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Leighton Gage’s Perfect Hatred, the newest installment in his series featuring Brazilian Federal Police Inspector Mario Silva, is BookPage’s Top Pick in Mystery for March 2013. With an exotic location and perfect plotting, it is “hands down the first ‘do not miss’ mystery of 2013!”

BookPage chatted with Gage about Brazil, the tough lives of cops and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Armchair tourism for crime fiction lovers.

Why does Brazil make such an excellent setting for your thrillers?
Brazil is big, larger than the continental United States, and endlessly variable. From the Amazon region in the north, with the biggest rainforest in the world and a single river that pumps out 20 percent of all the fresh water on earth, to the Pantanal, the largest wetland area on the planet, there are thousands of potential locations I can transport my readers to—and hundreds of issues to explore.

In Perfect Hatred, for example, we range from São Paulo, the largest city in the Southern hemisphere, to the great waterfalls at Iguaçu, where three countries meet. And then we cross over the border into Paraguay, a sad little country where contraband makes up 80 percent of the national economy and human life is cheap.

Would you make a good cop? Why or why not?
I’d make a lousy cop.

In researching my books, I’ve spent a lot of time with cops and their families. And through those experiences, I’ve come to realize how hard the job is. I’m not talking about the technical challenges or the day-to-day investigations. I’m talking about the emotional side, about what working as a cop does to you inside.

By way of illustration, here’s a story I got from one detective’s wife:

“There’s no truth in the adage ‘it’s a small world.’ It is, in fact, a very big world.”

Her husband was assigned to investigate a double murder. A 17-year-old girl claimed she’d returned home from a date to find her parents bludgeoned to death in their bed. But the cop’s instincts told him the girl was lying. Ultimately, she confessed that she and her boyfriend had committed the crime. Not because she’d hated her parents, not because they’d abused her, but because they’d objected to her continuing relationship with the thug who helped kill them. She showed no remorse for what she’d done. She didn’t shed a single tear during the entire interrogation. Her only concern was that she’d been caught.

But the cop was so shocked that he went home, sank into a chair, wrapped his 7-year-old daughter in his arms and bawled like a baby. “Seventeen years old,” he kept saying, over and over again. “Seventeen years old.”

His wife felt helpless. She couldn’t find a way to comfort him.

If you could take one of Mario Silva’s characteristics for yourself, what would it be?
Hmm. That’s a tough one. He’s an amalgam, you see, of the best cops I’ve known. He has integrity. He’s smart. He’s a good team leader, compassionate, intuitive and not cowed by his bosses, the bureaucracy or the largely corrupt system in which he works. So there are a lot of sterling qualities to choose from. But if I had to choose just one, I’d have to say it’s his dogged persistence.

Why?

Because, invariably, when I start a new book, it’s like looking at a cliff I have to climb. All authors know this feeling, know we’ll get to the top eventually, but it requires the expenditure of considerable energy to keep at it, day after day, week after week, scrambling our lonely way up that mental rock face.

If Silva could bottle his dogged persistence, writers would buy it by the caseload.

Name one book you think everyone should read.
Everyone? I can’t even come up with a book that I think would appeal equally to my wife and my daughters.

No, wait, I take that back. There’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

For once, I put aside our dissimilar reading preferences and recommended that one to all the members of my family. All of them loved it. As, I think, has everyone who has ever read it.

You’ve done quite a bit of traveling. What’s the greatest thing you’ve learned from all your adventures?
That there’s no truth in the adage “it’s a small world.” It is, in fact, a very big world. No lifetime is long enough to see it all—and 100 lifetimes wouldn’t be enough to learn all its languages and understand all its cultures.

What’s next?
The Ways of Evil Men. Silva and his crew are called in to investigate the extermination of a tribe in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. The good folks from Soho will be publishing it in the early part of next year.

Leighton Gage's Perfect Hatred, the newest installment in his series featuring Brazilian Federal Police Inspector Mario Silva, is BookPage's Top Pick in Mystery for March 2013. With an exotic location and perfect plotting, it is "hands down the first 'do not miss' mystery of…
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Murder as a Fine Art takes its inspiration from the real-life, unsolved Ratcliffe Highway murders, two bloody attacks on two separate families in 1811. The gory attacks of random, innocent people threw London into a panic, as the homes of good, law-abiding citizens were no longer safe. Thomas De Quincey, author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, dramatized the murders in a postscript to his essay, “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,” which depicted the events in gruesome, intimate detail and portrayed the killer as an artistic genius.

In Murder as a Fine Art, it has been over four decades since the Ratcliffe Highway murders, and deep in the heavy fog of London, someone has begun to commit identical murders. The only man who may be able to stop the new killer is De Quincey, who is not only a suspect in the case but also a clear target. With the help of his resourceful daughter Emily, two Scotland Yard detectives and a steady stream of laudanum, De Quincey goes toe-to-toe with an evil history.

Morrell has created an atmospheric, precise murder mystery with fascinating historical detail. Like De Quincey, his work conveys chilling insight into the mind of a serial killer.

During many months of research, you plunged into the world of 1854 London and the works of De Quincey. You’ve called this process “method” writing, which begs the question: Having immersed yourself in this world and De Quincey’s thoughts, what is your own opinion of murder’s artistic value?

Yes, for two years I had the adventure of immersing myself in 1854 London. The only books I read were related to that time, and I so focused on the period that I managed to convince myself I was there. As for murder being a fine art, Thomas De Quincey argued that some killings evoke so much pity and terror in the Aristotelian sense that they become the equivalent of powerful dramas while the killers themselves become imaginative authors. De Quincey’s famous essay “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth” is one of the first examples of psychological criticism. He explored the effect of a text on an audience’s psyche, and he felt that a certain type of murder, one that paralyzes an entire country the way the Ratcliffe Highway murders did, could be analyzed as if it were a play.

“There needs to be something about the theme, the subject, the research and the way the book is written that makes me fuller. That certainly happened with Murder as a Fine Art.”

One of the most powerful questions in historical fiction is “What if?” When you were researching this novel, which “What if?” were you most excited to explore?

