Alan Jacobson

1 - What's your latest?

Alan Jacobson: VELOCITY, the next thriller in the FBI Profiler Karen Vail series, debuts Oct 5, 2010.

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

Alan Jacobson: Karen Vail is a funny, smart, realistic character who has resonated with readers of all types, as well as both genders. The stories are written to engage you emotionally, with twists and turns along the way to keep you turning the pages until you reach the ending—which will not disappoint. In addition, the exhaustive research I’ve done ensures that I’ve done my homework and respect the subject matter. I won’t insult my readers’ intelligence by taking the lazy way out and “making stuff up.” As the reader, you’ll learn a lot about different industries, law enforcement agencies, locations, and behind-the-scenes regional politics.

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

Alan Jacobson: I know my character extremely well, having lived with her for 13 years (even though she’s only appeared in three published novels), so nothing in the above question revealed anything to me. That said, two years ago during a TV interview with one of the FBI profilers I’ve worked with for 18 years, I realized that Karen Vail’s sarcastic dry wit came largely from my childhood growing up in New York. When I moved to California 28 years ago, I found that I had to lose the sarcasm because westerners took sarcasm as arrogance. When I started writing Vail, the long-buried sarcasm and dry wit emerged and formed the basis for an entertaining character. Nelson DeMille said that “Karen Vail is hell of a lady: tough, smart, funny, and very believable.”

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Alan Jacobson: Wow—the way I look at it, I’d better love ALL my scenes or they shouldn’t be in the novel. That said ... it’s impossible to answer the question because I love so many of them. Some bring out the essence of the main characters in a way filled with energy and emotion. Others are absolutely thrilling because of the setup of circumstances, the conflict, and the dangers my characters find themselves in.

5 - What's next?

Alan Jacobson: I’m just starting to write the next Karen Vail novel, and have just submitted another novel to my agent based on a new character that I’m very excited about (although Vail does appear in the novel).

Jeffrey Deaver

1 - What's your latest?

Jeffrey Deaver: EDGE, coming out in November.

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

Jeffrey Deaver: It's one of my one-offs (standalone) thrillers. It's a bit of a departure for me, because it's a thriller told in the first person, which made pulling off the twists and turns in the book a little tricky, but great fun!

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

Jeffrey Deaver: As the author, there really isn't anything I haven't realized about the main character or any of the characters. Although I want my readers to be surprised by the characters and plot twists, I plan everything out in my books in such detail that nothing comes as a surprise to me.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Jeffrey Deaver: I can't tell what it is without spoiling some of fun twists in the book!

5 - What's next?

Jeffrey Deaver: At work nonstop on the new James Bond novel, due out next May.

Stephen Jay Schwartz

1 - What's your latest?

Stephen Jay Schwartz: Latest book is called BEAT, which is a sequel to my first Hayden Glass novel, BOULEVARD. BEAT arrives in the bookstores on September 28, 2010.

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

Stephen Jay Schwartz: BEAT is a very intense, fast-paced psychological thriller that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until it kicks you off a ledge at the end

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

Stephen Jay Schwartz: I realized that Hayden's desperate attempt to right a wrong makes the reader want to take the journey with him, even though the reader might come away feeling like he's been kicked in the gut along the way.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Stephen Jay Schwartz: I like the opening scene, not the "prologue," but the first scene of action, where Hayden finds the girl he's come to save and accidentally leads a set of kidnappers to her doorstep. It's a scene of intense action, shame, regret, humiliation and pathos. It sets the pulse of the entire novel.

5 - What's next?

Stephen Jay Schwartz: Next is a standalone, an international thriller with a young FBI agent as protagonist. Psychological and filled with twists and turns and extremely fast-paced. I'm embroiled in the research as we speak.

Joelle Charbonneau

1 - What's your latest?

My first and latest is SKATING AROUND THE LAW, a comedic mystery from St. Martins/Minotaur Books.

