Neal Thompson's Blog: Blood & Whiskey, page 4

Blood & Whiskey #25

Hello friends and readers,

Thanks for joining me for another month of crime fiction (and other) book reviews, book roundups, cocktails and music. Let’s jump right in…

Beware The Woman (Putnam), by Megan Abbott — My favorite book this month from a writer who seems to get better, on a sentence-by-sentence level, with each book. It’s a slow burn, almost brutally tense, as we follow Jacy and her new husband Jed to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (“up the great paw of Michigan, I-75 snaking up the state li...

Interrogation: Megan Abbott

In place of my regular monthly Blood & Whiskey roundup (coming next week), today I’m introducing a new off-cycle author interview feature called Interrogations. I’ll be sharing more of these — probably twice a month — in addition to the regular monthy Blood & Whiskey newsletter.

I’m thrilled to kick things off with a Q&A with Megan Abbott, author of the fantastic new book, Beware the Woman (which I’ll review next week).

But first, some housekeeping…

I’ve done a few of these interviews before on Bl...

Blood & Whiskey #24

Hello friends and readers,

It’s Blood & Whiskey’s 2-year anniversary. Thanks for sticking with me as this project evolves. As always, I welcome your suggestions and feedback.

I’d mentioned last month that my wife and I were headed to Boston for the summer. We’ve landed here (Cambridge) safely after an intense, rain-soaked and windy cross-country drive. My son and I made the journey in a loaded-up SUV, listening (as we passed through Spokane) to Jess Walter’s excellent 2013 story collection, We Li...

Blood & Whiskey #23

Hello friends and readers,

My wife and I are moving to Boston for the summer and I’m making the drive (from Seattle) with my youngest son. We’re loaded up with audiobooks and a few podcasts, but I’m open to XC road trip suggestions: books, tunes, podcast. And to any Bostonians out there: I know my way around a few bookshops (Brookline, Porter Square, Harvard) but feel free to send suggestions for lesser-known joints — not just books, but beer/cocktail/food, yoga studios, swim spots. We’ll be stay...

Blood & Whiskey #22

Hello friends and readers,

Happy St. Patty’s Day — or, if you prefer, St. Paddy’s Day.

I’ve got an Irish drink and some Irish books for you this month. But first…

Decent People, by De’Shawn Charles Winslow — It took me awhile to get the characters straight and to settle into the language, but once I did the story took off. Set in rural North Carolina, mid-70s, three siblings — including the town’s first Black doctor — are shot and killed in their home. The (lazy, white) police chalk it up to a drug...

Blood & Whiskey #21

Hello friends and readers,

This is the newsletter in which multiple project deadlines disrupted my schedule, so here’s a February newsletter coming to you in March…

First up: two excellent books that came out last week (as did, if you must know, the paperback of The First Kennedys — more on that below).

Rebecca Makkai’s brooding, literary boarding school murder mystery, I Have Some Questions For You, is getting heaps of well-deserved attention. This one veers from her sweeping 2018 National Book...

Neal’s Blood & Whiskey #20

Hello friends and readers,

Welcome to 2023. Did you make a resolution to read more? Maybe drink less? Finally learn to play ukulele? I can help with the first two of those. (The last one is mine — the ukulele was a 2021 Xmas gift…)

First, here’s a great book to start the new year with:

Everybody Knows (Mulholland) — Jordan Harper

Mae Pruett is a “black bag” publicist for a Hollywood PR firm. She’s a fixer to the stars. She makes problems go away — a bad story, a bad night. Her boss tempts her with ...

Blood & Whiskey #19

Hello friends and readers,

A bit of flu-crud mucked up my schedule this month, so this is coming to you a few days later than usual (for anyone keeping track)… I’m sure you’re all running around, shopping, shoveling, prepping to travel, so let’s get right to it.

Signal Fires, by Dani Shapiro

As a writer who’s dabbled in memoir, I’ve long been a fan of Shapiro’s first-person and deeply personal storytelling. Her previous book, Inheritance, was a gut-puncher and if you’re a writer you should have he...

Neal's Blood & Whiskey #18

Hello friends and readers,

I want to talk about locked-room mysteries this month — and I’m excited to share a guest post from whiskey author/expert Clay Risen — but first let me give shoutouts to two other books I enjoyed and recommend:

Now Is Not the Time to Panic, by Kevin Wilson — A wonderful story about 16-year-old Frankie Budge, who in the summer of 1996 befriends a boy named Zeke, another arty-misfit-loner like her. Using a photocopier her dumb-ass triplet brothers stole and left in the gara...

Neal's 'Blood & Whiskey' #17

Hello friends and readers…

Fall is here (aka decorative gourd season) and that stupid clock reset is coming, so this month I’m featuring more whiskey than blood. Scroll down to learn how to make a giant Manhattan that should last until Thanksgiving. As for books… I don’t have anything to full-on rave about this month, but below is a mixed-bag of crime-y novels and true crime that I’m happy to share with intrepid readers.

But first, a quick cover reveal: a sneak peak at the all-new jacket for the ...