There were a string of “What ifs,” all of them related. A brief reference to De Quincey in a recent movie about Darwin, Creation, made me curious enough to look at some Victorian literature texts that I still have from my college days. My professor hadn’t said much about De Quincey, but now, as I read De Quincey’s work, I became increasingly excited by his brilliance. Then I found his Postscript to “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,” which was published in the fall of 1854, and I suddenly thought—I’m not exaggerating about the cascading way this came together—“What if De Quincey came to London in 1854 to publicize his essay? What if someone used that essay as a blueprint for replicating the Ratcliffe Highway murders? What if De Quincey became the logical suspect because of his opium addiction and his obsession about the murders?” Of course, it took two years of research and writing in order to dramatize those questions.

De Quincey suggested that the artistic brilliance of the Ratcliffe Highway murders would raise the aesthetic bar for future murders. Would you call De Quincey the father of the mystery novel? Would you go so far as to call him the father of the modern murder? Why or why not?

We know that De Quincey strongly influenced Edgar Allan Poe, who is generally considered to be the inventor of the detective story with “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Poe then influenced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the creation of Sherlock Holmes. So if De Quincey isn’t the father of the detective mystery genre, he can justly be called the grandfather of it.

Between Poe and Conan Doyle, there’s Wilkie Collins, whose The Moonstone is usually called the first detective novel as opposed to the detective short stories of Poe. In The Moonstone, Collins uses De Quincey and his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater to solve the mystery, so De Quincey certainly had an effect on the genre. At the same time, De Quincey was also one of the originators of Sensation Fiction, which is what we now call thrillers. When I saw the pattern, I realized that De Quincey would make a perfect detective. We can trace a line from Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lector all the way back to De Quincey’s influence on crime fiction.

De Quincey is best remembered for his addiction to laudanum, a painkilling mixture of opium and alcohol, as memorialized by his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. In Murder as a Fine Art, his addiction is clearly killing him. However, it helped him write beautifully, and in this novel, it makes him a formidable opponent to the murderer. Parallels to Sherlock Holmes must be drawn. Why are drugs a classic element of mysteries?

Laudanum was as common in Victorian medicine cabinets as aspirin is today. It was used for baby colic, back pain, kidney ailments, menstrual cramps, cancer, hay fever—just about anything. It had a skull and crossbones on the bottle, along with a label marked “POISON.” Arguably, many Victorians were drug addicts without realizing it, which explains the dark, muffled rooms of the period. A tablespoon of laudanum would probably be lethal. But De Quincey sometimes drank 16 ounces of the stuff each day. For him it worked as a stimulant rather than a sedative, and under its influence, he wrote amazingly evocative, brilliant prose.

Lest someone decide that this is the key to being a wonderful writer, I should add that De Quincey suffered opium nightmares that made him feel that he endured the horrors of 100 years each night. His stomach and bowels shut down. He had massive debts because he spent so much money on opium.

It’s interesting to note that Sherlock Holmes injects himself with a seven percent solution of cocaine. Wilkie Collins was a prisoner of laudanum. Poe claimed to have tried to commit suicide by using laudanum. His narrators sometimes use laudanum, lending a distinctive tone to the prose. But I don’t see an epidemic of drug-affected detectives after the Victorian era ended.

While drug use plays a role in this book, the roots of the problem are British imperialism, the wars waged in the name of colonialism and the British East India Company’s opium trade. The shady opium dealings detailed in Murder as a Fine Art force the reader to question who really is to blame—and whether or not the murderer is validated in his actions. As deplorable as the opium trade was, was it bad enough to justify murder? Can murder this gruesome ever be validated?

Now we get to the central theme of the novel. Because of De Quincey’s opium addiction, the plot pivots around that drug. The concept of physical and mental addiction wasn’t understood for much of the Victorian era. They thought of it as a habit that could be overcome by fortitude. The British East India Company, which was powerful enough to lend money to the British government to finance wars, made most of its money from opium. Some of that opium was shipped home to England (along with opium from Turkey). But much of it was smuggled into China (the emperor didn’t want it in his country) in exchange for Chinese tea, which was more valuable than opium on the international market. Huge fortunes were made in this way. Many universities (including American Ivy league ones) have endowments that started with donations of opium profits. The murderer in my novel isn’t a sociopathic maniac. Without giving away a major twist in the plot, I think it’s safe to say that he’s extremely sympathetic, which is an odd thing to say about a mass murderer, even a fictional one, but given his experiences, his torment seemed heartbreaking.

Throughout Murder as a Fine Art, characters are unable to escape their pasts: De Quincey is haunted by memories on every corner of London; an Irish cop tries to hide his red hair; the killer’s motivations come from secrets in his past; horrifying murders are repeated. How inescapable is our past?

The burden of the past—how we can’t escape our origins—is certainly one aspect of the novel. My own past had nightmarish aspects. After my father died in combat, my mother couldn’t raise me by herself and put me in an orphanage. Later she reclaimed me, although I sometimes felt I was adopted without being told. After she remarried, it turned out that my stepfather disliked children. There were constant terrifying arguments between my mother and him. Fearful, I used to sleep beneath my bed. I went to sleep, telling stories to myself. I’m still telling those stories.

The challenge is to overcome the imperfection of our past. In Murder as a Fine Art, the murderer is as much controlled by his childhood as De Quincey is.

This historical thriller is certainly a departure for you. You took real characters, true works and actual events, but went further: Murder as a Fine Art doesn’t simply recreate the original murders, but even extrapolates theories and solves the original crime altogether. Without giving too much away, do you truly believe you solved it, or did you make fictional leaps in your conclusion?

My solution to the motives for the 1811 Ratcliffe Highway mass murders is consistent with the information that’s available about them. The detail that almost no one addressed is that in the second set of killings, the supposed murderer John Williams killed a tavern-keeper named John Williamson. When I first read this, I thought it was a typo. I’m aware of only one commentator, G.K. Chesterton, who thought that this was weird. “It sounds like a sort of infanticide,” Chesterton said. Because my novel’s main character, Thomas De Quincey, invented the term “subconscious” and anticipated Freud’s theories by more than half a century, I decided that the psychological implication of Williams killing Williamson would provide the explanation for not only that set of killings but the ones that occurred 12 days earlier. I can’t suggest that mine is the only explanation, but my solution is logical and fits the details.

In the book’s afterword, you call Murder as a Fine Art “[your] version of a nineteenth-century novel.” How was writing in this 19th-century style different from crafting your other novels?

