity Award. His novels Adrenaline, Panic, and Collision have been optioned for film and are in script development.
Jeff graduated from Rice University with a degree in History and English. He lives in Austin with his wife and two sons. Learn more at jeffabbott.com.
Sara DiVello is a true crime writer and the creator/host of Mystery and Thriller Mavens, a popular author series and interactive Facebook group. For her weekly Mystery and Thriller Mavens live events, she has interviewed more than 300 authors, ranging from the bestselling and world-renowned (Dean Koontz, Patricia Cornwell, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, Tamron Hall, Karin Slaughter, Ruth Ware, Lisa Unger, and many more) to the buzziest debuts. While creative and active on her own social media platforms, DiVello also serves as the director of social media strategy for the International Thriller Writers association. Sara has appeared on CBS, ABC, and CNBC, as well as in the New York Times, Forbes, the San Francisco Chronicle, and more.
Her articles have been published in Marie Claire, Elle, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and Woman’s Day, among others. In her spare time, she loves to teach yoga, cook (and eat!), garden, and go for leisurely walks with her husband and their beloved rescue mutt, Peluda.
Sara is passionate about all things books (especially mysteries and thrillers), the craft of writing, and connecting readers to their favorite authors, as well as introducing them to their new discoveries. Learn more at saradivello.com.
Angie Kim moved as a preteen from Seoul, South Korea, to the suburbs of Baltimore. After graduating from Interlochen Arts Academy, she studied philosophy at Stanford University and attended Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Her debut novel, Miracle Creek, won the Edgar Award, the ITW Thriller Award, the Strand Critics’ Award, and the Pinckley Prize and was named one of the best books of the year by Time, The Washington Post, Kirkus, and the Today show.
One of Variety Magazine’s inaugural “10 Storytellers to Watch,” Angie has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Vogue, Glamour, and numerous literary journals. She lives in northern Virginia with her family. Happiness Falls is her second novel. Learn more at angiekimbooks.com.
Joshua Moehling is the author of And There He Kept Her, an Amazon Editor’s Pick and a Barnes & Noble Monthly Mystery/Thriller pick, and Where the Dead Sleep.
He works in the medical device industry and lives in Minneapolis.
Learn more at joshuamoehling.com.
Authors’ Books
Traitor’s Dance by Jeff Abbott
Sam Capra and his thirteen-year-old son, Daniel, are living a quiet life in Austin, Texas, where Sam continues to run his collection of bars and nightclubs around the world. He’s had no recent contact with his former partner, Mila, and is working for America’s most secret espionage agency, known as Section K–all while trying to be a good suburban dad.
Suddenly, Sam is approached by a fellow spy with an incredible revelation: Markus Bolt is missing. Bolt is the last American traitor, who had turned over allied agent names and military secrets to the Russians. He fled to Moscow when he was discovered, but now a trusted source inside Russia tells Section K that Markus Bolt has vanished from Moscow–and the Americans need to find him before the Russians do.
Sam is charged with making contact with Bolt’s abandoned American daughter, Amanda, and determining if she’s had any contact with her father. He must discover the reason behind Bolt’s unexpected run and protect Amanda from the killers hunting her father.
But as Sam’s search for Bolt grows more dangerous, Sam faces a rising threat born of long-ago secrets–one that could change his and his son’s lives forever.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
Broadway Butterfly by Sara DiVello
Manhattan, 1923. Scandalous flapper Dot King is found dead in her Midtown apartment, a bottle of chloroform beside her and a fortune in jewels missing. Dot’s headline-making murder grips the city. It also draws a clutch of lovers, parasites, and justice seekers into one of the city’s most mesmerizing mysteries.
Among them: Daily News crime reporter Julia Harpman, chasing the story while navigating a male-dominated industry; righteous NYPD detective John D. Coughlin, struggling against city corruption; and Ella Bradford, the victim’s Harlem maid, closest confidante, and keeper of secrets. Adding fuel to the already volatile crime: a politically connected Philadelphia socialite, an Atlantic City bootlegger, Dot’s dicey gigolo lover, a sultry Broadway dancer, and a cagey sugar daddy guarding secrets of his own.
From Broadway’s glittering lights to its sordid underbelly to the machinations of the country’s most powerful men, Julia embarks on a quest for justice. What she discovers, twist after breathtaking twist, might be even more nefarious than murder.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
“We didn’t call the police right away.” Those are the electric first words of this extraordinary novel about a biracial Korean American family in Virginia whose lives are upended when their beloved father and husband goes missing.
Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical twenty-year-old daughter, has an explanation for everything–which is why she isn’t initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don’t return from a walk in a nearby park. They must have lost their phone. Or stopped for an errand somewhere. But by the time Mia’s brother runs through the front door bloody and alone, it becomes clear that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak.
What follows is both a ticking-clock investigation into the whereabouts of a father and an emotionally rich portrait of a family whose most personal secrets just may be at the heart of his disappearance. Full of shocking twists and fascinating questions of love, language, and human connection, Happiness Falls is a mystery, a family drama, and a novel of profound philosophical inquiry. With all the powerful storytelling she brought to her award-winning debut, Miracle Creek, Angie Kim turns the missing-person story into something wholly original, creating an indelible tale of a family who must go to remarkable lengths to truly understand one another.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
Where the Dead Sleep by Joshua Moehling
When an early morning call brings Deputy Ben Packard to the scene of a home invasion, he finds Bill Sandersen shot in his bed. Bill was a well-liked local who chased easy money his whole life, leaving bad debts and broken hearts in his wake. Everyone Packard talks to has a story about Bill, but no one has a clear motive for wanting him dead. The business partner. The ex-wife. The current wife. The high-stakes poker buddies. Any of them–or none of them–could be guilty.
As the investigation begins, tragedy strikes the Sheriff’s department, forcing Packard to make a difficult choice about his future: step down as acting Sheriff and pursue the quiet life he came to Sandy Lake in search of, or subject himself to the scrutiny of an election for the full-time role of Sheriff, a job he’s not sure he wants.
There’s a hidden history to Sandy Lake that Packard, ever the outsider, can’t see. Bad blood and old secrets run deep. But an attempt on Packard’s life means he’s getting uncomfortably close to the dangerous legacy of the quiet Minnesota town. And someone will do anything to keep it hidden.
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 soon to be 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 14 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. 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 The House Guest – a story of psychological manipulation exploring the dark heart of marriage and friendship—it’s Gaslight meets Thelma & Louise. Publishers Weekly says, “Ryan is a master of suspense!” and the Library Journal starred review calls it “Binge-worthy.”
Purchase The House Guest online at www.bookshop.org.