Joelle Charbonneau: Rebecca Robbins is a woman on a mission---to sell the roller rink she inherited from her mother and get back to Chicago. Fast. However, when she discovers the dead body of the town’s handyman headfirst in a rink toilet, potential buyers are scared off. Now Rebecca is stuck in a small town where her former neighbors think she doesn’t belong, living with her scarily frisky grandfather, Pop, and relying on a police department that’s better at gardening than solving crimes.

Eager to move forward with her life, Rebecca begins investigating the murder herself, reluctantly accepting help from Pop and his extensive social network, which includes a handsome veterinarian and a former circus camel named Elwood. Nevertheless, someone isn’t happy she’s looking into the case, and their threats will have her questioning whether playing sleuth was such a good idea after all.

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

Joelle Charbonneau: Well, as far as I can tell, it is the only mystery out there that has an ex-circus camel. That's gotta be worth something, right?

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

Joelle Charbonneau: Rebecca is secretly jealous of all her grandfather's social life. He's a man who has more dates than he can keep track of.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Joelle Charbonneau: I have to admit a certain fondness for the scene where Rebecca's grandfather turns into an Elvis impersonator. The grandfather is a fun character who is willing to try anything once. Dressing him up in sparkly spandex made me laugh.

5 - What's next?

Joelle Charbonneau: Book two of the Rebecca Robbins series - SKATING OVER THE LINE - will be released next year by Minotaur.

James Benn

1 - What's your latest?

James Benn: RAG AND BONE; A Billy Boyle World War II Mystery, released September 1, 2010.

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

James Benn: A rattling good read aside—to better understand the long reach of history, and how events from the past influence the present, and sometimes become the present. Case in point, the death last April of the president of Poland, along with most of his top government officials, in a plane crash in Russia. They were on their way to a commemoration of the Katyn Forest Massacre, where the Soviets executed thousands of Polish officers—ironically, to remove the top level of Polish society. RAG AND BONE is about the revelation in 1943/44 of those killings, and the effect it had both on the war, and on my fictional characters. The tragic accident in April is a reminder of how the past is never as far away as we think.

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

James Benn: Hmmm. I know the guy pretty well, so that’s a tough one. Probably that Billy Boyle would not be at all interested in the long reach of history. Instead, he’d want to know what it meant to him, and the people he cares about, in the here and now. Or the here and then, to be more accurate.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

James Benn: Billy’s encounter with Archie Chapman, an East End crime lord who spends his nights in Tube Stations and his days in a brothel. Archie fought in the First World War, and is a bit unhinged by the experience. He served under Siegfried Sassoon, the English poet who was also a deadly killer in combat. As Archie says, Sassoon taught him how to appreciate poetry and slit a throat, and there’s not many who can do both well.

5 - What's next?

James Benn: In 2011, Billy will journey to the Anzio Beachhead in Italy, to pursue an unknown psychopath who is killing officers, starting with a lieutenant and working his way up to a general. Known as Red Heart, he leaves a playing card on each body, starting with a ten of hearts for the lowly lieutenant, working his way through a royal flush. The tentative title is MORTAL TERROR. I was intrigued by the idea of a psychopath in combat. One army doctor in 1945 said that after enough time in combat, 98% of all GIs would suffer from combat fatigue; the remaining 2% would be psychopaths.

Sara Paretsky

1 - What's your latest?

Sara Paretsky: BODY WORK.

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

Sara Paretsky: Because the curse of many Pharoahs will fall on all who ignore this important book. Joking aside, people who love thrillers tend to like V I and have found this one of her most satisfying cases. At a nightclub in Chicago, a performance artist sits naked on a stage and lets the audience paint their fantasies on her. The performance attracts a wide range of spectators, including some Iraqi war Vets, Ukrainian mobsters, a young woman whose family has been dogged by tragedy -- and V I's young cousin, Petra. When a woman is murdered outside the club, V I is hired to find the killer, and her search uncovers a terrifying vein of corruption that stretches all the way from Baghdad's Green Zone to the South Side of Chicago.

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

Sara Paretsky: Nothing.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Sara Paretsky: V I is aging and no longer leaps tall buildings at a single bound, so some of the action scenes seem both funnier and more mellow to me than in previous books. I like her confrontation with the head of the Ukrainian mob where she's been beaten up and finds herself drifting off to sleep in the middle of his angry confrontation. I also like a scene where she feels she's leading a circus parade of dogs, cousins, Veterans, and old men when she needs to search for some missing documents.