Flaubert, Henry James and Hemingway are three authors who drastically changed the way novels came to be written, largely due to their development of the third-person limited viewpoint. Before them, novels tended to be written in an omniscient third-person historian’s voice or else in the first person. The omniscient voice is almost never used these days.  It relies on telling, not showing. Its narrator can be intrusive. It’s so different from the third-person limited viewpoint that these days it draws attention to itself, even though it once was taken for granted. In Bleak House, which Dickens released in 1853, a year before the events in Murder as a Fine Art, he alternates an omniscient viewpoint with a first-person viewpoint. All of this would now probably be rejected in a creative writing class. But I decided that because my novel is set in 1854, it needed to be written in a way that evoked 1854. I needed to make it a modern version of a Victorian novel.

The other thing I realized was that for me the omniscient viewpoint was essential because 1854 London is as foreign to us as Mars. The things that Victorians took for granted are so weird that they need to be explained. What’s a dollymop or a dipper? How much did a respectable woman’s clothes weigh? (Thirty-seven pounds.) Why could physicians be presented at the queen’s court while surgeons were restricted? Why did prison cells have boxes with cranks on the walls? I couldn’t have the characters talking about these things, which they took for granted and would never think about discussing. The only way I knew to solve the problem was to use a Victorian omniscient narrator, who periodically steps forward and in effect says to the reader, “You can’t understand this scene unless I tell you about Victorian burial customs.” It’s a liberating technique that made Murder as a Fine Art a great pleasure to write because by definition the third-person limited viewpoint is limiting.

Where do you hope this book will take you as an author?

My goal has always been to keep moving forward and find new ways to write about action and suspense. A few people were surprised when they learned that I’d done the unexpected and written a Victorian thriller, but it’s very much in keeping with my attitudes. Before I start a project, I write a letter to myself, answering this question: “Why is this book worth a year or two or three of my life?” There needs to be something about the theme, the subject, the research and the way the book is written that makes me fuller. That certainly happened with Murder as a Fine Art. By going to Victorian London, I moved ahead personally and saw the world in a different way. Response to the book has been very encouraging, with numerous requests for me to do another De Quincey novel. I’ve written very few sequels, but in this case, I have much more to say about this remarkable man.

David Morrell, who has been called “the father of the modern action novel,” may be best known as the creator of Rambo, the scarred American soldier who first appeared in Morrell’s debut, First Blood. Morrell moves in an exciting new direction with Murder as a Fine Art, a taut historical thriller set in Victorian London.
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Richard Crompton’s debut mystery novel, Hour of the Red God, is “character-driven from the get-go” according to our Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney. Crompton introduces Maasai protagonist Detective Mollel, who is “outwardly ritually scarred, inwardly emotionally scarred and always a bit at odds with fellow cops.”

We chatted with Crompton about the fascinating Nairobi setting, Detective Mollel and more in a 7 questions interview.

Describe your book in one sentence.
A gritty thriller and a vivid portrait of a city on the edge.

What do you think readers will most like about Detective Mollel?
He combines two very different worlds. Raised in the tribal Maasai heritage and translocated to the modern city, he feels at home in neither. But his sense of family, duty and justice ring true across all cultures.

Why does Nairobi make for such a compelling mystery setting?
It’s a city of contrasts. Sky-scrapers and slums. Wealth, poverty, corruption and ethnic tension. The police force is strained to its limits. This, however, works for the mystery writer. Instead of relying on high-tech solutions, it’s back-to-basics detective work which will ultimately prevail.

What’s one book you think everyone should read?
1984.

Would you make a good detective?
No. Real-life crime is usually casual, cruel and random. As a writer I would be looking for patterns and motives which do not exist.

Your website’s header states, “Anyone who says they enjoy writing is not trying hard enough.” What does that mean to you?
I want my books to be simple, elegant and effortless to read. The craft of writing is to make the writer invisible. It takes a lot of effort to learn how to disappear.

What’s next?
The sequel, Hell’s Gate. I am also writing a novel set between London and Africa, which is becoming a kind of homage to Bleak House. And my kids are insisting I write a book for them—which fills me with dread, as they’re my toughest critics.

Richard Crompton's debut mystery novel, Hour of the Red God, is "character-driven from the get-go" according to our Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney. Crompton introduces Maasai protagonist Detective Mollel, who is "outwardly ritually scarred, inwardly emotionally scarred and always a bit at odds with fellow…
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Alafair Burke’s new stand-alone mystery, If You Were Here, is a masterful blend of humanity’s highest and lowest, of heroism and dark secrets. As a former Deputy District Attorney and a current Professor of Law at Hofstra Law School, Burke’s novels are consistently authentic, but her real talent is mixing complex plotlines with nonstop suspense. As Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney writes, “Nicely crafted, plenty of suspense to go around, a couple of unanticipated twists—what’s not to like?”

We chatted with Burke about her heroines, her law career and writing in a 7 questions interview.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Trouble ensues after former prosecutor turned writer catches a glimpse of friend who disappeared 10 years ago.

What do you think readers will most like about McKenna Jordan? How is she different from your past heroines?
Is it fair to say that a character will be liked for becoming more likable? Most of my past books feature series characters who evolve slowly. They grow, like most of us, in increments and with subtlety. McKenna, in contrast, endures more trauma and drama than most people experience in a lifetime, which allows her to make enormous discoveries about herself in one little book. She’s also incredibly tenacious, for better or for worse. I think knowledgable crime fiction readers might also recognize that I’ve borrowed some familiar tropes of the genre and turned them upside down (or at least I hope so).

“The horrible things people do to each other—and the ways those acts can bring out the best in others—is tremendously fertile ground for a writer.”

How has your law career most influenced your career as a writer?
I’ve been teaching criminal law for 12 years and, before that, was absolutely blessed to work as a prosecutor for five years. As luck would have it, I happened to work for a prosecutor who believed in taking lawyers out of the courtroom into the community, so I spent about half that time working out of a police precinct. Without that window of time, I wouldn’t be the same kind of writer. Criminal investigations don’t look like most people expect, and the policing world is really very different than the prosecutorial world. It’s really important to me to write about law enforcement in an authentic way.

What do you love most about writing crime fiction?
What is there not to love?  The horrible things people do to each other—and the ways those acts can bring out the best in others—is tremendously fertile ground for a writer. I wrote a book a few years ago where every single character was motivated by love. We tend to think about people as good or bad, but I think crime fiction challenges those simplistic assumptions.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve received?
Write the best book you can write, and block out everything else. It sounds simple, but it’s a lot harder than it sounds, especially that second part.

