Monday, August 30, 2010

James Hayman

1 - What's your latest?

James Hayman: THE CHILL OF NIGHT. It's the second in the Detective Mike McCabe thriller series.



2 - Assuming I haven't read it, why should I?

James Hayman: Because once you pick it up you won;t be able to put it down. At least that's what most of my readers tell me.

3 - What can you tell us about your main character that you hadn't realized until you answered the question?

James Hayman: McCabe cares. Catching the killer is not simply a job for him. It is a mission. One that must be accomplished before another life is lost.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

James Hayman: A young woman who suffers from schizophrenia and the hallucinations and delusions that come with the disease is trying to defend herself against a cruel and heartless killer. Or is she?

5 - What's next?

James Hayman: I'm working on the third book in the series that is going to focus on McCabe's partner, Detective Maggie Savage.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Kat Richardson

1 - What's your latest?

Kat Richardson: LABYRINTH, which came out August 3.



2 - Assuming I haven't read it, why should I?

Kat Richardson: Because you read the fourth book, VANISHED, and you just must know the resolution of the cliff-hanger ending in that book. (Or you'll have to go back and read the whole series to catch up.)

3 - What can you tell us about your main character that you hadn't realized until you answered the question?

Kat Richardson: She's a better person than she gives herself credit for.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Kat Richardson: I love the scenes with the friendly pit bull who eats monsters.

5 - What's next?

Kat Richardson: I need to turn in Book 6, DOWNPOUR, by October 1.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Stephen White

1 - What's your latest?

Stephen White: THE LAST LIE. It will be released on August 17. For the record, it’s not a golf book. Not that kind of "lie."



2 - Assuming I haven't read it, why should I?

Stephen White: The obvious reasons – it's great, etc. – but also to discover the many reasons why neither Kobe Bryant nor lawyer wizards will be enamored of it.

3 - What can you tell us about your main character that you hadn't realized until you answered the question?

Stephen White: Alan Gregory seems to have dropped his moral compass on a rock. It no longer finds true north. Close, but . . .

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Stephen White: The one with the laundry chute, the dumbwaiter, and the MagLite. Writing it was like the chase-scene equivalent of building a ship inside a bottle. But I also like the scene with the purple chicken. No particular reason other than that it amused me.

5 - What's next?

Stephen White: I have no idea. You would think after two decades of doing this, I would plan a little better.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Carole Nelson Douglas

1 - What's your latest?

Carole Nelson Douglas: CAT IN AN ULTRAMARINE SCHEME





2 - Assuming I haven't read it, why should I?

Carole Nelson Douglas: These are not your grandmother's cat mysteries, but an "epic" cozy-noir feline PI series with an international espionage subplot. Midnight Louie, Sam Spade with hairballs, narrates part-time as four human crimesolvers clean up Las Vegas and tangle with each other. If you like this one, there are 21 previous books to read and more coming. This says it: "As twisty, riveting and intriguing [as ever], even longtime fans of the series are bound to say 'Wow, I never saw that coming' to the very end."
--RT BOOKREVIEWS Top Pick

3 - What can you tell us about your main character that you hadn't realized until you answered the question?

Carole Nelson Douglas: I have four antagonist-ally main characters--two pro, two amateur solvers, two men, two women--and too complex to explain easily, but it's why the series is so long-running.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Carole Nelson Douglas: The unexpected ending is a killer. It will stress all the main characters to their limits until the end of the series .

5 - What's next?

Carole Nelson Douglas: SILVER ZOMBIE, fourth entry in the Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator, series set in an apocalytic Vegas where crime lords mix it up with supernatural moguls like a vampire Howard Hughes. The genre is noir urban fantasy, and I've set it up so that every classic noir film character from Sam Spade to Asta can appear in the series.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Cynthia Riggs

1 - What's your latest?

Cynthia Riggs: TOUCH-ME-NOT (the release date was 17 August 2010, St. Martin's Minotaur).



2 - Assuming I haven't read it, why should I?

Cynthia Riggs: Read it for pure escape. The book deals with a video stalker and a group of mathematical knitters who are constructing a quilt (Mobius strip kelp and Klein bottle brain coral) to draw attention to global warming. It's set on Martha's Vineyard, so if you know the Island it will be fun to revisit it, if you don't know the Island, you'll learn a bit about it from a native.

