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.