5 - What's next?

Sara Paretsky: V I AND THE VAMPIRES.

Ann Cleeves

1 - What's your latest?

Ann Cleeves: BLUE LIGHTNING

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

Ann Cleeves: Because it's a book you can get lost in. It'll take you to Fair Isle, the most remote inhabited island in the UK. Autumn and a place of storms and wild birds. A scientist at the field centre is murdered - by one of the staff? A birder? An islander? A traditional enclosed community mystery, but set in the present.

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

Ann Cleeves: Jimmy Perez grew up on Fair Isle. He's influenced more than I'd realized by the isolation and the weather.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Ann Cleeves: There's a second murder and the victim is found in the Pund, a ruined croft house, lying on a pile of sheepskins in the loft. I spent a lot of time in the Pund with my husband before we were married. But I think the scene works well. It's physically and emotionally cold.

5 - What's next?

Ann Cleeves: I've nearly finished a new Vera Stanhope novel. ITV is filming the series for television and I don't want them to run out of books to adapt.

SJ Rozan

1 - What's your latest?

SJ Rozan: ON THE LINE, St. Martin's Press, Sept. 28th.

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

SJ Rozan: It's a ticking-clock thriller that sends Bill Smith racing all over New York. If you like high-octane action and a large cast of weirdos, try ON THE LINE.

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

SJ Rozan: He can unravel.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

SJ Rozan: The one where Bill Smith, Lydia Chin's cousin Linus Wong, and a big yellow dog named Woof attempt what Linus refers to as "a split-second precision elite military rescue operation. Like Navy SEALs." Because I never got to write a scene for a swimming dog before.

5 - What's next?

SJ Rozan: GHOST HERO. Set in the art world -- galleries, artists' studios. Talk about weirdos...

Toby Ball

1 - What's your latest?

Toby Ball: My debut novel, THE VAULTS, is published by St. Martin’s Press.

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

Toby Ball: THE VAULTS has been described as dystopian noir. It has a unique atmosphere, a touch of the surreal, and an unlikely protagonist in Arthur Puskis, the Vaults' archivist.

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

Toby Ball: Arthur Puskis possesses that strange power that occasionally attaches itself to individuals who live outside society's norms. Police treat him with reverence though he has none of the characteristics that would normally earn him respect.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Toby Ball: I can't detail a number of my favorite scenes without giving away too much of the plot, so I'll pick one from fairly early in the book. Acting on a tip, Arthur Puskis leaves the City and drives to a rural town called Freeman's Gap to look for a missing person. Even more ill at ease than he is in the City, he navigates rutted roads through seas of wheat to find the shack where a surprise awaits him.

5 - What's next?

Toby Ball: My second novel, SCORCH CITY, will be published in summer or fall of 2011. It is a loose sequel, taking place about fifteen years after THE VAULTS.

Mary Daheim

1 - What's your latest?

Mary Daheim: My latest book in the B&B series from HarperCollins/Morrow is LOCO MOTIVE, due to be released September 7.

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

Mary Daheim: You should read it because innkeeper Judith McMonigle Flynn and her sometimes pain-in-the-neck cousin, Renie, are, as Carolyn Hart puts it, "Sleuths to treasure." (Some might say Renie should be a BURIED treasure, but that's because the character is based on the author.) You should, of course, read all the books in the series because they have humor, mystery (the kind that a sharp-eyed reader can solve), and feature two middle-aged women who are all too human.

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

Mary Daheim: I can’t tell you much--unless you're referring to last night's phone call to Coz Judy (the real Judith) I should add that neither Judith nor Renie are exact replicas of the real deals. But they're very near the mark.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Mary Daheim: My favorite scene is ... this is tough ... early on when Renie gets the switch from daylight saving time screwed up and they almost miss the train OR a scene toward the end involving mistaken identity of the cousins (and I won’t say how or why, as that would spoil it). The latter scene was the last of the wonderful ideas Dave, my late husband, gave me for the book before he died in early February. Since retirement, he had edited each book chapter by chapter. The really favorite scene might have been the one you--and I--will never see, because Dave didn’t get around to suggesting it to me before he died.

