Paul Gaus

Paul Gaus, a retired chemistry professor, has been writing Amish murder mysteries since 1997, set in the Amish country of Holmes County, Ohio, where he lives. Originally published by Ohio University Press, Gaus's books are now being republished by Penguin as “The Amish Mystery Series.” The first title in the series, Blood of the Prodigal, which addresses shunning – the Amish practice of exiling disobedient church members into the mainstream society – was released last month.

From his Q & A with the Christian Science Monitor:

How did you start writing Amish mystery novels?

I have lived in Wooster, Ohio, for over 33 years. Just south of us, in Holmes County, we have the largest Amish settlement of any location in the world. While I was teaching chemistry, I took an interest in writing about Amish society. And I always enjoyed mystery novels. So I took a trip out to New Mexico to meet with Tony Hillerman, who wrote many novels about Navajo culture. And I thought that I would write mystery novels like Tony Hillerman does, but I would set them among the Amish of Holmes county.

How do you go about choosing your stories?

"Blood of the Prodigal," like all of my stories, it is written to illuminate Scripture. In particular, its written to illuminate one of the Biblical Scriptures on which Amish people base their lifestyle. A key Scripture for "Blood of the Prodigal" is the 139th Psalm. Many of the interactions in "Blood of the Prodigal" are based on transactions of repentance and forgiveness. There’s comfort in the 139th Psalm for people who face repentance. That’s what an [Amish] bishop tries to do with shunning – restore a person to a community of faith.

So is there a spiritual component for you in writing these books?

There is. I...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Gay Talese

Gay Talese's books include The Kingdom and the Power (1969), Honor Thy Father (1971), Thy Neighbor's Wife (1981), Unto the Sons (1992), and A Writer's Life (2006).

The Silent Season of a Hero: The Sports Writing of Gay Talese has just been issued by Walker & Company.

From Talese's conversation with James Mustich:

James Mustich: Sports has been entwined with your life as a writer from the beginning—when you were in high school. Which came first, your interest in writing, or your interest in sports?

Gay Talese: Let me go back one step further. What led me to newspapers was that I had a father who read them. He read the New York Times. When I was ten years old—in 1942— I was aware of the war, and I was particularly aware of it because my father, who was from Italy, had brothers who were in the Italian army. The invasion of Italy was underway when I was 11 and 12, and my father was very concerned about his village and his people—not only his brothers, who were fighting the Americans, but his widowed mother. His native village, Maida, was in the path of the American army as it moved from Sicily up to Calabria. I wrote about this in Unto the Sons.

So my father read the newspaper, and it wasn't the Philadelphia newspaper, even though Ocean City, New Jersey, where I was born, is close to Philadelphia; it was the New York Times. I didn't read the paper with any interest, obviously, then, but I did read the sports page for this reason: at the time the war was on, the Yankees moved to Atlantic City (that was in 1943 and 1944) for spring training, since because of the rationing teams didn't go to Florida during World War II. And Atlantic City is only 11 miles from where I was born and grew up. This was the 1943 championship Yankee team. The manager was Joe McCarthy, who was the famous manager of the time of DiMaggio. Granted, DiMaggio wasn't playing—a lot of the top names in baseball were in the army. Not all. But there weren't many name ballplayers on the Yankee team that I saw in 1943 and '44.

I would get on the trolley and I would go over there, and then I'd read the New York Times about spring training. That's when I started reading the newspaper. My father was reading it for the international news, and I would look at the sports section. I'd see articles about what I'd seen myself. I'd see the exhibition games, and I'd get autographs. Because in spring training at that time, they didn't play in stadiums. Today spring training fields are like any other major league ballpark—places like Tampa, for example, where the Yankees train. But in those days it was an old airport that had old bleachers—that's where the Yankees played baseball. It was a gravel field, with some grass; it was springtime; the grass wasn't growing yet.

Reading sports in the Times, I got to know...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Michael Dobbs

Michael Dobbs served as Chief of Staff to British Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major and was Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in the mid-1990s. His many books include House of Cards, the first in what would become a trilogy of political thrillers based on the character Francis Urquhart.

His latest novel is The Reluctant Hero.

