That’s at the Manchester Public Library in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts.
Natives call it MBTS or mostly just “Manchester.”
[This page updated 2/4/25]
Next Meeting: Friday February 28, 2025, 10:30 am.
Meeting Location: Inside the library AND via Zoom (Hybrid Meeting)
Zoom details will be provided via email. Be sure to subscribe to our meeting notices to receive Zoom links – and other club news.
A 200-year-old wooden chest containing a concealed “blood promise” appears at a diplomatic conference at a chateau outside Paris. The darkness of history is unleashed and murder along with it. For the February 28 meeting, read THE BLOOD PROMISE by Mark Pryor. It is book #3 out of 9 books in this series featuring Hugo Marston, Head of Security at the US embassy in Paris, France.
Blurb for This Month’s Book
Hugo Marston must figure out what lies hidden inside an old sailor’s chest before a 200-year-old blood promise is revealed and claims another life.
In post-Revolution Paris, an old man signs a letter in blood, then hides it in a secret compartment in a sailor’s chest. A messenger arrives to transport the chest and its hidden contents, but then the plague strikes and an untimely death changes history.
Two hundred years later, Hugo Marston is safeguarding an unpredictable but popular senator who is in Paris negotiating a France/U.S. dispute. The talks, held at a country chateau, collapse when the senator accuses someone of breaking into his room.
Theft becomes the least of Hugo’s concerns when someone discovers the secrets hidden deep inside the sailor’s chest, and decides that the power and money they promise are worth killing for.
But when the darkness of history is unleashed, even the most ruthless and cunning are powerless to control it.
This Book Fits Within This Type [Sub-Genre] of Crime Fiction:
Traditional Mystery, Includes Historical Elements
Setting: France
What to Expect With This Book
–> It has roughly 290 pages.
–> It has 41 relatively medium-length chapters (averaging 7 pages per chapter).
–> Ideally try to start reading in the middle of February. Anything to maximize recall for the discussion on the last Friday of February!
We invite you to read the book and join us to discuss it on Friday, February 28!
About the Author!
Mark grew up in Hertfordshire, England, and now lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three young children.
Over the years, he has been many things: ski instructor, journalist, personal trainer, and bra folder (he lasted one day: fired for giggling at the ridiculousness of the job. If it’s any excuse, he was just nineteen years old.)
His first real career was as a newspaper reporter in Colchester, Essex. There, he covered the police and crime beat for almost two years. He also wrote stories on foreign assignments, including accounts from Northern Ireland while with the British Army, and from Romania where he covered the first-anniversary celebrations of that country’s revolution.
Mark moved to America in 1994, mostly for the weather. He attended journalism school at the University of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill, and then law school at Duke University, graduating with honors and a lot of debt. And one helluva wife.
He spent sixteen years as an Assistant District Attorney with the Travis County DA’s office. Or, as he told his kids when they were young, “I help catch bad guys.” Simplistic, yes, but you try explaining the judicial system to six-year-old twins!
While writing mystery novels he prosecuted a Mexican Mafia enforcer, murderers, rapists, and robbers. As he put it: “By day I solve crimes, and by night I commit them!”
Mark is now a partner at one of the top criminal defense firms in Austin, Cofer & Connelly. There, unsurprisingly, he practices criminal law, defending the rights of adults and juveniles charged with criminal offenses.
More Resources
Mark Pryor’s website: The list of all 9 Hugo Marston stories.
About Our Mystery Book Group
DO YOU LIKE MYSTERY BOOKS? We welcome your participation with us. Our monthly Friday meetings focus on the mystery book of the month. The group helps to create the annual reading list each June. (Click to see this year’s book list.) When we gather, we enjoy each other and the varying views that each person shares, recognizing that there are many genres and tastes in mystery books, crime books, thrillers, etc. It’s just fun!
WANT MORE TO READ AND DISCUSS, MORE THAN ONE BOOK A MONTH? In addition to our regular end of the month meeting, we often have one or more “sub-groups” that are ongoing, reading through a series of books by one author.
AND THERE’S MORE! As we like to say, “We are more than a book club.” For example:
- Authors as a guest for Q&A, most recently– Bruce Robert Coffin in June of 2023 and Daniel Palmer in November 2022,
- A recent Gloucester Harbor cruise on the Ardelle. An annual June backyard picnic,
- Field trip to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (it started with a book we read in which the museum’s famous heist was featured),
- Two Spenser Tours of Boston based on the Robert Parker books,
- Outings to movies like – Mr Holmes, Murder on the Orient Express, and Knives Out.
- Field trip to the Poe Statue in Boston,
- Lunch at the Agawam Diner,
- A Transcendental Murder mystery book field trip to Concord, MA.
- Frequent local restaurant luncheons following the regular book club meeting
- No agenda Zoom Lunch hour socials – a fill-in idea during the Pandemic
Click here for ongoing Mystery Book Club resources and helps. Quick link to current list of books for the year (September through August).
A few pictures from a recent meeting (8/30/24) during “announcements” part of the meeting. Thanks to Audrey Carmen (Library Staff)….
A few pictures from an early summer meeting (6/26/24) during “announcements” part of the meeting. Thanks to Carol McKenna….
Our special speaker for Nov 18, 2022: D.J. Palmer – author of various kinds of thrillers (5th from left)
Our club outing on Gloucester Harbor Tours’ Lighthouse Cruise – Saturday August 20, 2022: below – Selena and Mike seated (picture by Leslie)
Our club outing on Gloucester Harbor on the Schooner Ardelle charter – August 25, 2021: below