What’s one bad habit you have no intention of breaking?
The Internet! Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, all the shopping. It’s ridiculous. I compare it to the brief walks I used to take down the hallway to gossip for a few minutes here and there at the DA’s Office.

What’s next?
I’m working on the next Ellie Hatcher novel. She gets pulled into a possible wrongful conviction case. It’s my 10th novel, and draws a bit on work I’ve done in my life as Professor Burke.

Alafair Burke's new stand-alone mystery, If You Were Here, is a masterful blend of humanity's highest and lowest, of heroism and dark secrets. As a former Deputy District Attorney and a current Professor of Law at Hofstra Law School, Burke's novels are consistently authentic,…
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Ingrid Thoft's debut thriller, Loyalty, introduces P.I. Fina Ludlow, a fearless pursuer of the truth and somewhat outcast member of a truly dysfuctional (and very powerful) family. When her brother's wife goes missing, the Ludlows call in Fina's special talents to crack the case—but her search digs deep and tests those familial bonds.

Thoft's research into the world of private investigation led her to attend and graduate from the University of Washington P.I. program. This unique insight makes Loyalty all the more realistic and more thrilling. We chatted with Thoft about P.I. school, her femme fatale Fina and more.

Why did you decide to attend and graduate from a certificate program in private investigation? Do many authors go so far in their research? Does it give you an edge?

Before writing Loyalty, I was working on a series that featured an amateur sleuth. As much as I loved writing that character, I felt limited by her amateur status. I decided to create a professional private investigator but needed to learn the rules of private investigation before my character broke some of them! Fina makes her own rules, but does so knowingly, not because she’s incompetent. The University of Washington had recently started their certificate program in private investigation, so I enrolled and learned the tricks of the trade. There were no other writers in the class, but I highly recommend that kind of research. It gave me a good understanding of the profession, and it was lots of fun!

What's the coolest thing you learned in the P.I. program?

One of the cases that stands out was part of a presentation done by a scientist from the Washington State Police crime lab. She discussed trace evidence and the idea that we all leave things behind wherever we’ve been and pick something up from that location as well, whether it’s fiber, hair or residue of some sort. Her example was ash from the Mount St. Helen’s eruption. The ash that was deposited into a suspect’s car filter could only have come from a particular place at a particular time. Suspects can be fastidious and cunning, but you can’t outsmart Mother Nature!

Do you ever use your P.I. skills in daily life—either intentionally or unintentionally?

I think that both good P.I.s and writers are observant and aware of their surroundings. They use those skills for different purposes, but the ability to have an open mind and take in a variety of information is an asset in both lines of work. In particular, the certificate program educated me about the online resources that exist for gathering information—things like property ownership and criminal records. I’ve been known to do a little digging, but nothing illegal. Two of the random tips I heed to this day are to walk in crosswalks (if you’re hit by a car you’ll have a stronger lawsuit) and to avoid driving in front of tractor trailer trucks. According to an accident reconstructionist who spoke, approximately 50% have faulty brakes. Yikes!  

"I’ve been known to do a little digging, but nothing illegal."

Do you possess the attributes of a great P.I.? Would you make a good P.I. if you had to give up writing?

I possess some of the necessary skills: I’m observant, organized and comfortable talking with people from all walks of life, but I’m not a thrill seeker and definitely not as brave as Fina. I think I would make a solid P.I., but I would never enjoy it as much as writing, so here’s hoping this works out!

Fina is one fearless girl in a male-dominated world. What do you think readers will like most about her?

I think her courage—both physical and in terms of standing up for her beliefs—appeals to readers. Fina says what many of us think and lives her life boldly, if recklessly, at times. But for all of her bravery, she is vulnerable when it comes to the people she loves and anyone she perceives as being an underdog. She doesn’t pretend that she always knows the best course of action or the right answer, but she muddles through and makes the best decision possible, and I think readers can relate to this. In general, people try to do the best they can, and that’s what she does in her own uniquely, imperfect way.

Fina’s walking a fine line between loyalty to her family and doing the right thing. How is she able to navigate that line? How do you approach that line in your own life?

She doesn’t always navigate it gracefully; she checks in with herself often to determine what she can live with and what decisions would keep her up at night. Although Fina massages the truth when it suits her, she’s very honest with herself. There are some things she can’t tolerate, and she’d rather suffer the consequences than keep certain secrets or abet certain behaviors. For her, it’s a matter of identifying the lesser of two evils.

In terms of my own life, thank goodness my family has never made demands on me that require a crisis of conscience! I was definitely raised to value making a good choice versus upholding the status quo or going along with the crowd. Fina and I both believe that there’s no comfort in numbers if you aren’t happy with yourself.

Boston reveals a seedy underbelly in Loyalty, with mobsters and madams running the show. Why is Boston such a great setting for these dark deeds?

Boston offers writers so many opportunities for creating layered, interesting characters who inhabit various mini worlds. There’s the city’s history, its blue-blood roots, ethnic neighborhoods with their strong ethnic pride, medicine, technology, the arts, higher education and even professional sports. These are wonderful pools to dip into and from them, a writer can populate a story with a variety of characters who realistically may pass one another on any given day on the city streets. The city is rich with possibility.

What do you know about writing now that you didn’t know before publishing your first novel?

I don’t think I appreciated how much work goes into the publication of a novel before witnessing that process first-hand. So many people are involved at every stage, working incredibly hard to make the book as good as it can be and working to connect readers with it.

And I finally understand why books have typos! I used to wonder, as a reader, how misprints would slip by in the publication process, but I totally get it; after reading your own book a dozen times, your eyes glaze over! That’s why it’s important to have lots of eyes on the page. Hopefully, someone else will catch the errors I missed.

What’s next for Fina?

Fina’s next big case finds her embroiled in an investigation that poses new complicated questions: What makes you who you are? Are you defined by what you have or what you’re lacking? She grapples with these issues, and of course, the Ludlows continue to complicate her life. But she still has fun and doesn’t shy away from a fight. There’s never a dull moment with Fina.

Ingrid Thoft's debut thriller, Loyalty, introduces P.I. Fina Ludlow, a fearless pursuer of the truth and somewhat outcast member of a truly dysfuctional (and very powerful) family. When her brother's wife goes missing, the Ludlows call in Fina's special talents to crack the case—but…

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Martin Walker’s mystery series starring Bruno, Chief of Police, will make readers’ mouths water and keep those pages turning with an entertaining blend of fine food and murder. Walker sets his series in the French province of Dordogne where he spends much of his time, and through this series, gives the idyllic little village of St. Denis a rather sinister side.

