blog | Mark Rubinstein

‘Hard Cold Winter,’ A Conversation with Glen Erik Hamilton

March 15, 2016 Leave a Comment

Glen Erik Hamilton is a native of Seattle. He grew up aboard a sailboat and spent his youth around marinas, commercial docks, and islands of the Pacific Northwest.

Hard Cold Winter, his second novel, follows protagonist, Van Shaw, as he embarks on a dangerous mission in search of a missing girl tied to his criminal past. But things don’t turn out as planned; there has been a murder, and the investigation leads to intolerable pressure coming from a billionaire businessman on one side, and vicious gangsters on the other. Moreover, a powerful, unseen player is about to unleash a firestorm on Seattle that will burn Van and his people to cinders—and it will take a miracle to stop it.

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‘Off the Grid,’ A Conversation with C.J. Box

March 9, 2016 Leave a Comment

Chuck Box__Michael_Smith C.J. Box, the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen Joe Pickett novels, has millions of fans. In addition to the Joe Pickett series, he’s written five standalones, and a short story collection, Shots Fired. He’s won multiple awards for his fiction. His books have been translated into twenty-seven languages.

Off the Grid finds Joe’s good friend Nate living off the grid, relying solely on survival skills, as he attempts to find Muhammad Ibraheem, a rogue journalist, who has also gone “off the grid”. An ultra-secret government agency has pressed Nate into service to apprehend this suspect whose activities could lead to great bloodshed. Meanwhile, Joe’s daughter Sheridan has accepted an invitation to attend a gathering where a group of political activists have been invited. But who and what exactly are they, and what’s their real agenda?

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‘Out Of The Blues,’ A Conversation with Trudy Nan Boyce

March 1, 2016 Leave a Comment

Trudy Nan Boyce received her Ph.D. in community counseling before becoming a police officer for the City of Atlanta. As a police officer for more than 30 years, she worked as a beat cop, homicide detective, senior hostage negotiator, and in the Special Victims Unit, among other assignments.

Out of the Blues, her debut novel, introduces newly minted homicide detective Sarah “Salt” Alt who on her first day in homicide, is assigned a cold-case murder of a blues musician whose death was first ruled an accidental drug overdose. Sarah’s investigation takes her to unanticipated encounters ranging from Atlanta’s homeless to its richest and most influential citizens.

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‘No Shred of Evidence,’ A Talk with Charles Todd

February 22, 2016 Leave a Comment

Who is Charles Todd?

If you aren’t familiar with “his” many previous novels, you might be surprised to learn Charles Todd is the mother-and-son writing team of Charles and Caroline Todd.

Caroline has a BA in English Literature and History, as well as a Master’s degree in International Relations. Charles has a BA in Communications Studies, and a culinary arts degree.

No Shred of Evidence, the 18^th Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery, takes place on the north coast of Cornwall, where four young women are boating on the River Camel. They see a young man on another boat that appears to be sinking. While making a valiant effort to save him, he’s struck on the head by an oar. An eyewitness, a local farmer, accuses the women of attempted murder. Ian Rutledge is called in to review the case. Since the victim is in a coma, there’s no one to refute the eyewitness’s account. Rutledge must deal with competing forces in trying to determine if the women tried to hurt the young man, and what may have motivated them. Other complications arise, and very little is what it seemed to be as the investigation reveals long buried issues and likely motivations.

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‘Find Her,’ A Conversation with Lisa Gardner

February 20, 2016 Leave a Comment

LisaGardner_cPhilbrickPhotography Lisa Gardner is one of the best-known names in all of thrillerdom. She’s received praise from Lee Child, Karin Slaughter, Tess Gerritsen, among many others. With more than 22 million books in print, she’s written an FBI profiler series; the Detective D.D. Warren series; and a number of standalone novels.

In Find Her, Flora Dane shares the protagonist role with Detective D.D. Warren. Some years earlier, while on Spring Break in Florida, Flora found herself waking up in a pinewood box. In pain and disoriented, she began months of captivity at the hands of an abductor.

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‘Interior Darkness,’ A Conversation with Peter Straub

February 16, 2016 Leave a Comment

Peter Straub-photo Peter Straub needs no lengthy introduction. As a novelist and poet, he has received many literary honors including the Bram Stoker Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the International Horror Guild Award. In 1965, he earned a B.A with honors in English from the University of Wisconsin at Madison; and one year later, an MA from Columbia University. In 1969, he moved to Dublin, Ireland to work on a Ph.D and began writing professionally. Peter collaborated with Stephen King on two novels, The Talisman and Black House.

Interior Darkness, a collection of 16 short stories written over the course of years, demonstrates Peter Straub’s uncanny ability to blur literary genres and pen short stories ranging widely in length, style and tenor, providing a highly entertaining and unusual volume.

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‘Black Rabbit Hall,’ A Conversation with Eve Chase

February 11, 2016 Leave a Comment

Eve Chase (c) Clare Borg-Cook Eve Chase has worked as an editor and feature writer for various magazines in the UK.

Black Rabbit Hall, her debut novel, is the story of two women, born three decades apart: fourteen-year-old Amber Alton and thirty-two-year-old Lorna Dunaway. Each has a connection to Black Rabbit Hall, a stately manor house in Cornwall.

Amber spent endless summers at Black Rabbit Hall until an accident changed her family’s lives. Decades later, Loran feels the manor will make a perfect venue for her upcoming wedding, despite its crumbling stone walls and need for repairs. She cannot explain Black Rabbit Hall’s pull on her, but her instincts lead her into the manor’s labyrinthine history and the ghosts of her own past, including Alton-family secrets that have been buried for decades.

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‘Violent Crimes,’ A Conversation with Phillip Margolin

February 10, 2016 Leave a Comment

Phillip Margolin, a former criminal defense attorney who defended thirty murder cases, has written many New York Times bestsellers. He is well-known for his Amanda Jaffe and Brad Miller series, and for his many standalone novels.

Violent Crimes is the next novel in the Amanda Jaffe series. Amanda is involved in a complex case involving environmentalists, Big Oil, financial fraud, and murder. Not only must she determine who murdered two attorneys while defending the men accused of the crimes; but also faces the most difficult professional decision of her life.

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‘The Ex,’ A Conversation with Alafair Burke

January 27, 2016 Leave a Comment

Alafair Burke is the New York Times bestselling author of 13 novels. She is also the
co-author of the Under Suspicion series with Mary Higgins Clark. A former prosecutor, she is now a professor of law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University.

The Ex is the story of Olivia Randall, a top-flight criminal defense attorney who receives a telephone call from the 16 year old daughter of a man who 20 years earlier, had been her fiancé and whose heart she broke in the worst way imaginable.

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