Bll Crider

Bill Crider is the author of more than fifty novels, including the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series. He is the winner of the Anthony Award and has been nominated for both the Shamus and Edgar Awards. The late Clyde Wilson was a legendary Texas private eye. He worked with the famous and the infamous. One of his cases was the basis for two true-crime books and a made-for-TV movie.

From Crider's Q & A at Sons of Spade:

Q: What makes Ted Stephens different from other (unofficial) PIs?

A: Ted's a former cop, but he's an official p.i. Unlike many of them, he's not working for an individual in MISSISSIPPI VIVIAN but for a big insurance company. He's sent from Texas to Mississippi to check out what the company believes is a scam, and he winds up involved in a murder case.

Q: How did you come up with the character?

A: The character was my co-writer's invention. Clyde Wilson was for many years the most colorful and best-known p.i. in Texas. He worked many big cases, and when Ivana Trump needed someone to help with her divorce from Donald Trump, Clyde went to New York to do the job. He told me that Ted Stephens was a composite of himself and an ex-cop that he knew and that the cases Ted worked on were based on actual cases.

Q: What's next for you and Ted Stephens?

A: Clyde...[read on]

Read more about Mississippi Vivian at the publisher's website, and visit Bill Crider's website and blog.

Read "Clyde and Me and Mississippi Vivian" by Bill Crider, Spinetingler Magazine.

My Book, The Movie: Mississippi Vivian.

The Page 69 Test: Mississippi Vivian.

--Marshal Zeringue