We chatted with Walker about writing, the French countryside and the fifth book in his series, The Devil’s Cave. After reading these answers, we suggest giving Walker a seat at your fantasy dinner party—and letting him choose the wine!

Describe your book in one sentence.
The body of a lovely nude woman, daubed with a pentagram, floats down the river into the picturesque French town of St. Denis, plunging the dashing local police chief Bruno into an investigation that includes Satanism, the French defense industry, prostitution, a shady property empire, a famous cave and an elderly and very left-wing French countess, along with some splendid meals, fine wine and dangerously attractive women.

Bruno has his hands full with all these murders in the French countryside. Why such dark deeds in this charming atmosphere?
This is the very question put to me by my friend Pierrot, the local police chief. But crime takes place anywhere, and this gentle valley in southwestern France has more history packed within it than anywhere on earth, from the prehistoric cave paintings of the Cro-Magnons, the hundreds of medieval châteaus and the importance of the local Resistance during World War II. And with the prevalence of hunters and shotguns, lethal farm tools, property disputes and France’s complex inheritance laws, there is no shortage of means or motives.

“With the prevalence of hunters and shotguns, lethal farm tools, property disputes and France’s complex inheritance laws, there is no shortage of means or motives.”

If you had to swap places with Bruno for a day, how would that day go?
I’d probably be able to win my tennis games and maybe even cook meals as well as he does. But my inability to match Bruno’s ability to combine policing with humor, common sense and his very idiosyncratic sense of justice might well cause a riot in our placid small town. And I’d certainly bring about a horrendous traffic jam.

You’ve said that Bruno is inspired by the real Chief of Police in the Dordogne, who is also your tennis partner. How does your friend feel about the Bruno books?
Now that he’s appearing in TV shows and tourists are flocking to the town market and asking him to sign their books and pose for photos, he’s delighted with the attention, and so are the town’s small business owners. But his wife wants to know why I made my hero such an attractive and appealing bachelor. For the same reason that she married him, is my reply.

What do you love most about writing?
There sometimes comes a moment of pure magic, when a character I invented simply refuses to do what the synopsis and plot says he or she should. On one level, it’s a problem because it means re-thinking the story, but it’s marvelous to realize that fictional characters can take on a life of their own.

If someone were visiting the Dordogne this summer, what would you insist that they eat and drink for their first meal?
I’d start with a fresh vegetable soup made with stock from chicken bones, and then serve a glass of golden Monbazillac wine with a slice of foie gras. The main course would be a duck roasted with honey and mustard and served with pommes sarladaises (made with truffles and parsley and cooked in duck fat), with a bottle of a Pecharmant red wine from Château de Tiregand, 2009, followed by salad from my garden, a slice of my friend Stephane’s Tomme d’Audrix cheese and fresh strawberries with cream from Stephane. (In fact, that’s what I’m cooking for tonight.)

What’s next?
I start a U.S. book tour in mid-July, and I’m currently writing the seventh Bruno novel, which starts with a corpse in the woods and goes on to the secrets behind the sanctuary a local farm gave to some Jewish children during the war, while also working on the Bruno cookbook and preparing to welcome a German film crew who are making a TV series.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of The Devil’s Cave.

Martin Walker's mystery series starring Bruno, Chief of Police, will make readers' mouths water and keep those pages turning with an entertaining blend of fine food and murder. Walker sets his series in the French province of Dordogne where he spends much of his time,…
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David Gordon’s uproarious, clever Mystery Girl is our Top Pick in Mystery for August 2013. It’s a fun blend of literary and cinematic references with nods to classic detective fiction, as well as some “Woody Allen-esque” humor to keep it all rolling. In a 7 questions interview with Gordon, we talked about writing, great movies and more.

Describe your book in one sentence.
In an effort to win back his wife, failed novelist Sam Kornberg becomes assistant to a brilliant and bizarre detective who sends him to trail a mysterious woman, and ends up stumbling into a plot involving murder, madness, Satanists, Mexican shootouts, video store geeks and the mysteries of love and literature.

Sam Kornberg and Solar Lonsky are quite the pair: Sam’s a bit of a mess, and Solar is house-bound. What makes them a good team?
Each one has strengths and weaknesses that can help the other. Lonsky is not only house-bound; he is trapped in his own formidable mind, and Sam is a connection to a more human if messy world. Sam, as you say, is a mess—or at least his life is at the moment—and Lonsky becomes the guide who leads him through the crisis to the other side.

“I think there’s something very beautiful and exciting about THE FORM, the sense of an unfolding mystery.”

What do you love about writing mysteries?
The same thing I love about reading them. [[I just love the form.]] I think there’s something very beautiful and exciting about THE FORM, the sense of an unfolding mystery. Constructing the solutions is a lot harder than reading them though.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve received?
The best advice for me has been practical: Have an envelope (this was pre-Internet!) stamped and ready to send rejected work right back out. Have a regular writing schedule and stick to it. Sit there even if I don’t write a word. Know what I am going to write tomorrow so I don’t get stuck. And, from an older friend, the assurance that all my personal misadventures and disasters would just end up as funny stuff to write about.

What book are you embarrassed to have not read?
Anna Karenina—I keep saving it for the big vacation that never comes.

What’s your favorite movie based on a book?
An impossible question. I could spend a week making lists. My favorites are great films that tackle great books by creating something new, like The Shining, Naked Lunch, Lolita, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex. I could also be sneaky and say my favorite is the new Japanese movie based on my book The Serialist. But that’s cheating.

What’s next?
I am working on a story collection with my editor, which is really exciting. It covers all sorts of genres, styles and subjects. Also I just started a new novel. I can’t say what it is about yet, but my goal is funnier, sadder, more beautiful and more thrilling. And more disturbing.

David Gordon's uproarious, clever Mystery Girl is our Top Pick in Mystery for August 2013. It's a fun blend of literary and cinematic references with nods to classic detective fiction, as well as some "Woody Allen-esque" humor to keep it all rolling. In a…
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Anne Hillerman's debut novel, Spider Woman's Daughter, is our Top Pick in Mystery for October 2013. Hillerman, a celebrated journalist and author of eight books of nonfiction, has shifted focus with her latest release to the fictional world of the best-selling Navajo mysteries first penned by her late father, Tony Hillerman. Though longtime fans will be delighted at the return of Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, Spider Woman's Daughter brings Officer Bernadette Manuelito into the spotlight, weaving a powerful and welcomed female perspective into the series.

