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


 
THE BIG INTERROGATION: Katy Munger might be best known for her Casey Jones series, but she has a couple of other series, one starring Hubbert and Lil written under the name Gallagher Gray, and the other the Dead Detective series which she began under the name Chaz McGee. Severn House has just released the fourth installment of that series, entitled Angel Among Us, which was named one of Amazon's best suspense novels for November. Disembodied spirit and former incompetent, drunk cop Kevin Fahey tries to find a kidnapped woman before it's too late.


 
BONUS: I interviewed Jeff Crook this summer when his first Jackie Lyons novel, The Sleeping and the Dead, was released by Minotaur/St. Martin's. Not only does it have a supernatural setting, with the protagonist being a crime scene photographer who can see the dead, but it is set right around Thanksgiving, so I thought it be a great time to revisit it.

Direct download: Case021-KatyMunger.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 9:06am EDT
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The Big Interrogration: Peggy Webb has enjoyed a prolific and respected career of writing fiction since 1985, with close to 70 novels being published. Her cozy Southern Cousins Mystery series cracks way more jokes than it bumps off characters in the Mooreville/Tupelo, Mississippi area. The narrators are beauty shop owner Callie Valentine and her basset hound Elvis, who believes himself to be the reincarnated King of Rock'n'Roll. In the new installment, Elvis and the Blue Christmas Corpse, will they be able to stop a Yuletide serial killer who is bumping off the residents of the local shopping mall's Santa's Village?

As a bonus for human Elvis fans, here's my 2010 interview George Klein about his book,  Elvis: My Best Man: Radio Days, Rock 'n' Roll Nights, and My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley. GK, as he's known to friends and fans alike, is a broadcasting legend in Memphis and was a member of The King's famed Memphis Mafia.


Direct download: CASE020-PEGGY_WEBB.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:02am EDT
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The Big Interrogation: Michael Kardos is the co-director on the creative writing program at Mississippi State University. His story collection One Last Good Time won the 2012 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction. His debut novel is The Three-Day Affair, published by Otto Penzler's The Mysterious Press. It's the story of three college friends and a golf weekend reunion that goes horribly wrong.

Direct download: Case019-MichaelKardos.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 6:36pm EDT
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Jamie Freveletti is a lawyer turned award-winning novelist. Back in September, her offering for the Robert Ludlum estate, The Janus Reprisal, was published. Harper has just released the fourth novel in her series featuring chemist and adventurer Emma Caldridge, Dead Asleep, which is available now in paperback. 

Also on this week's show is an older interview I conducted with Molly Caldwell Crosby back in 2010 about her book Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic that Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries. It's about encephalitis lethargica, one of the possible causes of the sleeping sickness in Dead Asleep by Jamie Freveletti. Molly will be back on Mysterypod in a few weeks to talk about her brand new historical true crime story, The Great Pearl Heist: London's Greatest Thief and Scotland Yard's Hunt for the World's Most Valuable Necklace, which will be published on November 27 by Berkeley.

Direct download: CASE018-JAMIE_FREVELETTI.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 5:15pm EDT
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The Big Interrogation: Mark Sullivan served in the Peace Corps, worked as a journalist, helped build roads in Montana, and is a thriller writer. His latest novel is Rogue; the first in a new series starring Robin Monarch. He's a thief turned CIA operative who starts to distrust his handler, which kicks off an international thrill ride.

Direct download: Case017-MarkSullivan.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 5:46pm EDT
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The Big InterrogationJ. R. Moehringer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. His 2005 memoir, The Tender Bar was a best seller and was named a NY Times Notable Book; he co-wrote Andre Agassi's memoir, Open, which has been praised as one of the greatest sports memoirs of all time. Hyperion has recently released his first novel, Sutton, which is a fictionalized telling of the life of America's greatest bank robber, Willie "The Actor" Sutton.
 
Tale of True Crime: Novelist and poet Julianna Baggott tells how a moment of witnessed violence became a scene in her novel, Pure, which is now available in paperback from Grand Central. The second installment of her dystopian trilogy, Fuse, will be published in February 2013.

Direct download: CASE016-JR_MOEHRINGER.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 4:59pm EDT
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I interviewed Wiley Cash earlier this year for his debut novel, A Land More Kind Than Home. He just won the Crime Writers Association's John Creasey New Blood Dagger. Congrats, Wiley! Enjoy the interview!

Direct download: WILEY_CASH_2012_WYPL_BOOK_TALK.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 6:52pm EDT
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The Big Interrogation: Attica Locke. I was lucky enough to interview Attica back in 2009, when her first mystery, Black Water Rising, was released. It was nominated for many awards, the biggest being shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, which is the highest profile award in the world focusing on women writing in English. (Barbara Kingsolver won that year, and Hillary Mantel was a fellow shortlistee, so very impressive company, indeed.) 

2012 brings us her second mystery, The Cutting Season. It is set on a museum plantation down in Louisiana, where class and race conflict are part of the permanent collection. You can also listen to our interview for her book, Black Water Rising, by clicking here.
Tale of True Crime: Julie Cantrell is the former editor of the Southern Literary Review and the author of the NY Times bestselling coming-of-age novel, Into the Free.

Direct download: CASE015-ATTICA_LOCKE.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 1:15pm EDT
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The Big Interrogation: Michael Wiley just received a Shamus for best hardcover p.i. novel at last week's Bouchercon 2012 in Cleveland. I went to Bouchercon last year in St. Louis and interviewed Michael about his third Joe Kozmarski book, A Bad Night's Sleep, which just won the Shamus. During the interview, my microphone pre-amp started to die. About 15 minutes in, my channel starts to sound pretty rough, but Michael's sounds great all the way through. Because of the audio problems, I wasn't able to use the interview for Book Talk, but I thought it'd be a great time to resurrect it given his recent triumph. And here's my interview with him about his 2010 mystery, The Bad Kitty Lounge.



Tale of True Crime: Lawrence Norfolk is a journalist and award-winning novelist. His first novel in twelve years, John Saturnall's Feast, follows an orphan who becomes England's greatest chef during the period leading up to and including the English Civil War in the 17th century. You can hear my interview with him about John Saturnall's Feast on Book Talk.

Direct download: CASE014-MICHAEL_WILEY.mp3
Category:Arts - Literature -- posted at: 10:44am EDT
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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.

Direct download: Case013-Hank_Phillipp__Ryan.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:00pm EDT
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