Political Fixer Joe DeMarco is back in House Reckoning, which takes him back to his hometown of Queens, New York, to rekindle old friendships and make new enemies. I like what Mike Lawson had to say about choosing a fixer as a central character. Not a private investigator, police detective, or lawyer, a… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Podcast
Episode 14: Becky Masterman
Becky Masterman describes Brigid Quinn, the 59-year old protagonist of her debut novel, Rage Against the Dying, as a cross between Bruce Willis and Sarah Jessica Parker. It turns out people are interested in female characters over the age of 30, in spite of what one agent to whom Becky Masterman initially sent… Read more »
Episode 13: Julia Keller
Later next month, just in time for a good Labor Day read, Summer of the Dead—the third in Julia Keller’s series about Raythune County, West Virginia prosecuting attorney Bell Elkins—will be released. If you haven’t read Ms. Keller’s previous two works A Killing in the Hills and Bitter River, I suggest you start reading… Read more »
Episode 12: Paul Doiron
Toto, I don’t think we’re in Cabot Cove anymore. For the most part, popular culture associates the intersection of mysteries and the state of Maine with Murder She Wrote. You know, the circa ‘80s episodic TV series that featured the quite brilliant Angela Lansbury as a bicycle-riding, Miss Marple-esque mystery writer in a fictional Maine… Read more »
Episode 11: Megan Abbott
“The suburbs are filled with secrets.” –Megan Abbott Read any of Megan Abbott’s last three books and you’ll find there is no darker heart than that of a teenage girl. I think she’s invented a genre: teenage girl suburban noir. Reading one of Megan’s novels is a little like looking at the American… Read more »
Episode 10: Alan Furst
The author of Midnight in Europe talks to SoM about everything from good and evil to romantics and two-lane blacktop roads in France. Book tour for Midnight in Europe photo: © Rainer Hosch
Episode 9: Annie Jacobsen
The New York Times best selling author on her book that delves into the secret program the U.S. employed to sanitize the relocation of Nazi scientists to America after the end of World War II. Annie Jacobsen and I sat down at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books to discuss her most recent book,… Read more »
Episode 8: Don Passman
The author of The Amazing Harvey gets tricky with SoM! Les Klinger and I enjoyed a lunch at the Napa Valley Grill with Don Passman to talk about The Amazing Harvey, his first mystery. The afternoon was entertaining on all fronts. Talking about mysteries is one of our favorite pastimes — and meeting a writer… Read more »
Episode 7: Jo Nesbø
Norway’s best-selling crime fiction writer talks politics, revenge and what makes Sonny —and Harry Hole — tick. I spoke to Jo Nesbø by phone on Tuesday May 13, 2014 — the U.S. publication day of his most recent crime novel, The Son — from the New York City office of Knopf, his U.S. publisher. It… Read more »
Episode 6: Interviews with T. Jefferson Parker and Darrell James
The fourth in our series of interviews conducted at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Jeff Parker lets us in on his feelings about ending his Charlie Hood series after having the characters as companions through almost a decade and six books. I find adjectives woefully inadequate when it comes to describing Jeff… Read more »
