THE TERRIBLY CLEVER BOOK CLUB (Join Us!)
Just what you need right now. A devious book in the mail every month, and a community of mystery and thriller lovers to discuss it with.
Hi all,
Apologies for the sporadic updates but, between running the bookstore and writing my NEXT BOOK, I’ve had comically little time to write about either. Which is a shame because I have SO MUCH TO TELL YOU. Which I will do, soon, I promise.
In the meantime, something that can’t wait…
IT’S TIME FOR SEASON TWO OF THE TERRIBLY CLEVER BOOK CLUB
!!
For those of you who missed the original announcement at the end of last year, The Terribly Clever Book Club (henceforth, TCBC) is my private monthly bookclub (hosted on Zoom) for fellow fans of deviously clever mysteries and thrillers.
You know the sort of thing: Novels with devious plots, ingenious twists, impossible crimes, smart use of real technology, and all manner of other things that make you go “ooooh, that’s good!”
These are the kind of stories I LOVE, no matter whether it’s the impossible golden age murders of John Dixon Carr, Christianna Brand, or Seishi Yokomizo; the 80s and 90s techno-twists of Michael Crichton or Christopher Priest; or the bang up-to-date brilliance of Sarah Pinborough or Stuart Turton or Sophie Hannah or… you get the idea.
Since I launched the club at the end of last year, our merry band of TCB lovers have explored devious Japanese mysteries like time-loop whodunnit, The Man Who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa and Strange Pictures by anoymous YouTube star Uketsu. We’ve ventured back to the golden age with 1942’s The Affair At Little Wokeham by Freeman Wills Crofts (featuring one of the first ever 'Columbo’-type plots) and Hemlock Bay by Martin Edwards. We’ve stretched the genre to breaking point with A Most Puzzling Murder by Bianca Marais (paying homage to choose your own adventures) and Fair Play by Louise Hegarty (which defies summarization) and we’ve started from the end with Peter Swanson’s Kill Your Darlings. This coming week we’re meeting (virtually) to discuss Janice Hallett’s The Twyford Code, a story told almost entirely through voice memo transcripts, with a twist that knocked by shoes and socks off.
It’s SO MUCH FUN.
But if the books are clever, the club itself is very simple.
At the start of the month I send members a mystery or thriller in the mail. Then members have the rest of the month to read the book before we all meet for a Zoom to talk about it at 5pm Pacific on the last Wednesday of the month. (The Zoom is recorded in case you can’t make it “live”.) A few days later the next title arrives, and the fun continues!
Membership is priced at $30 a month, which includes the cost of the book and shipping to anywhere in the US, plus the meetings and occasional bonus extras (note: if you’re local to the bookstore, you can of course pick up your copy in person!) For newer titles, the books are generally hardcovers, with occasional trade paperbacks if hardcovers are no longer available. Basically, I find the nicest edition I can for each book.
We already have a great little community of readers, but as we head out of the summer and folks cycle out due to family and work commitments, it’s time to add to our ranks for the second season of books.
I would LOVE for you to join us. And if you sign up between now and the end of this week, you’ll be just in time to receive October’s book and join the discussion on Oct 29th.
You can choose to pay quarterly or annually with a slight discount for the latter. And of course, if life gets in the way, you can cancel your auto-renewal any time with no hard feelings. Billing is handled by the bookstore, so Best Bookstore will appear on your statement.
October’s is a brand new release, so I promise you won’t have read it yet. It will be shipped at the end of this week to existing members and everyone who signs up between now and then.
Sound like fun? It really is! Here are the sign-up links…
Join Quarterly ($90)
Join Annually ($340)
I’m really excited to discuss so many brilliant and thrilling stories with you over the coming months!
Paul