From his Q & A with Anna Metcalfe for the Financial Times:

What book changed your life?

It sounds self-indulgent but it was House of Cards. I wrote it by accident and it took my life in a completely different direction.

* * *

Who are your literary influences?

I used to aspire to John le Carré and Frederick Forsyth. Now I read more widely to see how other people do it. I’m still learning this craft of writing.

* * *
What book do you wish you’d written?

The Gospel According to St John. I’m fascinated by Bible stories, not because I’m religious but because it’s a period of history that raises so many questions for me.

Read the complete Q & A.

Read about Michael Dobbs and his books, and see his list of five great fictional prime ministers.

The Page 69 Test: The Lords’ Day.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ken Follett

Thriller writer Ken Follett has sold 100m copies of his 31 books worldwide. His first major success was Eye of the Needle (1978).

From a Q & A at his publisher's website:

You took a risk to write The Pillars of the Earth. Were you confident it would work both critically and commercially or were you surprised when it became such a success after it was published in 1989?

I felt I had written a very commercial novel with a heavyweight theme, and I was hoping for a big reaction from critics and the public. The reviews were mixed and the public response was, at first, muted. The book sold about the same number of copies in the United States as my previous book, and frankly I was disappointed. But over time it became clear that Pillars was a phenomenally popular backlist title, selling at double the rate of my others. So I was surprised twice.

You’ve said that you consider Pillars to be your best book to date. Do you find that paradoxical, since you’re known primarily as a writer of thrillers and suspense novels?

It was never my ambition to become famous for a novel about a church. I’m still kind of surprised that I wrote it. Of course, it’s not really about a church; it’s about a group of people who set out to do something that seems almost impossible.

Did you know as you were completing Pillars that there would be a sequel?

Pillars was the first book that truly exhausted...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Rachel Hore

Rachel Hore's first novel was The Dream House. Her second, The Memory Garden, was published in August 2007 and was an Amazon Top Ten bestseller. Her third, The Glass Painter's Daughter, was published in April 2009 and was shortlisted for the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year 2010. She teaches Publishing at the University of East Anglia, and Creative Writing, and reviews regularly for the national press. Her new novel, A Place of Secrets, was published last month in the UK.

From her Q & A with Arifa Akbar in the Independent:

Choose a favourite author and say why you like her/him

I'm very fond of Barbara Kingsolver. I love the way she places people in the world and suddenly you zoom back and see the larger, natural order of that place. I have read all her novels but my favourite is 'Prodigal Summer', about the wilderness and set in American forests.

* * *
Which fictional character most resembles you?

I suppose I would go for Jo March, in 'Little Women', in the sense that I've got a scribbling suit like her woolly pinafore dress and hat with a red bow. In my case, I've got mismatching track-suit top and bottoms.

* * *
Who is your hero or heroine from outside literature?

I would say Caroline Lucas, the Green Party's first Member of Parliament.

Read the complete Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue

Colin Cotterill

Colin Cotterill is the author of The Coroner’s Lunch, Thirty-Three Teeth, Disco for the Departed, and Anarchy and Old Dogs, featuring seventy-three year old Dr. Siri Paiboun, national coroner of Laos. He and his wife live in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he teaches at the university.

From his Q & A with PBS:

You’ve traveled and lived all over the world. Where did your wanderlust come from? And why do you think travel is important?

I think being born English has something to do with it. England seemed limited to me. I always wanted to know what everybody else was doing and something told me they were doing it better elsewhere.

I made one or two trips to Europe with my school and my blood was tainted for life. For 26 years, the longest I spent in any one place was eighteen months. I was forever looking for new experiences. Most of my school friends had settled into “the comfort of the known.” Few of them took chances. In my mind that was like only using ten percent of your personality. I reveled in the unexpected, the revelation of making new friends and learning new jobs, the honeymoon with a new place and a different culture.

Cartooning was your first artistic pursuit. Where do you get your ideas? Do you think it plays into your writing now at all?

I was born with two traits that have really helped me through life. I have a vast imagination, and I’m weird. I love the quirky side of life. I get a thrill out of the ridiculous and it means I’m always looking for it. For a while I was drawing weekly cartoons for a publication and I was afraid I might run out of ideas. But when your imagination lets you down there’s always “real life.” And making it up is never as funny as the actual foolishness of man.