3 - What can you tell us about your main character that you hadn't realized until you answered the question?

Cynthia Riggs: Victoria Trumbull, my 92-year-old poet-sleuth, was able to convince an overly caring 60-year-old daughter that her daughter still needed her mother's protection, not the other way around.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Cynthia Riggs: Favorite scene? That's like having a favorite child. One scene I like is one night after LeRoy Watts, the electrician, is walking on the beach to cool off after a serious argument with his wife, he returns to his car to find a police officer. Sure the cop is there to arrest him for killing his wife, LeRoy learns he's been given a parking ticket on a deserted road at midnight because he parked the wrong way, facing the non-existent traffic.

5 - What's next?

Cynthia Riggs: The next book is THE BEE BALM MURDERS, an attempt on my part to combine the art and science of beekeeping with the Island-wide installation of an underground fiber optics cable.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Rick Mofina

1 - What's your latest?

Rick Mofina: THE PANIC ZONE.



2 - Assuming I haven't read it, why should I?

Rick Mofina: You're missing a great page-turner. The PANIC ZONE, follows the first in the series, VENGEANCE ROAD, which the International Thriller Writers selected as a finalist for Best Paperback Original 2010. And this is what Dean Koontz says: "The Panic Zone is a headlong rush toward Armageddon. It's brisk pace and tight focus remind me of early Michael Crichton."

3 - What can you tell us about your main character that you hadn't realized until you answered the question?

Rick Mofina: Jack Gannon, a crime reporter, is a working-class hero. He paid his dues at a dying newspaper in Buffalo, New York, where he was beginning to think of himself as the all-time loser. He almost won a Pulitzer and he almost got married and he almost had a normal life. For years, he ached to escape for a job at a global wire service in New York City. Even though his dream was a few hundred miles down the road, it always seemed out of reach until we catch up to him in THE PANIC ZONE and he makes his last-chance power drive to prove that reporting is written in his DNA.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Rick Mofina: All of them are my favorites because each one is critical or it wouldn't be there.

5 - What's next?

Rick Mofina: Working on Jack Gannon 4.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Judy Clemens

1 - What's your latest?

Judy Clemens: THE GRIM REAPER'S DANCE, out July 2010 by Poisoned Pen Press.





2 - Assuming I haven't read it, why should I?

Judy Clemens: This book is a mixture of mystery, martial arts, and the paranormal. The Grim Reaper is my protagonist's Watson. A lot of folks who have read the book enjoy that relationship.

3 - What can you tell us about your main character that you hadn't realized until you answered the question?

Judy Clemens: Hmm. That's a hard one. Since I'm just on the third book in this series I am still learning a lot about her. In this book she deals with some teenagers, and I hadn't realized how much she would like people of that age.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Judy Clemens: Death tends to get all the funny lines in the books, and I enjoyed writing the scene where Casey and the GR are walking, and Death comes up with new lyrics to "How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down" (or whatever the actual title is.). That kind of tickled me. Plus, I also enjoy writing the fight scenes, because that's just fun!

5 - What's next?

Judy Clemens: I am working on the third Grim Reaper mystery, plus a few YA and MG books. I love the kidlit genre, and find it fun and refreshing after dealing with Death and the adult issues in my mysteries.

Monday, August 09, 2010

Bill Crider

1 - What's your latest?

Bill Crider: MURDER IN THE AIR, St. Martin's, August 3, 2010. My preferred title was NO LES, NO MORE, but that's another story.



2 - Assuming I haven't read it, why should I?

Bill Crider: Because it's sharp and funny. And it's about a very real problem that faces a lot of people in rural areas, a problem that's getting worse all the time but that very few people know about.

3 - What can you tell us about your main character that you hadn't realized until you answered the question?

Bill Crider: I know the guy (Sheriff Dan Rhodes) pretty well, but until this book I didn't know he was ever likely to have mystical experience.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Bill Crider: The bow and arrow attack at the factory chicken farm. Where else are you going to find a mysterious Robin Hood shooting arrows at scantily clad protesters at a chicken farm?

5 - What's next?

Bill Crider: The next book about Sheriff Rhodes is one I call THE WILD HOG MURDERS. We'll see if the editors let that one stand. Whatever it's called, it should be out in 2011.

Friday, August 06, 2010

Ellen Crosby

1 - What's your latest?

