An Intimate Evening Salon with Megan Abbott and Jonathan Santlofer on Crime Fiction

Tuesday, 7:00 pm EDT July 9, 2024

The Center for Fiction

Join us for an intimate evening with two acclaimed authors of crime fiction—Megan Abbott and Jonathan Santlofer. Abbott is an Edgar award-winning author of electrifying crime novels including The Turnout, Give Me Your Hand, and You Will Know Me. She is known for skillfully subverting and updating the genre by writing from a unique female perspective. Her latest work is the eerie Beware the Woman, which was named one of the best books of 2023 by NPR, the PBS NewsHour, the Guardian, and more. Santlofer is the Nero Award-winning author of numerous suspenseful thrillers, including The Last Mona Lisa, Anatomy of Fear, and the international bestseller The Death Artist. Known for his impeccably plotted mysteries, Santlofer’s latest work, The Last Van Gogh, is an electric tale about the search for the titular artist’s final self-portrait. The two authors will have a rousing conversation about the craft of crime fiction and answer questions from the audience about their work. The cozy, relaxed setting of The Center for Fiction’s Members Lounge is the perfect venue to engage with these two accomplished writers.

In Conversation

Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott is the Edgar award-winning author of eleven crime novels, including You Will Know Me, Give Me Your Hand, and the New York Times bestseller The Turnout, the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Dare Me, the series she adapted from her own novel, is now streaming on Netflix. Her latest novel, Beware the Woman, is now in paperback.

Photo Credit: Nina Subin
Jonathan Santlofer

Jonathan Santlofer

Jonathan Santlofer is the author of seven novels, including the national bestseller The Lost Van Gogh, and 2021 bestseller The Last Mona Lisa, Nero award-winning Anatomy of Fear, and the highly praised memoir The Widower’s Notebook. He is also the editor of eight anthologies, including the New York Times notable book It Occurs to Me that I Am America. His short stories have appeared in The Strand, Ellery Queen, and many story collections. As an artist, Santlofer’s work is in major private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Tokyo’s Institute of Contemporary Art. He is the recipient of two National Endowment for Arts grants, has been a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome, the Vermont Studio Center, and serves on the board of Yaddo, the oldest arts community in the U.S. He lives in NYC where he is at work on a new novel.

Photo Credit: Clarke Tolton

Featured Books

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Beware the Woman

By Megan Abbott

Published by Penguin Publishing Group

PURCHASE

Honey, I just want you to have everything you ever wanted. That’s what Jacy’s mom always told her. And Jacy felt like she finally did. Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy and her new husband, Jed, embark on their first road trip together to visit his father, Dr. Ash, in Michigan’s far-flung Upper Peninsula. The moment they arrive at the cottage snug within the lush woods, Jacy feels bathed in love by the warm and hospitable Dr. Ash, if less so by his house manager, the enigmatic Mrs. Brandt.

But their Edenic first days take a turn when Jacy has a health scare. Swiftly, vacation activities are scrapped, and all eyes are on Jacy’s condition. Suddenly, whispers about Jed’s long-dead mother and complicated family history seem to eerily impinge upon the present, and Jacy begins to feel trapped in the cottage, her every move surveilled, her body under the looking glass. But are her fears founded or is it simply paranoia, or cabin fever, or—as is suggested to her—a stubborn refusal to take necessary precautions? The dense woods surrounding the cottage are full of dangers, but are the greater ones inside?
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The Lost Van Gogh

By Jonathan Santlofer

Published by Sourcebooks

PURCHASE

For years, there have been whispers that, before his death, Van Gogh completed a final self-portrait. Curators and art historians have savored this rumor, hoping it could illuminate some of the troubled artist’s many secrets, but even they have to concede that the missing painting is likely lost forever.

But when Luke Perrone, artist and great-grandson of the man who stole the Mona Lisa, and Alexis Verde, daughter of a notorious art thief, discover what may be the missing portrait, they are drawn into a most epic art puzzles. When only days later the painting disappears again, they are reunited with INTERPOL agent John Washington Smith in a dangerous and deadly search that will not only expose secrets of the artist’s last days but draws them into one of history’s darkest eras.

Beneath the paint and canvas, beneath the beauty and the legend, the artwork has become linked with something evil, something that continues to flourish on the dark web and on the shadiest corridors of the underground art world.

Alternating between Luke Perrone’s perilous hunt for the painting, and a history of stolen art and stolen lives, The Lost Van Gogh is an intricately layered historical thriller perfect for fans of The Last Mona Lisa and The Night Portrait.

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