We chatted with Hillerman about her writing process, the best meal in her home state of New Mexico and more in a 7 questions interview.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Bernadette Manuelito witnesses a police shooting and the aftermath leads her, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee on a quest for a killer with a secret to keep and a lust for revenge.
 
In your new book, you focus on a side character from the Navajo mysteries, Bernie Manuelito. What do you love most about her?
Bernie is smart, spunky, curious and, most of all, a strong woman who I felt deserved her chance to shine.

How does your experience as a journalist influence your process of writing fiction?
Journalism required me to get to the point quickly, to be a good listener, to do research (but not too much research) and to write on deadline. It also allowed me to meet all kinds of interesting people who probably show up in some form as characters.

What’s the best writing advice your father ever gave you?
Keep going.
 
Would you make a good detective?
Maybe, although I tend to think the best of people rather than assume they're up to something nefarious.
 
You frequently write restaurant reviews for the Albuquerque Journal. What is the one meal everyone should have in New Mexico?
Posole made from scratch with red chile sauce and a sopaipilla. Makes me hungry thinking of it!
 
What’s next?
I'm working on the next Bernadette Manuelito and company novel, using Monument Valley as one of settings.

Anne Hillerman's debut novel, Spider Woman's Daughter, is our Top Pick in Mystery for October 2013. Hillerman, a celebrated journalist and author of eight books of nonfiction, has shifted focus with her latest release to the fictional world of the best-selling Navajo mysteries first…

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Harry Dolan's newest novel in his acclaimed David Loogan series delves into the past, when David Loogan was still David Malone. The Last Dead Girl, prequel to 2009's Bad Things Happen, finds a 26-year-old David quickly falling for a mysterious law student, Jana. But after just 10 short days together, Jana is murdered, and David unfortunately becomes the lead suspect. In David's first foray into the world of investigation, Dolan delivers "a tense and involving tale, with quite a number of surprises along the way," which is exactly what we've come to love about this series.

We caught up with Harry Dolan and chatted about the setting of the novel, why The Long Goodbye is a must read, his next project and more in a 7 questions interview.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Twenty-six-year-old David Malone is drawn into a romance with a beautiful and enigmatic young law student, but when she’s murdered he must delve into her past to find her killer.

What do you love most about your main character, David Malone (later known as David Loogan)?
David tends to be a loner, but he can also be a loyal friend—the kind of friend who would help you bury a body. He has a strong sense of justice and he’s willing to bend the law a little if he needs to in order to bring about the right outcome. He’s clever and quick-witted, and he has a knack for getting into trouble.

What inspired you to set The Last Dead Girl in your hometown of Rome, New York?
I originally intended to set the book in Ann Arbor, Michigan—the setting for my two previous novels, Bad Things Happen and Very Bad Men. At first, the young law student at the center of the story, Jana Fletcher, was going to be an intern at Gray Streets, the crime magazine David edits, and they weren’t going to be romantically involved. But then I realized that the story would work better if David and Jana were the same age, and if they were lovers. That’s when I decided that The Last Dead Girl would be a prequel, set in 1998. And that meant that it would be set in Rome, which is David’s hometown as well as my own. I had a lot of fun using real locations I remembered from growing up in Rome—including a footpath that ran alongside a remote stretch of the old Erie Canal, which turned out to be a perfect spot to commit a murder.

Where’s your favorite place to write?
I do all my writing at home in a spare bedroom that I’ve converted into an office. I sit in a comfy leather chair and write on a laptop. I wish I had a more exotic answer to this question. I’m envious of people who can write in cafés or other public places, but I’ve never been able to; I find them too distracting.

Name one book you think everyone should read.
One of my favorites, which I’ve returned to several times, is The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. There’s real emotion in that book; there’s a friendship at the center of it. There’s gorgeous writing and terrific dialogue—and all the brilliant scenes and twists you could hope for in a crime novel. There’s also a long dissertation on beautiful blondes that has never been matched.

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned about writing?
I took a course on writing from the novelist Frederick Busch, and one of the things I remember him saying is that you always have to do justice to your characters. Even in a crime novel, where it might seem that the plot is the primary thing, you have to do your best to make the characters real, to make them want real things. I try to do that, even with the villains.

What's next?
I’m working on my fourth book now. I don’t usually talk about projects before they’re finished, and I don’t want to give away anything about the plot. But I will say that this one is something different; it’s not part of the David Loogan/David Malone series. In some ways it’s a challenge not to be writing about David, but it’s liberating too. And for fans of the series, I’ll add that I have every intention of returning to David in future books.

 

Harry Dolan's newest novel in his acclaimed David Loogan series delves into the past, when David Loogan was still David Malone. The Last Dead Girl, prequel to 2009's Bad Things Happen, finds a 26-year-old David quickly falling for a mysterious law student, Jana. But after just 10 short days together, Jana is murdered, and David unfortunately becomes the lead suspect.

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Okey Ndibe's newest book, Foreign Gods, Inc. is a lyrical, heavy-hitting tale that Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney praised as "the heist novel to end all heist novels." Protagonist Ike Uzondu, a frustrated New York cab driver, has a plan to end his financial struggles—he's going to steal a god. As Ike sets off for his home village in Nigeria, his quest for Ngene—a war deity—proves a bit more challenging when he factors in his aging mother, a rather persuasive local preacher and his uncle's fierce devotion to Ngene.

In a 7 questions interview, Okey Ndibe shares his thoughts on the importance of humor, what he'd like to see in the future of African publishing and more.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Foreign Gods, Inc. is an exploration of foreignness and alienation, dramatizing a forlorn immigrant’s wacky, drink-enabled heist scheme, a clash of fates and faiths and the implacable vengefulness of a pilfered deity.

What was the initial inspiration for this novel?
The germ for this story came when a relative told me about the mysterious disappearance of the statue of a once-dreaded deity. I knew I had to probe the mystery—and to do so with a novelist’s eye.

What did you enjoy most about writing a heist story?
The greatest joy about writing a heist story—especially one in which it’s a god that’s stolen—is the boundless opportunity to leaven the narrative with dark humor. I mean, the whole idea of stealing a god is so awful and horrible as well as wacky and absurd. Writing it, you know your readers will be astonished, appalled but also bawled over. I like to call it groaning with laughter.