This cartoonist eye undoubtedly helped when I started to write. You have to see things, not as they are, but as you can lampoon them. You need to give your readers lots of, “Yeah, that’s how it is,” moments. You “see” on their behalf. Our planet is inhabited by a large number of nondescript people. But a book can’t be...[read on]

Visit Colin Cotterill's website and his Crimespace page.

The Page 69 Test: Anarchy and Old Dogs.

My Book, The Movie: Curse of the Pogo Stick.

--Marshal Zeringue

Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd’s books include London: The Biography (2000), Thames: Sacred River (2007), biographies of great Londoners (Charles Dickens, William Blake, Thomas More) and the novel, The Great Fire of London (1982).

From his Q A with Anna Metcalfe for the Financial Times:

What book changed your life?

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. As a young boy I was impressed by its piety.

* * *
Which literary character most resembles you?

Winnie the Pooh.

* * *
Who are your literary influences?

The whole English canon, from Chaucer to Shakespeare, Dickens and Blake.

* * *
Who would you choose to play you in a film about your life?

Cate Blanchett.

Read the complete interview.

--Marshal Zeringue

Laurie David

Laurie David is an environmental activist and the author of a new book, The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time.

From her Q & A with Deborah Solomon:

Although known as an environmental activist, you take up a less divisive cause in your new book, “The Family Dinner,” a cross between a cookbook and a parenting manifesto.

I’ve got two teenage girls and have found parenting unbelievably challenging. At one point I said to myself, I have to get some happy family moments. And so I zeroed in on family dinner as the perfect time to accomplish that.

Do you let your daughters use their cellphones at the table?

If I see them even look at their phones, I take the phone. They have to hand it to me. Dinner to me is the only way to bring everyone together, to check in and have some laughs.

But dinner can also be a source of friction. What is the proper response when your teenagers say they dislike your lemon chicken and want beef tacos instead?

You’re not a short-order cook, number one. You should be making dinner for the family, not for the individual. They eat what you eat. My kids now are eating quinoa and kale and beans, and they drink water instead of soda.

Much of this is really a class issue. A mom with a low-paying job might pick up some Cokes and fast food because she doesn’t have the time or money to prepare salmon with quinoa.

First of all, you...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

William Nicholson

From Arifa Akbar's Q & A with screenwriter (Gladiator, Elizabeth) and novelist William Nicholson, for the Independent:

Choose a favourite author and say why you like him/her

Henry David Thoreau who wrote Walden. He was an utterly original thinker who tried to discover how to live well and believed that giving your entire life to work to live made no sense at all. To live well, he thought we had to make our financial demands as small as possible, so experimented with living in the woods for two years in utter simplicity.

* * *
Which fictional character most resembles you?

Pierre from War and Peace – not physically but psychologically – he is trying to work out how to live and how to make sense of life.

* * *
Who is your hero or heroine from outside literature?

Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen micro-credit movement for women.

Read the complete Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue

Reed Farrel Coleman

Reed Farrel Coleman’s Innocent Monster (Tyrus Books, Oct. 5, 2010) is the sixth book in his Moe Prager series.

From his Q & A with Bill Crider:

BC: I was reading on your website about the new book, and I see the title is Innocent Monster, so I'm guessing it's about vampires, right?

RFC: Is this where I stick needles in my eyes? Christ, am I sick to death of vampires. Charlaine Harris is like the nicest person alive, but can she please make it stop? Seriously, Innocent Monster is pretty far away from your basic vampire book.

BC: Okay, I guess I was wrong. I noticed that Booklist gives it a starred review that says it's "pretty much note-perfect," so where do the musicians come in?

RFC: On cue, I hope.

BC: Kidding aside, I remember that at the 2004 Bouchercon in Toronto you were campaigning to "Save Moe." Can we assume that Moe has been thoroughly saved and will be around for a while?

RFC: I think...[read on]

The Page 69 Test: Redemption Street.

The Page 69 Test: Empty Ever After.

My Book, the Movie: The Moe Prager Mystery Series.

--Marshal Zeringue