Hank Phillippi Ryan is an investigative reporter for WHDH-TV in Boston. She's the author of the Charlie McNally series of novels which started in 2007, and they've been nominated for several awards. In 2009, she won Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards for her short story "On the House." 2012 brings us her new book, The Other Woman, starring reporter Jane Ryland.

Nancie Clare offers up Gypsies, gunfire, and repercussions in this week's tale of true crime. She and Rip Georges are teaming up to create the tablet magazine called Noir. Check out their fundraising campaign on kickstarter.com.The campaign wraps up on October 5, 2012, so get after it.

For the big interrogation this week, we wade into the swamp that is southern gothic. Michael Morris's third novel, Man in the Blue Moon, offers up transgression, revenge, and a crooked preacher. Set in Florida's panhandle during the closing weeks of World War I, this is not the genteel south; this is a land full of drinkers, scheming bankers, and mysterious strangers.

Gregg Hurwitz gets a little too much local color at a Moscow bar in this week's tale of true crime. His latest novel is The Survivor, which is available from St. Martin's press.

And finally this week is a bit of my conversation with Tim Hallinan from our interview this past summer that didn't make it into the podcast. He recently published the e-book Making Story: Twenty-One Writers on How They Plot. It's available for Kindle from amazon.com for 3.99, for free if you have an Amazon Prime account.

Gregg Hurwitz is a man on fire. He just took over scripting the comic book series Batman:The Dark Knight. Shawn Ryan (The Shield, Lie to Me) and Gregg are teaming up to turn his U.S. Marshal Tim Rackley books into a series for TNT, and St. Martin's has just published his twelfth novel, The Survivor, about an Army vet who thinks he has nothing to lose when he gets caught in the middle of a bank robbery. 

Julia Keller offers up this week's Tale of True Crime. A Killing in the Hills, her first mystery starring West Virginia prosecutor Bell Elkins, is available from Minotaur.



   

 The team behind the late Los Angeles Times Magazine, Nancie Clare and Rip Georges, have decided to turn to a life of crime. Well, not quite, they're developing the first tablet magazine dedicated to thrillers, mysteries, and true crime, and it's called Noir. Currently in the process of raising funds, you can check out their Kickstarter page for more info on the project.

This week's big interrogation is with Andrew Cotto about his second novel, Outerborough Blues: A Brooklyn Mystery. Caesar is a young man in a rough section of Brooklyn in the early 1990s. He's just trying to cook good food and fix up his house when a beautiful stranger walks into his boss's restaurant and changes the neighborhood forever.

Courtney Miller Santo looks back at her great-grandparents who had too much felonious fun in San Francisco back in the day. Courtney's novel, The Roots of the Olive Tree, is about five generations of women who are being studied for a possible genetic link for longevity, and secrets and crimes are unearthed along the way.

Megan Abbott is this week's Big Interrogation. Her new novel Dare Me looks at the dangerous world of competitive cheerleading, and in this world, acrobatic stunts aren't the only things that go bad. I've interviewed Megan twice before. Go here for our chat about The End of Everything and here about Bury Me Deep.

And in place of the regular feature segments this week, here's a sneak peek of my interview with New York Times best seller Peter Heller about his literary post-apocalyptic thriller, The Dog Stars, where almost everything has gone bad after a super-flu has decimated the world's population. The interview was conducted for my radio show Book Talk, but I'll give the Mysterypod faithful first crack at it.

Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Keller is this week's Big Interrogation. A Killing in the Hills is the first thriller in her Bell Elkins series, which takes place in rural West Virginia, as the small town of Acker's Gap is going to hell in a handbasket due to the illegal prescription pain pill trade and it's attendant violence.

Steve Usery takes the BaD tour from ABQ Trolley Company in Albuquerque, which lets riders check out many of the locations from the hit TV show, Breaking Bad. For more of Steve's pictures from the tour click here.

The Big Interrogation this week is with multi-award-winner Sean Chercover author of the The Trinity Game. Daniel Byrne, a priest/investigator for the Vatican's Devil's Advocate Office is sent to debunk the miraculous claims about an American televangelist, Tim Trinity, who happens to be Byrne's uncle.

Domingo Samudio, better known as Sam from Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, shares stories of growing up rough in Texas and hard livin' women and a couple of poems seeking redemption.

The Big Interrogation this week is with Lou Berney. His bio says that he is a accomplished liar, so who knows where this conversation falls off the truth train. He's written two comic crime novels starring too-nice-for-his-own-good wheelman Shake Bouchon, Gutshot Straight and Whiplash River.

Founder Clay Stafford will preview the upcoming Killer Nashville Conference, which takes place August 23-26, 2012 at the Hutton Hotel in Music City, U.S.A. Honored guests this year are C.J. Box, Heywood Gould, and Peter Straub.

And Steve talks with Richard Katz of Mystery One Bookstore in Milwaukee, Wisconsin about what he's been reading and what new releases we can look forward to this August.