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Ann Claire joins us in studio to discuss Dead and Gondola, the first book in her Christie Bookshop Mystery series. The second book in the series, Last Word to the Wise, was released in 2023.

Her Bookmobile Mysteries, Santa Fe Cafe Mysteries, and Cyclist’s Guide Mysteries are available in print, ebook, and audiobook formats on Amazon and from other booksellers.

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Ann earned degrees in geography, which took her all across the world. Now she lives with her geographer husband in Colorado, where the mountains beckon from their kitchen windows.

When she’s not writing, you can find her hiking, gardening, herding housecats, and enjoying a good mystery, especially one by Agatha Christie.

Dead and Gondola is the series debut of the Christie Bookshop Mystery series by author Ann Claire. A mysterious bookshop visitor dies under murderous circumstances, compelling the Christie sisters and their cat, Agatha, to call on all they’ve learned about solving mysteries from their favorite novelist.

Ellie Christie is thrilled to begin a new chapter. She’s recently returned to her tiny Colorado hometown to run her family’s historic bookshop with her elder sister, Meg, and their beloved cat, Agatha. Perched in a Swiss-style hamlet accessible by ski gondola and a twisty mountain road, the Book Chalet is a famed bibliophile destination known for its maze of shelves and relaxing reading lounge. At least, until trouble blows in with a wintry whiteout. A man is found dead on the gondola, and a rockslide throws the town into lockdown—no one in, no one out.

The victim was a mysterious stranger who’d visited the bookshop. At the time, his only blunders had been disrupting a book club and leaving behind a first-edition Agatha Christie novel, written under a pseudonym. However, once revealed, the man’s identity shocks the town. Motives and secrets swirl like the snow, but when the police narrow in on the sisters’ close friends, the Christies have to act.

Although the only Agatha in their family tree is their cat, Ellie and Meg know a lot about mysteries and realize they must summon their inner Miss Marple to trek through a blizzard of clues before the killer turns the page to their final chapter.

BookPage says, “Dead and Gondola is a lighthearted, fast-paced cozy mystery with a cast of likeable characters. … Who wouldn’t want to ride a glass-domed gondola to a historic bookshop and cozy up by the fire with a good read?” Publishers Weekly wrote, “A fair-play plot, vivid characters, fascinating facts about Dame Agatha, and an intelligent and appealing protagonist make this a winner. Cozy fans will chomp at the bit for more.”

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The intricate plot, morally complex characters, and exploration of the human psyche in A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS (THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS) (1939) make it one of the first modern suspense thrillers. Eric Ambler paved the way for such writers as John Le Carré, Len Deighton, and Robert Ludlum. It’s one of TIME Magazine’s 100 best mystery and thriller books of all time.

Special guest Neil Nyren joins us to discuss the book. Check out the conversation starters below. Weigh in, and you might just get an on-air shoutout and a fab sticker!

Get your book here!
Watch clips from our conversation with Neil!
Join our Patreon community here! It's free to join, with extra perks for members at every level.

Neil Nyren is the former executive vice president (EVP), associate publisher, and editor in chief of G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Neil is the winner of the 2017 Ellery Queen Award from the Mystery Writers of America and the 2025 Thriller Legend award from the International Thriller Writers.

Neil joins Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss A Coffin for Dimitrios (also published as The Mask of Dimitrios), a 1939 thriller by Eric Ambler.

You can read Neil’s many articles on Crime Reads here.

The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time (TIME Magazine)
“In an Eric Ambler spy novel, the hero is usually an ordinary fellow who lands in an unfamiliar foreign city and soon finds himself in rising water. In A Coffin For Dimitrios, published in 1939, the city is Istanbul between the world wars, and the hero is a writer intrigued by a newly dead Greek criminal whose life story leads him deep into the Balkans, and worse. Everything unfolds with the brisk tension and debonair assurance that made Ambler fans of everyone from Alfred Hitchcock to John le Carré to Alan Furst, and anchored the nascent genre in a kind of dashing realism.” —Karl Vick (TIME Magazine editor)

“I set out to improve a shoddy article,” Eric Ambler once explained. “Dorothy Sayers had taken the detective story and made it literate. Why shouldn’t I do the same for spies?”

