John Morgan Wilson

Spider Season, the 8th volume in John Morgan Wilson's Benjamin Justice Mystery Series, is coming soon from St. Martin's Minotaur.

From a Q & A about the series at the author's website:

Simple Justice launched your series and won the Edgar -- what’s it about?

Simple Justice revolves around the apparent gay-bashing murder of a young cokehead outside an L.A. nightspot, which draws the reluctant Justice out of seclusion in search of an elusive truth that only he seems able to perceive. He uncovers a murder plot with dark political overtones, but to solve the crime, he must first come to terms with his own dark past and his own demons. In this, Alexandra Templeton is the key, helping them forge an uneasy bond that sets up the series.

* * *

Is Benjamin Justice your alter ego?

We certainly have our differences, but Justice definitely reflects many of my own feelings, viewpoints, and experiences, albeit dramatized and transformed into fiction through my writer’s imagination. I doubt there’s been a mystery series hero or heroine written, particularly in the first person, as mine is, that does not deeply reflect the author. As Sue Grafton once said of her character, Kinsey Milhone: "She’s the younger, slimmer, more courageous version of me!" (Or words to that effect.) I would like to state for the record that, while Justice had a very violent and abusive father, my own father, now deceased, was a gentle, kind man, with whom I shared a loving relationship. Justice’s feelings toward his father in the novels more closely reflect the problems I had with my abusive stepfather, who is also deceased. That aspect of the character, by the way, was never planned or envisioned; it came out spontaneously in the writing of the first book, quite a surprise to me. The writing process is full of surprises like that. Books seem to take on their own reality, their own life force, when the writing is going well.

Read the complete Q & A.

Visit John Morgan Wilson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue