Sisters In Crime NY

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, David B. Rivkin, Jr. offered his selections for the 5 best historical mystery novels, and THE FIRE KIMONO, by chapter member Laura Joh Rowland, is in this esteemed group!  Read the article for the rest of his choices and the accolades for this title in her long-running series about Sano Ichiro, a samurai detective in early 18th century Japan.

We congratulate her on earning such wonderful recognition!

Showing wonderful coordination with his recent historical release, member Kenneth Wishnia has written a short story about two rabbis and a wise woman exiled from Prague in the 16th century.   Entitled Between Minkhe and Mayrev, it stars some of the same characters as his novel, and appears in the current April issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.  On newsstands now!

Member Peggy Ehrhart’s debut mystery about a blues singer, titled in print as SWEET MAN IS GONE, has been released as an audiobook.  Andrea Bates is the reader/performer, and Books in Motion has retitled protagonist’s Maxx Maxwell’s first adventure in crime as BLUE MURDER.  Congratulations, Peggy!  This audiobook news must sound especially sweet to a musician’s ears.

Greenwich Village’s legendary Kettle of Fish hosts monthly readings, and on March 31st, the readers will all be from our chapter! Get practice, publicity, or just warm encouragement from a friendly, fiction-loving crowd.

The theme of the evening is International Night, and any crime fiction you’ve written with an international setting or topic is eligible. If you’d like to join your local Sisters on stage, please submit your excerpted work of between 6 to 8 minutes (around 1500 words) to member Lina (underscore) Zeldovich (at) yahoo (dot) com. Final editorial selections will be the responsibility of Michael Mejias of Writers House, who organizes and curates the evenings. We hope that this will be a successful program, and only the beginning of more such opportunities for our members.

Add your name to Jack Kerouac’s and the other incredible authors who’ve read there, by submitting to Lina by Friday, February 20th for consideration!

Less than a year ago, people around the country were spellbound by the unfolding saga of the Craigslist killer, so-named during a week-long spree that saw three young women attacked and robbed in hotel rooms, one of them killed, by a man  police allege is a former med student who used the online site to arrange “erotic” services.

While the accused awaits trial, we’ll hear about the evidence against him from Paul LaRosa, who co-wrote the book Seven Days of Rage: The Deadly Spree of the Craigslist Killer.  This Emmy Award-winning news and documentary producer, also a veteran NY journalist, will tell us about the high-tech investigation, and also explain the unique research and process that authors use in writing true crime books.

Chapter member, and former cop, Kathy Ryan will moderate, and we’ll also be giving away a copy of Paul’s book!  As always, dates, times, and directions available at the Chapter Meetings link on the sidebar.

With sadness, we report that chapter member Winifred Seery of Glastonbury, Connecticut passed away on January 29th at the age of 75.   Her obituary with online guestbook is posted at the Hartford Courant.

We celebrate her wonderful contributions to our community as a writer and Sister, and wish her family all the best.

On February 18th at 6:30 pm, member Elizabeth Zelvin, psychotherapist as well as mystery author, will be presenting a program at the Mid-Manhattan Library on bad relationships and why they’re often so hard to leave.

Between this free program and our concurrent chapter meeting on the Craigslist killer, local Sisters have the darker side of Valentine’s Day covered!

Image site here.

THE FIFTH SERVANT, published by William Morrow, is a Jewish-themed historical mystery that takes place in Prague, 1592.  On the eve of Passover, in the fragile safety of the Jewish ghetto, a Christian girl is found in a local shop with her throat cut.  As a Christian mob grows restive outside the gates, a newly-arrived Talmudic scholar from Poland pleads the shopkeeper’s innocence to city officials, and is granted three days to conduct his own investigation amid the murky religious and political currents of this fascinating place and time.

To celebrate the novel’s release, there’ll be a Jewish-themed book party and signing at Partners & Crime on Tuesday, January 26th, at 7:00pm.  If the yummy food and drink aren’t enough, let the live klezmer music draw you in!

Mazel Tov, Ken!

Blame the holidays (okay, I will,) but we’re precisely a month behind in announcing the 4th installment in Maggie Barbieri’s Murder 101 series published by St. Martin’s.

St. Thomas University is a small school in the Bronx, and when a residential director goes missing near semester’s end, English Professor Alison Bergeron moves into his room for a most unwelcome subbing job.  It’s the hidden drugs in the toilet that finally get Alison’s cop boyfriend, Detective Robert Crawford, interested in helping her figure a way out of dorm detail.

The title’s available at all your favorite purveyors, of course, and you can learn more about Maggie and the series at her website.  Belated and very hearty Congratulations!