5 - What's next?

Mary Daheim: Next up is the new Alpine from Random House/Ballantine, THE ALPINE VENGEANCE, due out in late March 2011. The paperback version of the previous book in the series, THE ALPINE UPROAR, will be released in February 2011. ALPINE VENGEANCE is based on the homicide in THE ALPINE FURY and regular readers of Emma Lord might want to at least skim a copy of that one. I had to read the whole thing word for word to remember it after 15+ years had gone by since I wrote it. I always encourage ALPINE fans to read the books in order as they are more character-driven and a bit more serious than the B&Bs. After finishing the manuscript of ALPINE VENGEANCE, I took time to run through all the ALPINES and realized that what happens to Emma in the new book had been there from the start in THE ALPINE ADVOCATE. I'm currently working on the next B&B for 2011--ALL THE PRETTY HEARSES.

Lisa Black

1 - What's your latest?

Lisa Black: TRAIL OF BLOOD, released September 7.

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

Lisa Black: Because it deals with one of the most bizarre, true-life serial killer cases in America: The Torso Murderer, who terrorized Cleveland with dismembered bodies during the already dark days of the Great Depression. My character is a forensic scientist, and has my old job at the coroner's office there, where those bodies were sent and examined.

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

Lisa Black: That she's always been the good girl, the sensible one, the stable, logical, understanding one. And she's getting really sick of it.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Lisa Black: When she's dashing between trains in a dark, foggy valley, pursuing a guy whom (who?) she just found burying two bodies in a re-creation of the Torso Killer's second and third murders.

5 - What's next?

Lisa Black: Theresa encounters another serial killer, but as before, I just can't make myself kill any more beautiful coeds. So I'm killing off attorneys instead. (No offense to those in the legal profession, you're probably the only ones who work crappier hours than I do...)

Elizabeth Sims

1 - What's your latest?

Elizabeth Sims: ON LOCATION: A Rita Farmer Mystery, hardcover from St. Martin's Minotaur, released August 3, 2010. It's the third in the Rita Farmer series, (THE EXTRA, 2009; THE ACTRESS, 2008).

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

Elizabeth Sims: You definitely should NOT read it if you hate 'crime fiction as smart as it is compelling,' which is what Booklist called it. If you're tired of 'maximum impact' (Publishers Weekly) and never again want to read a 'fabulous novel' (Harriet Klausner), PLEASE don't pick up this book. You'll just have a terrible time. On the other hand, if you've ever had an argument with a sibling and wondered how far brotherly or sisterly love--or hate-- can go, you should read ON LOCATION. If you want to lose yourself in a story that rips you from your worries and hurls you into an exhilarating maelstrom of wilderness suspense, personal courage, and calculated risk involving renegade loggers, millionaire heirs to a lumber fortune, and a little boy with a talent for drawing the truth---well then, give ON LOCATION a try.

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

Elizabeth Sims: I believe she has an appendectomy scar I hadn't noticed before.

4 - What's your favorite scene and why?

Elizabeth Sims: This is hard. The story takes place mostly in the storm-lashed Pacific Northwest, where Rita's sister Gina has gone missing while scouting movie locations. It's tough to decide between two scenes: one is Rita's love interest George Rowe impersonating a yacht salesman to get a high-class dame to spill some tasty beans. The other is a fight to the death between sasquatch-like wilderness thugs and Team Rita. I can't spoil it, but I can tell you the scene involves Rita playing a role with the help of raccoon skins, a hatchet, and a 70-foot log bridge over a foaming river chasm.

5 - What's next?

Elizabeth Sims: Am working on the fourth in the series, titled BEST BOY, where Rita's son Petey gets even more involved in this business of distinguishing liars from murderers from good guys. Also, as a Contributing Editor at WRITER'S DIGEST magazine, I'm continuing to write features on how to write great fiction. Am also working on a book about that. www.elizabethsims.com.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.