This book deals with many complex, heavy subjects such as the immigrant experience, greed and the value of art, yet there is so much humor woven throughout. How important is humor in your writing?
Humor is extremely important. I consider it one of my—indeed any good storyteller’s—most treasured gifts. For that matter, humor is one of humanity’s greatest bequests, on occasion essential as air and water. Without it, we’d all be bored, miserable creatures waiting our turn to drop dead. I see humor as that potent, powerful traveler, needing neither passport nor visa to cross boundaries, times, situations—to infuse narratives.

As a professor of African literature, what is your favorite book to share with students?
No question: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. I have read it, I am confident, more than 40 times since high school. So I bring that lifetime of reading it to my classroom.

Novels by African authors have been popular in the U.S. for some time now, but it seems that Nigerian-born authors in particular are enjoying a surge in success this year. Are you excited about the growing interest?
I’m ecstatic to see the amazing interest in books by African authors. I can’t quite explain why there’s this great, buoyant curiosity about the work of African writers, but it’s an extraordinary thing. I’d like to see a boom in African publishing; I’d like publishers based on the continent to make their voices felt, to become a more vital part of this aesthetic conversation, this rich harvest of writing that’s enriching literary culture globally. And I’d like to see a culture of leisure reading take deeper root among Africans. Nothing would make me happier than to see Africans, on the continent as well as abroad, more engaged in reading African writers’ emerging works.

What are you working on now?
Two projects. I’m writing memoir essays based on my sometimes hilarious, often scary experiences in America. It’s called Going Dutch and other American (Mis)Adventures. The other project is a novel, Return Flights

Okey Ndibe's newest book, Foreign Gods, Inc. is a lyrical, heavy-hitting tale that Whodunit columnist Bruce Tierney praised as "the heist novel to end all heist novels." Protagonist Ike Uzondu, a frustrated New York cab driver, has a plan to end his financial struggles—he's going to steal a god.
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Peter Robinson's absorbing new novel, Children of the Revolution, is our April Top Pick in Mystery! In his 21st novel to feature Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, the 30-year veteran launches into a sensitive investigation of a former teacher's death, which may be linked to his checkered past and sexual misconduct with one of his students. Amid the details of the case, Banks is facing new career choices: Does he accept a paperwork-heavy promotion, or risk being superannuated in his more comfortable position?

In a 7 questions interview, Robinson shares his thoughts on keeping his beloved character fresh, the Inspector Banks television series and more.

Describe your book in one sentence.
A disgraced college teacher is found dead, and when Banks’ investigation leads him to suspect the man’s radical past might play a part, he begins to encounter opposition from powerful and privileged establishment figures.

This is your 21st novel to feature DCI Banks. Do you still discover new things you love about his character?
That’s what keeps me going. I try to find something new about Banks, however minor, in each book. In Watching the Dark, for example, I discovered that he had a bit of a cruel streak by the way he played practical jokes on one of the characters. In Children of the Revolution he even surprises himself by some of his actions, but telling would be giving too much away!

Where do you do most of your writing?
While I do a lot of writing in my study in Toronto and work steadily when I’m over in Yorkshire, perhaps the place I get most done is a lake house in Northern Ontario. There are no distractions except a beautiful view, and I get about twice as much writing done there as I would during the same time in the city.

Do you have any unique writing rituals?
No, I just plunge right in. It’s easy to develop tools for procrastination, like entering the cold water slowly and feeling the chill creep up your legs. Best to dive right in and immerse yourself. You soon get used to it. I don’t require any weird objects on my desk or lucky charms to wear. Well, I do have a tiny skull made of jet on my desk.

Name one book you think everyone should read.
The Wind in the Willows.

Your Inspector Banks series has recently been adapted for television. Have you been a regular viewer?
I have seen all the episodes, and I must say I think Stephen Tompkinson is doing a great job in the title role. The rest of the cast is terrific, too. I do find the adaptations have diverged quite a bit from the books lately, but the result has probably been even better television programmes!

What are you working on next?
The 22nd DCI Banks book, called Abattoir Blues after a Nick Cave song. The title will probably be changed in the U.S., as “abattoir” is not a word you use, I’m told. I’ll probably call it Slaughterhouse Six! Anyway, my publishers weren’t too thrilled when I told them it was about a stolen tractor, but when I mentioned the bloodstained hangar, the burning caravan and the body parts, their ears perked up a bit.

Peter Robinson's absorbing new novel, Children of the Revolution, is our April Top Pick in Mystery! In a 7 questions interview, Robinson shares his thoughts on keeping his beloved character fresh, the Inspector Banks television series and more.
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Karin Salvalaggio's arresting novel, Bone Dust White has been hailed as a gripping "first-rate debut" by our Whodunit columnist, Bruce Tierney. Following a murder in a small, isolated town in Montana, fiery (and very pregnant) Detective Macy Greeley is sent to head the investigation, but a young and fragile woman may be the killer's next target, and timing becomes crucial. 

We chatted with Salvalaggio about her writing process, why Joyce Carol Oates inspires her and what's ahead for Macy Greeley in a 7 questions interview.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Set in a town that’s down on its luck, Bone Dust White is a thriller about a troubled young woman named Grace Adams, who having witnessed a brutal murder, must negotiate an unseemly cast of characters with old scores to settle and evade an increasingly tough investigation led by Detective Macy Greeley.

This is your first novel—what was the most exciting part of the writing process?
When you’ve dreamt of being a published author for most of your life there is no stage of the process that isn’t exciting. First, there was the thrill of finding the story I really wanted to tell. This was key. I’ve lived with Bone Dust White for three years. I had to be excited about it. Finding support in the publishing industry was the second big development. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, but the most exciting part comes now. Bone Dust White is finally available online and in bookstores. I’m not sure I can fully describe what it’s like to have a physical book out there in the hands of readers. The very notion that people are reading and collectively sharing in my imagination is nothing short of mind-blowing.

What do you love most about Detective Macy Greeley?
To tell you the truth, I love that Macy’s character isn’t fully formed. There is plenty of scope for her to grow and change and I feel like I’m just getting started. I also love that Macy is smart enough to know what’s good for her, but impulsive enough to do the complete opposite. Flawed, funny, slightly cynical and stubborn; she’s a reflection of all of us, but on a good day. Most of us are too constrained by our personal circumstances to say and do as we wish. I guess in that way Macy’s character is aspirational.