Ellen Crosby: THE VIOGNIER VENDETTA, published by Scribner. (My new paperback, THE RIESLING RETRIBUTION, will also be out from Pocket Books).



2 - Assuming I haven't read it, why should I?

Ellen Crosby: Publishers Weekly calls THE VIOGNIER VENDETTA "an addictive whodunit" and Kirkus says it's "another pleasing combination of mystery, history, and romance in a series that never disappoints" so there are two good reasons. One comment I get a lot is from readers who have just discovered my books and are surprised by the quality of the writing and the fact that they are intelligently written. Years ago when I was living in London I took Robert McKee's Story Structure workshop which was flat-out fantastic. One thing he drummed into us was just that: readers are plenty smart -- aren't they always a step ahead trying to figure out whodunit? -- so it was important to write the kind of smart, fast-paced, unputdownable book that would keep someone up way past their bedtime hating you in the morning! And that's what I try to do. If you haven't read my books, you should!!

3 - What can you tell us about your main character> that you hadn't realized until you answered the question?

Ellen Crosby: THE VIOGNIER VENDETTA mostly takes place in Washington, D.C. about an hour's drive from the part of Virginia where the other books are set. What I didn't realize until I started writing this book was how much I would connect my main character, Lucie Montgomery, with a city that has been a big part of my life, where I lived, worked, and studied for many years.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Ellen Crosby: I have a lot of favorite scenes since the story takes place in Washington during cherry blossom season, but two of them involve spoilers so you'll just have to read the book! However one scene I particularly enjoyed writing is when Lucie has a meeting with the mother of her friend Rebecca, whose clothes were found folded in a rowboat floating in the Potomac River -- and Rebecca has vanished. Her mother asks to go to the National Arboretum on the outskirts of Washington to see the bonsai gardens where they can talk in private. When they arrive, she and Lucie discover a set of Corinthian columns rising on a hill like a ruined Greek temple and learn that they were once part of the East Portico of the US Capitol. There is no one there that day so the two of them talk on that hilltop among the columns, all alone except for the birds and the whistling wind.

5 - What's next?

Ellen Crosby: There will be a sixth book in the series that will be out in 2011. You can find all the latest information about that and the other books on my website, http://wwww.ellencrosby.com or on Facebook at EllenCrosbyBooks.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Deborah Sharp

1 - What's your latest?

Deborah Sharp: My latest is MAMA GETS HITCHED, the third book in the funny, Southern-fried 'Mace Bauer Mystery' series.



2 - Assuming I haven't read it, why should I?

Deborah Sharp: The humor is probably the best reason to read MAMA GETS HITCHED. I love that my readers can escape for a few hours into a part of Florida the tourists never see; meet some offbeat characters; and celebrate Mama's 5th try at tying the sacred knot. It's a murder mystery, all wound up in the Wedding of the Century -- which, of course, goes terribly awry. The world is filled with sad stories (as a former reporter, I know this firsthand). Who doesn't need a laugh now and then?

3 - What can you tell us about your main character that you hadn\'t realized until you answered the question?

Deborah Sharp: Mace Bauer -- tomboyish, fiercely independent, and the foil to her mama's foolishness -- is not nearly as tough as she thinks she is.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Deborah Sharp: Hands down, my favorite scene in MAMA GETS HITCHED is a rolling-in-the-food fistfight at Mama's bridal shower. The frilly setting is already rife with conflict, since it's the last place on earth her tomboyish middle daughter, Mace, wants to be. An excerpt from Chapter 32, just after the battling gals topple a punchbowl full of Nuptial Nectar:

'' . . . A fruity smell rose in the room. Globs of lime sherbet dotted Betty's carpet, like green islands in a lilac sea . . . The two women went next, coming off the table only to lose their footing in frosting, sherbet, and bridal shower punch.

''Make them stop, Sal!'' Mama's hand clutched her throat. ''They're ruining my shower.''

As I watched Alice and C'ndee tumbling across the floor in white frosting and pink punch, I had to disagree with Mama. This was the best bridal fete ever.''

5 - What's next?

Deborah Sharp: I'm almost done writing the fourth book in the series, MAMA SEES STARS. When a Hollywood movie company comes to tiny Himmarshee, Fla., Mama snags a part. She thinks it's her star-crossed destiny, but will the movie role mean curtains for Mama? MAMA SEES STARS comes out in Fall 2011.