Stephen Usery interviews authors of mysteries, thrillers, and crime fiction.


photo by David Hayward,
who co-wrote Heads You Lose with Lisa.
He's funny, too... for a poet.


This has been a long time coming. I've been reading Lisa Lutz's Spellman series since it started in 2007 with The Spellman Files. They started off as an odd but warm family of private eyes, but as the series has progressed, the characters have deepened with complexity and a melancholy streak which defines them as humans and not just authorial puppets. The Last Word looks at Izzy Spellman's nascent reign as head of Spellman Inc., and power has corrupted her already shaky soul. Revolt is brewing in the office and trouble is at hand in her major investor's venture capital firm.


 And Lisa is serious about wanting your money. Two Spellman-associated titles were also recently released, How to Negotiate Everything and Isabel Spellman's Guide to Etiquette.





Lisa losing her dignity:


Here's Dice Clay being meta, I think, maybe, I'm not sure...


Direct download: CASE039-LISA_LUTZ.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 9:38am EDT
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Up first, I speak with Daniel Silva about his thirteenth Gabriel Allon novel, The English Girl. Gabriel Allon is a restorer high-end paintings and a high-end operative for a branch of the Israeli secret service known as The Office. Not every Allon novel is based on the Palestinian and Islamic threats to the Israeli state, and that is the case with The English Girl. Allon is called in to help the British government when a young politico goes missing while on vacation in the Mediterranean.


Up next is my chat with Michael Harvey. Michael Harvey is the co-creator and producer of the hit A&E television show Cold Case Files. He has earned a law degree. He's also an instructor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He also owns a bar in Chicago called The Hidden Shamrock. And to make you feel like a lazy bum, he also writes crime novels. He's published four starring the former Chicago cop and current PI Michael Kelly, and Knopf has recent published a standalone thriller which marries his love of journalism and criminal law in The Innocence Game.

Direct download: CASE038-SILVAHARVEY.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 10:52am EDT
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David Berg is one of the most feared and respected trial attorneys in America. His brother Alan Berg was murdered in the spring of 1968. Charles Harrelson, the father of actor Woody Harrelson, was tried for the murder. David has recently published  Run, Brother, Run: A Memoir of Murder in My Family which looks at David's tumultuous family history leading up to the time of Alan's death, and the effect it and the subsequent trial had on him and his family.

Direct download: CASE037-DAVID_BERG.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 2:19pm EDT
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Scott Phillips is probably best known for his debut novel, The Ice Harvest, which was made into a film with John Cusak and Billy Bob Thornton. Following were The Walkaway, the western Cottonwood, the story collection Rum, Sodomy, and False Eyelashes, the sci-fi novel The Rut, and The Adjustment. Counterpoint has just released his novel Rake, the story of an American soap opera actor who gets in over his head when he tries to make a movie in Paris.

Direct download: Case036-Scott_Phillips.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 11:01am EDT
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Ace Atkins has grown to be one of America's most successful crime fiction writers. He started off with a series about New Orleans private eye Nick Travers, and then wrote four critically-acclaimed novels based on true crimes. Now he's currently running two series. He was chosen by Robert B. Parker's estate to continue on the Spenser series and has hit the New York Times best seller list with the two he has written so far. He's released three book in his Quinn Colson series, featuring an Army Ranger who returns home to a small town in the hill country of north Mississippi to find the corruption there untenable. It began with The Ranger in 2011 followed by The Lost Ones, and both were finalists for the Edgar for best novel. Putnam has just released the third in the series, and it's entitled The Broken Places.


 

On February 2, 2013 famed Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield were murdered at a gun range in Texas. Accused of the crime is fellow veteran Eddie Ray Routh. Anthony Swofford,former Marine Corps sniper, novelist and author of the memoir Jarhead, has written an essay entitled "Death of an American Sniper," which looks at Kyle's and Routh's lives and the facts around the murder as they are known to date. "Death of an American Sniper" is available as an e-book at byliner.com, which offers digital quick reads from writers like Chuck Palahniuk, Margaret Atwood,and Richard Russo.

