Fiction | Chapter 16

Undersea, Undercover, Under Attack

In Mark Greaney’s new Tom Clancy novel, a Putinesque strong man aims to capture former Soviet lands

By Stephen Usery | November 24, 2015

November 24, 2015 Memphis author Mark Greaney first garnered attention for his Gray Man thrillers, but he entered the bestselling stratosphere when Tom Clancy tapped him as a co-author on the Jack Ryan series. Since the legendary author’s death in 2013, Greaney has continued the franchise as a solo act. He will sign the latest installment, Tom Clancy Commander in Chief, at Barnes & Noble in Memphis on December 1, 2016, at 7 p.m.

Flaming Malevolence

In Erica Wright’s second thriller, beloved New York drag queens are the target of a hate group

By Liz Garrigan | November 19, 2015

November 19, 2015 In Erica Wright’s second thriller, The Granite Moth, private eye Kathleen Stone is still trying to nab drug kingpin Salvatore Magrelli. But her caseload multiplies when two drag queens, colleagues of her dear friend Dolly at the Pink Panther nightclub, are killed in an ostensible accident during the city’s Halloween parade on Sixth Avenue. Wright will discuss The Granite Moth at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 24, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.

X Stands for Mistakes

Nothing is quite what it seems in Sue Grafton’s twenty-fourth Kinsey Millhone mystery

By Faye Jones | November 16, 2015

November 16, 2015 If mystery fans were afraid Sue Grafton would run out of steam before she finished her alphabet series, her new novel, X, proves she still has many narrative routes to explore. Grafton will appear in conversation with Judy Kaye at the Nashville Public Library on November 20, 2015, at 6:15 p.m.

God Bless Us, Every One

With The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge Charlie Lovett delivers a clever homage to the Dickens classic

By Ed Tarkington | November 12, 2015

November 12, 2015 Novelist Charlie Lovett has found his niche in writing novels that combine his passion for classic English literature with his gifts as a storyteller. In The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge, Lovett imagines what might have happened after a change of heart experienced by western literature’s most famous Christmas curmudgeon. Lovett will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on November 18, 2015, at 6 p.m.

War on Words

Violent extremists kidnap a newspaper columnist in Grant Park, a new novel by Leonard Pitts Jr.

By Peggy Burch | November 11, 2015

November 11, 2015 In Leonard Pitts Jr.’s new novel, Grant Park, a newspaper columnist in Chicago who crusades for racial justice is kidnapped by white supremacists on the morning of President Barack Obama’s first election. Pitts, a syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald, will appear in Memphis, where many of the novel’s historic scenes are set, at 6 p.m. on November 19, 2015, at Crosstown Arts.

In The Wake of History

In Golden Age, the culmination of Jane Smiley’s Last Hundred Years Trilogy, America’s past catches up to the present

By Sean Kinch | November 10, 2015

November 10, 2015 The first two volumes of Jane Smiley’s Last One Hundred Years trilogy cover 1920-1986, as reflected through the lives of an Iowa family. In Golden Age, the final installment of the series, Smiley takes readers through the heady ‘90s, the shaky aughts, and the present decade, finally offering a disturbing glimpse into the near future. Smiley will discuss her new novel at the Nashville Public Library on November 18, 2015, at 6:15 p.m.

The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History

By Allen Boyer and Mark Nicholls
Routledge
340 pages
$180

The book “explores the reasons why treason coalesced around specific offences agreed by both the monarch and the wider political nation, why it became an essential instrument of enforcement in high politics, and why, over the past three hundred years, it has gradually fallen into disuse while remaining on the statute book.”

~the publisher