Neil, you wrote, “Eric Ambler was the father of the modern thriller. John Le Carré called him ‘the source on which we all draw,’ and Len Deighton, ‘the man who lit the way for us all.’ Frederick Forsyth said he was the man ‘who took the spy thriller out of the gentility of the drawing room and into the back streets where it all really happened.’ Graham Greene called him ‘unquestionably our best thriller writer.’”

Neil, you wrote, “I’ve worked with many writers of international suspense, and whenever I’ve wanted to recommend a book to any of them that captures the genre as well as any book possibly can—this is the one I send them to.”

Neil, you wrote, “Before Eric Ambler, international thrillers were dominated by such writers as John Buchan (The Thirty-Nine Steps) and their many imitators.” Talk a bit about the difference between these earlier books and books like Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household and A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Amble

Support the show

https://www.instagram.com/teatonicandtoxin/
https://www.facebook.com/teatonicandtoxin
https://www.teatonicandtoxin.com

Stay mysterious...

Send us a text

The intricate plot, morally complex characters, and exploration of the human psyche in A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS (THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS) (1939) make it one of the first modern suspense thrillers. Eric Ambler paved the way for such writers as John Le Carré, Len Deighton, and Robert Ludlum. It’s one of TIME Magazine’s 100 best mystery and thriller books of all time.

Special guest Neil Nyren joins us to discuss the book. Check out the conversation starters below. Weigh in, and you might just get an on-air shoutout and a fab sticker!

Get your book here!
Watch clips from our conversation with Neil!
Join our Patreon community here! It's free to join, with extra perks for members at every level.

Neil Nyren is the former executive vice president (EVP), associate publisher, and editor in chief of G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Neil is the winner of the 2017 Ellery Queen Award from the Mystery Writers of America and the 2025 Thriller Legend award from the International Thriller Writers.

Neil joins Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss A Coffin for Dimitrios (also published as The Mask of Dimitrios), a 1939 thriller by Eric Ambler.

You can read Neil’s many articles on Crime Reads here.

Among the writers of crime and suspense he has edited are Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, John Sandford, C. J. Box, Robert Crais, Carl Hiaasen, Daniel Silva, Jack Higgins, Frederick Forsyth, Ken Follett, Jonathan Kellerman, Martha Grimes, Alex Berenson, Thomas Perry, Gerald Seymour, Ed McBain, and Ace Atkins. In all, he has edited more than 300 New York Times bestsellers.

Neil Nyren was awarded the 2017 Ellery Queen Award for “outstanding people in the mystery publishing industry” from the Mystery Writers of America. He also received the 2025 Thriller Legend award from the International Thriller Writers.

Besides still editing two of his longtime authors, he now writes about crime fiction and publishing for CrimeReads, BookTrib, The Big Thrill, and The Third Degree, among others. He is also a contributing writer to the Mystery Writers of America’s Anthony/Agatha/Macavity-winning How to Write a Mystery. He has spoken at conferences from Maine to Florida and from South Carolina to Hawaii.

The Opening

Neil, you wrote, “Eric Ambler’s heroes, especially in his between-wars novels (1936-1940), are ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. They’re often engineers, journalists, or writers who stumble into danger through a combination of bad judgment and bad luck and then have no choice but to try to dig themselves out of it … They are solidly middle class, raised in a world of black-and-white certainties that they discover has been completely obliterated by gray.”

Neil, you wrote, “Eric Ambler’s villains live in that gray. They’re criminals, conmen, governments, corporations, revolutionaries, spies, and corrupt officials. … They’re realists. They’ve calculated what it takes to succeed and are willing to do whatever is necessary to achieve that goal. If those acts are considered reprehensible by others, that’s not their problem.”

Support the show

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https://www.teatonicandtoxin.com

Stay mysterious...