Direct download: CASE035-ACE_ATKINS.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 11:57am EDT
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Charles Graeber is an award winning journalist and contributor to numerous publications including Wired,GQ, The New Yorker,Outside Magazine,Bloomberg Businessweek,and The New York Times.

His work has been honored with prizes including the Overseas Press Club award and the New York Press Club prize. He's had several National Magazine Award nominations, and his work has been selected for anthologies such as The Best American Crime Writing and The Best American Science Writing.

His first book, which is already a New York Times bestseller, The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness,and Murder is the true crime story of Charles Cullen, who may well be America's most prolific serial killer, and the business practices of several hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania which made his almost two decade long murder spree possible.

Direct download: Case034-Charles_Graeber.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 9:47am EDT
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I'm going to have a lot of interviews coming up this month to make up for the trickle that has been so far this year. today Fiona Maazel, next week Charles Graeber, author of The Good Nurse, the true crime story of Charles Cullen who could be America's most prolific serial killer. There are also several interesting authors scheduled to stop by the studios of my other show Book Talk, and I'll be sharing these interviews with you. Assuming all things go well, Ace Atkins, Scott Phillips, and Michael Harvey will be coming at your ears over the next few weeks.

I first spoke with Fiona Maazel in 2008 about her debut novel, Last Last Chance which was the story of a drug-addicted young woman trying to get sober while the threat of a super-plague is causing the country to freak the hell out. Graywolf Press has recently released he second novel, Woke Up Lonely. Woke Up Lonely has all the hallmarks of a thriller. A man named Thurlow Dan leads a cult called The Helix which promises to take away the loneliness which seems endemic and epidemic to contemporary American life. His estranged wife Esme, a former CIA operative, is currently freelancing and spying on her  husband.  A botched recon mission has led Thurlow to keep the team hostage, as Federal and local law agencies begin a siege on his compound in Cincinnati. Oh yeah, North Korea also gets involved, and there's a miles-long criminal underground labyrinth beneath the Queen City. But the story is really about the damage we hold inside ourselves which prevents us from making connections with the people we care about. After the interview proper is over, stick around as Fiona and I talk about the Eurovision Song Contest and the appeal of Nigella Lawson. 

And for those very curious types: Denmark Eurovision 2013 winner.



Montenegro being awesome:


And the OMGWTF that was Romania:

Direct download: case-033-_fiona_maazel.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 1:27pm EDT
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Sorry for the period of radio silence, victims and perpetrators. I'm going to try to get at least two interviews per month uploaded each month. I figured it was time for a little punishment to go with all our crimes. OK, maybe a lot of punishment. I drove over to Nashville and talked to Vanderbilt history professor Joel Harrington about his new book, The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century. Frantz Schmidt was the master executioner of Nuremberg in the late 1500s. His father was forced into the execution profession, and Frantz had little choice but follow, yet he worked tirelessly to restore the family's honor.

Direct download: CASE032-JOEL_HARRINGTON.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 2:51pm EDT
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Here's my interview with Maureen Johnson about her new novel The Madness Underneath, the second book in the Shades of London series. Louisiana high-school student Rory Deveau is recovering from a run in with a killer who imitated the crimes of Jack the Ripper, and now she has to make some tough decisions while being pulled in different directions by family, friends, and government while attending boarding school in London.

Direct download: CASE031-MAUREEN_JOHNSON.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 2:52pm EDT
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In this episode, I talk with Jenny Milchman about her debut novel, Cover of Snow.  It's the suspenseful story of Nora Hamilton, a home restoration contractor, who wakes up to find her world turned upside down. Her small town becomes difficult to navigate as the Adirondack Mountains snow piles up, and she doesn't know if she can trust anyone to tell her the truth. 

Direct download: CASE030-JENNY_MILCHMAN.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 10:13am EDT
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