Dear TCL Readers:

I am back home after a short book tour that took me from NYC to Portland, Oregon, to Washington, DC, and then to Cold Spring, NY. It was wonderful to see so many friends and meet new people while in New York City and on the road, and that the word continues to spread about Without Consent. Here’s the recap:

• Without Consent launched on November 12th at Books Are Magic, where I have launched every book since 2018, and the spirited conversation with Alex Mar in front of so many dear friends (and a delightful afterparty here) was just the way to introduce the book to the world.

  

  The next night, I did a solo event (where I read from the book) at Fountain Bookshop & Ice Cream & Gifts, which also happens to be my local bookstore in Washington Heights, and this very tiny store made space to accommodate more people than there were chairs. Thank you to my neighbors and friends — especially those of whom traveled from far-ish flung places! — for coming, and I really hope more people check out this bookshop, now so dear to my heart.

  

• Portland’s event, on November 18, was at the wonderful Literary Arts Bookstore in the city’s Eastside, and I can’t recommend the store, which is celebrating its first year, more highly. A beautifully curated space with amazing booksellers and a warm environment. I’m excited to return someday. The event itself turned out to be unexpectedly moving, not just because of the empathetic way that Sarah Marshall asks questions — as any You’re Wrong About listener well knows - but because at least four people I interviewed for the book attended the event, including at least one survivor and longtime Salem Statesman-Journal reporter Whitney Woodworth, who wrote this lovely feature on me and the book for the paper over the weekend. Also highly, highly recommend this sushi joint and this small plates restaurant.

  

• DC’s event on November 20th was at the vaunted Politics & Prose bookstore, where I have done events for almost all of my books, and the mix of friends and family who turned up — plus a number of social media mutuals — was very affirming. Molly O’Toole made it seem like a fireside chat and in a way, that’s what it was. Dinner afterwards seemed to spark a lot of new connections and that always makes me happy. I also got to see this exhibition at the Phillips, reminding me why it’s one of my all-time favorite museums. (One that is, alas, in turmoil right now.) And this bakery, across the street from my hotel, just bowled me over.

• Lastly, an event added with short notice at Split Rock Books in Cold Spring, NY turned out to be the perfect capper to the tour. My conversation with Louise Bokkenheuser was also part of Fall of Freedom, a two-day series of events (over 600!) devoted to creative resistance, celebrating democracy, and challenging the rise of authoritarianism. I was so heartened that the local community really showed up for this, at a bookstore that also numbers among my new favorites — thank you, Heidi Shira Bender and her staff in their faith and trust, and I’m so glad we all delivered. Also, what a bookstore cat!

Without Consent continues to garner some excellent coverage. The Week singled out the book among its November recommendations, and The Boston Globe raved about the book, calling attention to its “clarity and compassion.” (It was also wonderful to see Kate Tuttle’s review in print in the paper’s Sunday Arts section on the 16th.) I also want to highlight Morgan Leigh Davies’ feature on the book for Jezebel, which was comprehensive, thorough, beautifully written and really got the book as I intended it. There’s still more to come, too.

Before I sign off for the Thanksgiving holiday, I’d be remiss in not talking about the books I read while on tour: some of them were for future Crime & Mystery columns, but otherwise, I tried concentrating on pleasure reading, including Find Him! by Elaine Kraf (read Violet Kupersmith’s introduction to the reissue of this long-forgotten masterpiece, published in 1977, two years before The Princess of 72nd Street); True Nature by Lance Richardson, an epic biography of Peter Matthiessen, a writer whose work and life truly embodied the term; Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume cycle (I just finished Part II, and will start Part III this week); To Smithereens by Rosalyn Drexler, which like Kraf’s book is weird and strange and incredibly 1970s and I loved it; and the forthcoming London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe, which you’ll all want to read when it’s out in April.

I’ll be back in December for one last newsletter in 2025, and then think about how to make this a regular thing again in 2026.

Until next time, I remain,

The Crime Lady