What initially drew you to crime fiction?
I didn’t set out to write crime fiction, but as the book took shape it became apparent that this was the genre that best served the story I was trying to tell. I created a point of tension in the narrative that was no longer sustainable and then threw in an inciting incident as explosive as a murder. It’s the aftermath that interests me most. How will the victim’s family, friends and community cope? How long can the guilty party hide in plain sight? Who can sift through the lies and find the truth? What other secrets will be uncovered?

Which writer do you look to most for inspiration?
Joyce Carol Oates comes to mind immediately. Her body of work has such breadth. Her prose style is exquisite and her intelligence shines through every line.

What are you reading right now?
As usual, I seem to be reading several books at once. I’m dipping in and out of short story collections by Stephen King and Daphne du Maurier while starting Tom Rob Smith’s new novel The Farm.

What’s next?
I’m almost finished writing my second book. It’s also set in the Flathead Valley, but this time it’s high summer. A young army veteran, who has served his country in some of the most dangerous places in the world, is gunned down in his hometown of Wilmington Creek, a sleepy ranching community where there is little crime. Detective Macy Greeley is reluctant to take the case. She’s been struggling to balance work, motherhood and an increasingly fraught relationship with her boss Ray Davidson. Her nerves are shot and she has to fight hard to stay focused. It doesn’t help that the heat is oppressive, an arsonist is setting wild fires and the victim’s friends and family are keeping secrets. When an undercover officer, who’s been investigating a member of a private militia turns up dead, the scope of the case widens further.

Author photo by Ross Ferguson
We chatted with Karin Salvalaggio about her writing process for Bone Dust White, why Joyce Carol Oates inspires her and what's ahead for Detective Macy Greeley in a 7 questions interview.
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Katherine Hall Page’s award-winning Faith Fairchild mysteries have delighted readers since 1991, when she released her debut, The Body in the Belfry, and introduced the world to her charming caterer and sleuth. Small Plates, Page’s first collection of short stories, is filled with wit and intricately spun mysteries, along with decadent descriptions of all things culinary. While Faith makes plenty of appearances in stories such as “The Body in the Dunes,” new characters shine just as brightly in “The Would-Be Widower” and “Hiding Places.” Cozy mystery lovers are sure to find a tale to sate their appetite here.

Small Plates is your first collection of short stories. What advantages does this format lend to the mystery genre?
The brevity of a short story gives mystery writers a chance to pack a wallop. In the traditional mystery novel, the pace is more leisurely, albeit suspenseful. The denouement comes at the end and the hope is that readers will be stunned. Yet, the end of each chapter has a tantalizing hook baited to keep those pages turning. In the short story, all this must be compressed. Poe and Saki did it best.

What are the biggest challenges in crafting a successful short story?
In the introduction I quote Henry David Thoreau: “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short” and Edgar Allan Poe, “A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build toward it.” Taken together, these are a fine summation of the challenge posed by short story writing: that paring-down process, the examination of each word essential for a satisfactory result. I’d also add a reminder based on advice from Strunk and White—nowhere is omitting needless words more essential!

Many of these stories feature Faith Fairchild, a sleuth you have featured in 21 previous novels. Did you discover anything new about Faith during the writing process?
This is a terrific question and something I had not considered before. One of the pleasures of writing a series is “growing” a character and Faith Fairchild has certainly changed over the years—as have we all!—yet yes, I did discover something new about the character in this book, specifically in the story, “Sliced.” Not exactly a dark side, but most assuredly darker, and it was freeing to write about her this way.

Who are some of your favorite short story writers?
A wide-ranging bunch: again Poe and Saki. Theirs are among the first short stories I read when young, as well as O. Henry’s “The Last Leaf” and, similar in spirit, de Maupassant’s “The Necklace.” Others in no particular order: Melville, Dorothy Sayers, James Thurber, Willa Cather, Oscar Wilde, Eudora Welty, Alice Munro, Carson McCullers. John Cheever, J.D. Salinger, James Joyce, Shirley Jackson, Agatha Christie, Flannery O’Connor, Ellen Gilchrist, Laurie Colwin, Wodehouse, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Robert Barnard. Heresy, but I am not a Hemingway fan.

Many of these stories—especially “The Would-Be Widower”—feature some delightfully dark humor. How important is humor in your writing?
Extremely important, although in life, there is nothing remotely funny about murder. That said, I have always enjoyed crime fiction with this kind of twist. Besides the dark humor aspect to these stories and my novels, I like to add other forms of comic relief as a break from sitting on the edge of one’s chair. Often this takes the form of a character.

Are there any new characters in these short stories that could pop up in your future novels?
Yes! I became wrapped up in Polly Ackroyd in “Across the Pond,” who bears more than a passing resemblance to a Nancy Mitford-type character. I’m not sure where Polly might appear, but since I made her a friend of both Faith Fairchild and her sister, it might happen!

Many of these stories feature your famously mouthwatering descriptions of food. If you had your own restaurant, what type of cuisine would be on your menu?
Many years ago when I was young and more foolish, I thought about opening a seasonal restaurant on an island in Maine using local ingredients—the menu an earlier version of the slow food movement. While I think some of this cuisine has veered off into cloud cuckoo land (do we really need to know the name of the cow that gave the milk for the butter?), it is still what I would do. I also like borrowing from a number of regional and international cuisines with ingredients like pomegranate molasses, Anson Mills grits, elderflower liqueur and smoked paprika. I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t like, nor a salad green. Nothing fussy though, or architectural.

What are you working on next?
I am finishing up the 22nd novel in the Faith Fairchild series, The Body in the Birches. It is set on the fictitious island, Sanpere, I created in Penobscot Bay, Maine. Aside from what I hope is the gripping mystery component, the whodunit puzzle—it’s a book about families, specifically the turmoil created by the inheritance of property. In this case, the clash is over a summer home that has been in a family for generations. We all know real estate can be murder.

Katherine Hall Page’s award-winning Faith Fairchild mysteries have delighted readers since 1991, when she released her debut, The Body in the Belfry, and introduced the world to her charming caterer and sleuth. Small Plates, Page’s first collection of short stories, is filled with wit and intricately spun mysteries, along with decadent descriptions of all things culinary. While Faith makes plenty of appearances in stories such as “The Body in the Dunes,” new characters shine just as brightly in “The Would-Be Widower” and “Hiding Places.” Cozy mystery lovers are sure to find a tale to sate their appetite here.

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