La Rue: Fall book highlights include ‘Author’s Guide to Murder,’ ‘Connie’

The first book is a mystery written by Team W, as they are known — good friends Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White — titled “An Author’s Guide To Murder.” The authors met at a book conference, became friends, and decided to write a book together.

In this fifth collaboration, three American authors are at a Scottish castle owned by a very famous and successful writer. They are supposed to be there for a writing conference with the famous writer, but they each have other reasons to be there.

When the writer ends up murdered, the women become suspects in the killing. The book alternates between the police interrogation of the women and the lead-up to the murder. The police interviews are hilarious as we get to know each of the authors.

Kat writes erotica and plays her part with innuendo and outrageous flirtatious behavior. Cassie is a mom of six who writes cozy mysteries and has a Mary Poppins bag filled with every item anyone would ever need. Emma writes historical fiction and is what would be called a history buff, always ready with a quick historical fact whether anyone wants to hear it or not.

Readers of Team W’s novels will get immense enjoyment as the authors have played around with their own personalities and created characters that mix-and-match their own writing style and lives. I found myself laughing out loud several times.

Although it is humorous, there is a serious undertone as we learn why the women have come together to confront the famous writer. It is billed as “Murder, She Wrote” meets Agatha Christie, an accurate assessment. I highly recommend.

Lynda Cohen Loigman’s new novel “The Love Elixir of August Stern” tells the story of Augusta Stern, an 80-year-old pharmacist who has just (unwillingly) retired to a Florida community her niece found for her.

On her first day there, she discovers that Irving Rivkin, who worked as delivery boy in her father’s pharmacy back in the 1920s, also lives in the same retirement community. Irvin hurt her deeply many years ago and Augusta never got over it.

This is also a story told in two different timelines — the 1920s and 1997. Frequently in two-different-timeline novels, one story is more interesting, but Cohen had me equally engaged in both stories.

Augusta is a fabulous character; she can be difficult and a tough nut to crack. Although she initially keeps to herself, she eventually makes friends. What she doesn’t understand is why Irvin is pursuing her romantically after he broke her heart years ago with no explanation.

It’s refreshing to see more older female characters in recent novels, and Augusta is one of the more intriguing and well-drawn ones. We get the opportunity to see how she became the person she was, and her close attachment to her great aunt Esther, another intriguing older female character. The setting of 1920s Brooklyn is so vividly created, I could picture Augusta’s father’s pharmacy clearly. I also highly recommend “The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern.”

There are many memoirs out this fall, and Connie Chung’s “Connie” is one of the more interesting ones. Chung, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, became one of the most prominent broadcast journalists in the 1970s.

She was one of the few female television reporters covering the Nixon White House during the tumultuous Watergate years. Chung has to battle not only sexism but also anti-Asian attitudes during her tenure. She believed the best way to do that was to become one of “boys” — she could curse like a sailor, and she gave as good as she got.

Chung worked incredibly hard, and would take any opportunity to show that she was a team player. At one point she anchored a pre-“Today Show” news hour, reported on stories for the “Nightly News,” then did live news cutaways at 9 and 10 p.m. She worked nearly around the clock.

She is one of the few people to work on-air for all three broadcast networks — she co-anchored the “CBS Evening News” with Dan Rather (who undermined her), co-anchored “20/20” on ABC and was an anchor on the local Los Angeles CBS station for years.

If you know of Chung’s career, you’ll want to read “Connie,” and if you don’t know her, you’ll want to read what it was like to be a woman in the news business at this time. It’s a fascinating read.