Publishing Triangle Hansen Award Nominees Panel
Tubby & Coo’s Book Shop is pleased to host a panel of finalists for the Publishing Triangle’s Joseph Hansen Award. This event will be held digitally via YouTube.
Renee James is nominated for her book BeatNikki’s Cafe, Robyn Gigl for Remain Silent, and J.M. Redmann for Transitory. All three authors write about the trans experience, and this conversation will focus on uplifting and support trans individuals. Learn more about the authors and their books below!
The Joseph Hansen Award for LGBTQ+ Crime Writing is now in its second year and was conceived by and is funded by popular mystery writer Michael Nava. It’s just one of the many awards given by The Publishing Triangle each year.
Please note Tubby & Coo’s has a zero tolerance policy for harassment or intimidation of any kind during our events.
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About the Books
ABOUT BEATNIKKI’S CAFE
When a vile, hate-spewing thug attacks the people she loves, trans woman Nikki Finch knows what she must do to protect them.
Nikki Finch is a successful transgender woman with a thriving Beatnik cafe and a comfortable life until the first summer of the Trump presidency sets off a wave of violence against minorities. Nikki’s carefully curated world is shattered when a neo-Nazi thug attacks her business partner. She comes to his rescue, but her efforts launch a chain of events that imperil her and everyone she loves, especially her angst-ridden daughter, Morgan. Nikki will do everything she can to keep her loved ones safe, but as her civilized options begin to evaporate, she is left with no choice but to go places she’s never gone before.
Kill or be killed. It should be a simple choice. But it’s not that simple for Nikki Finch–it would have to be a cold-blooded murder and she’d have to get away with it. It could work, but what kind of example would she set for her daughter?
ABOUT REMAIN SILENT
Readers of Ann Cleeves and Jonathan Kellerman will be gripped by this timely, provocative legal thriller featuring a transgender defense attorney who finds herself drawn into a murder investigation that could land her behind bars . . .
Erin McCabe’s years as a criminal defense attorney have prepared her for almost anything, except being on the opposite side of the interrogation table. A new client–a successful financial adviser–was found stabbed to death on the beach near his palatial Jersey Shore home. The time of death is estimated to be during Erin’s one and only consultation with him, during which he revealed that he was secretly transgender. As the last person to see him alive, Erin’s now the prime suspect.
If the evidence were simply circumstantial, Erin is sure she and her law partner, Duane Swisher, could prevail. But there are entanglements that can’t be easily explained, and connections to powerful unscrupulous politicians who hold a lot of grudges. While the investigation unfolds, Erin and Duane are called on to represent a mother charged with abducting her child–a hot-button case that has both private and public implications for Erin.
As she battles one prosecutor who wants to see her charged with murder, and another determined to send her to jail for refusing to divulge her client’s location, Erin also faces a devastating family tragedy. With her career and her relationship on the line, and her life being targeted by a desperate nemesis, there has never been more at stake–or fewer places to turn . . .
ABOUT TRANSITORY
The cops blow it off, another Black transgender woman who surprised a customer with what was under the dress–bad luck she was pushed out of the car and then hit by another vehicle. But Micky Knight witnessed it, crossing the street at the right–or wrong–time, only yards away from what didn’t look at all like an accident to her. The woman was dressed more like a librarian than a sex worker. It’s not her case, she was just walking home from a local bar. No ID was found on the victim, and the only clue is an appointment card with cryptic initials, CJ at CC. Micky has a good idea what they mean–Cordelia James at CrescentCare, a local health clinic that sees many transgender clients. Cordelia, a doctor and her ex. Micky doesn’t want to get involved, but there will be no justice if she doesn’t. As she investigates, she uncovers a family in turmoil and ugly secrets–ones people will kill for.
About the Authors
Renee James is a confessed English major and out transgender author who is also a spouse, parent, grandparent, and Vietnam veteran. She took up fiction writing after a long career in magazines. She has published six novels and a biography along with short stories under various bylines. Her novels include the Bobbi Logan trilogy (Coming Out Can Be Murder, A Kind of Justice, and Seven Suspects) which depicts the life and times of a Chicago transwoman after gender transition.
Robyn Gigl is an award-winning author, attorney, and activist. The recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s prestigious Joseph Hansen Award, her Erin McCabe legal thrillers have landed on Best of the Year lists at The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, CrimeReads, LAMBDA Literary, and more. Survivor’s Guilt was named a TIME Magazine Best Thrillers and Mysteries of All Time. An attorney whose legal career spans more than 40 years, she was appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court to the Court’s Committee on Diversity Inclusion and Community Engagement and has been named one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in New Jersey. She has been honored by the ACLU-NJ and the NJ Pride Network for her work on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community and is a member of the Board of Directors of Garden State Equality, New Jersey’s largest LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Organization. She is a partner at the law firm of Dilworth Paxson, LLP in Freehold, NJ, and can be found at online robyngigl.com, on X @robyngigl, and Instagram @robyngigl.
J.M. Redmann is the author of a mystery series featuring New Orleans private detective Michele “Micky” Knight. Her 2013 release, Ill Will, made the American Library Association GLBT Roundtable’s Over the Rainbow list. Her previous book Water Mark was also on the Over the Rainbow list and won a Fore Word Gold First Place mystery award. Two of her earlier books, The Intersection of Law & Desire and Death of a Dying Man, have won Lambda Literary Awards; all but her first book have been nominated. Law & Desire was an Editor’s Choice of the San Francisco Chronicle and a recommended book on NPR’s Fresh Air. Her books have been translated into Spanish, German, Dutch, Norwegian, and Hebrew. She is the co-editor with Greg Herren of three anthologies, Night Shadows: Queer Horror, Women of the Mean Streets: Lesbian Noir, and Men of the Mean Streets: Gay Noir. Redmann lives in an historic neighborhood in New Orleans, at the edge of the area that flooded.