Staten Island Barnes & Noble Hosts Book Signing By Acclaimed Journalist, Mystery Writer For Her Second Novel

ACCLAIMED MYSTERY AUTHOR VICTORIA WEISFELD FEATURED AT  STATEN ISLAND BARNES & NOBLE BOOKSIGNING

Please see below for questions we asked of the author, with answers from her and her team:

Do you have more information about this event that you can share?

The book-signing for the new thriller She Knew Too Much, written by award-winning author Victoria Weisfeld, will be at the Staten Island Barnes & Noble, on Saturday, March 14, 1-4 pm. The store is located in the Staten Island Mall, 2655 Richmond Avenue.

Who are the sponsors for the event, including the store itself, the awards that she won for her book, a little bit about herself, as much as she would like to share.

The book-signing is one of the array of virtual and in-person author events sponsored by the store. More than 45 of Victoria Weisfeld’s short stories have appeared in leading crime/mystery magazines and anthologies including, most recently, The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year: 2025. They’ve won awards from the Short Mystery Fiction Society and the Public Safety Writers Association. She reviews new crime fiction for the UK website crimefictionlover.com.

What has it been like to be transplanted to New Jersey? What has she noticed as different from growing up in the Midwest? What does she like most about the area (New Jersey or New York City)?

While Weisfeld grew up in Michigan, she’s lived in New Jersey for decades now and mostly appreciates how close it is to everything—New York, Philadelphia, even Washington, D.C. This environment offers so many opportunities to do interesting things and meet interesting people. Whatever it is, you can find it here, providing a rich source of ideas for a fiction writer!

What drew her to choose Mystery as her genre? What does she enjoy most about writing?

Weisfeld usually says she writes crime/mystery fiction because that’s what she likes to read, but it goes deeper than that. This genre, she says, offers an endless stream of ideas. Thieves are at work (the Louvre!), scams are abundant, surveillance is creepy, shenanigans run rampant. The damage people can do to each other and themselves seems endless. Her new destination thriller, She Knew Too Much, takes advantage of a number of societal aberrations: murder, theft, scamming of a high order, kidnapping, fake identity, weaknesses in the law enforcement establishment, and more. It takes place in Rome, which means the mafia is part of the picture, along with Italy’s Byzantine law enforcement structure.

Mystery and crime stories typically deal with people who are at one of the most consequential times of their lives. These stories have emotional intensity, fear and frustration. Risk. Drama. People are not necessarily at their best—or maybe they are. They learn things about their community, friends, family, partners, and themselves which sometimes they’d rather not know. It’s a time in their lives when what they do really matters. An important challenge for writers is to make the stakes matter to readers too.

Writers also face the interesting challenge of coming up with something fresher than serial killers, gaslighting spouses, reunions of old friends where the secrets finally come out, and morally weary detectives with a divorce and a drinking problem.

Another challenge is getting the facts right—weapons, police procedure, geography and so on—because factual errors threaten a story’s credibility. At the same time, the author isn’t writing a textbook. No reader enjoys a big indigestible information dump. Recognizing the truly necessary details and artfully weaving them into the story is another challenge.

For Weisfeld, research is just part of the process and gives her ideas she would never have otherwise. In She Knew Too Much, she identified a small suburban town north of Rome where a gang member could hide. Map research and a street camera revealed that the town has a farmer’s market on Saturdays. Having the gang member visit that market, in full view of the street camera, became an important part of the plot.

The ubiquity of cell phones, street cameras (in some places), and information technology has had a significant impact on crime fiction, she says. Genie Clarke, the main character in She Knew Too Much, has to go completely off social media to keep the gangsters from tracking her. As a travel blogger with an active online presence, being offline makes her feel even more isolated from her usual world. That’s her environment, and that’s part of the story.

Please let me know if you can provide some info for our readers, who might be interested in her books.

She Knew Too Much is Weisfeld’s second novel, and tells the story of an American travel writer on assignment in Rome who overhears gangsters planning a major crime. When they realize she’s heard them, she’s targeted for murder. The intervention of a (handsome!) Polizia di Stato detective protects her, but for how long? The situation becomes even more dangerous as the full scope of the criminals’ plans gradually becomes clear. Danger, spirit, and a touch of romance.

In Weisfeld’s first mystery, Architect of Courage, every aspect of Manhattan architect Archer Landis’s life is under attack. He’s made mistakes, he’s lost people he loves, his business is threatened, and now he must try to redeem himself and stop the damage. It will take every bit of courage he has.

Advertisement

Copies of both books will be available at Barnes & Noble on March 14 during the signing, and are online at BarnesandNoble.com, Bookshop.org, and Amazon.com.

The below event is coming up this weekend at the local Staten Island Barnes & Noble, outside of the Staten Island Mall:

Book Signing with Author Victoria Weisfeld re: her second novel, She Knew Too Much

About the Author:

Victoria Weisfeld is a journalist and award-winning mystery writer whose latest novel, She Knew Too Much, brings psychological suspense and sharp social insight to readers across the New York region. Her short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and Black Cat Weekly, and her work has earned honors from the Short Mystery Fiction Society and the Public Safety Writers Association. Weisfeld will visit Staten Island to meet local mystery fans and sign copies of She Knew Too Much during this special Barnes & Noble event.

Banner Image: She Knew Too Much book cover. Image Credit – Victoria Weisfeld, B&N