Lisa Black

Lisa Black spent the five happiest years of her life in a morgue, working as a forensic scientist in the trace evidence lab until her husband dragged her to southwest Florida. Now she toils as a certified latent print analyst and CSI at the local police department by day and writes forensic suspense by night.

Her new novel is Trail of Blood.

From author J. Sydney Jones' interview with Black:

Why don’t we start off with your connection to Cleveland, scene of your crimes?

I am a native of Cleveland, lived there from birth until I was 36. I’ve been in Florida for ten years now, but I return to Cleveland at least every other month to visit my mother and sisters.

What things about Cleveland make it unique and a good physical setting in your books?

Cleveland has everything—hills, trees, inner-city, rivers, a lake, very wealthy neighborhoods and very poor neighborhoods, industry, and culture. It also has a lot of history, beginning as the westernmost territory in the new United States at one point, progressing to the turn of the last century when Rockefeller and Carnegie had mansions on Euclid Avenue.

Did you consciously set out to use Cleveland as a “character” in your books, or did this grow naturally out of the initial story or stories?

I’m what I call ‘spatially oriented’…not sure what it means, but it sounds good…and places can capture my imagination more than people or colors or smells or current events. I like to put scenes in powerful surroundings, large buildings, sweeping plazas, freezing cold lakeshores. It seems to make the action more intense, even if it’s...[read on]

View the video trailer for Trail of Blood, learn more about the book and author at Lisa Black's website.

The Page 69 Test: Takeover.

My Book, The Movie: Takeover.

My Book, The Movie: Trail of Blood.

The Page 69 Test: Trail of Blood.

--Marshal Zeringue