Interview with Mystery Author Jeff Sherratt

MysteryAuthors.com is proud to have bestselling mystery author JEFF SHERRATT with us for an interview today. Thank you for joining us.

M.A.: Tell us a little about your featured mystery, THE BRIMSTONE MURDERS.

J.S.: THE BRIMSTONE MURDERS is my latest novel in the Jimmy O’Brien mystery series. My books are set in the early 1970s. Jimmy O’Brien, the protagonist, is a fledgling criminal defense lawyer with an office located in Southern California. He’s always short on cash and clients rarely walk through his door. The only cases he’s able to get are those assigned by the courts, cases where Jimmy would have to pull off a miracle to win. He’s ordered by the judge to interview the accused, and at the arraignment bring in a guilty plea. He’ll pick up a fast fifty bucks for his trouble. Of Course, it doesn’t always work out that way.

M.A.: Can you share with us (without giving anything away, of course!) a personal favorite moment or line in your book?

J.S.: Jimmy in his past life had been known to tip a few, but had cleaned up his act when he became a lawyer. Now, when out on the town with his friend and mentor, Sol Silverman, he often has to explain why he’s not drinking. From the book:

Now when Sol and I are out somewhere having fun and there is a lot of drinking going on, someone invariably asks why I'm not imbibing. And when that happens, Sol always says, "Jimmy quit. He wasn't a drunk or anything. It's just that when he went out for a cool one, he'd be gone for days at a time. He'd pass out, and maybe wake up in Mexico…at a dogfight." Sol would laugh, then continue, "…in the ring on all fours, snarling at a pit bull."

"I rarely won," I always added.

M.A.: Why mysteries? What makes them so compelling for you to write?

J.S.: Throughout the years, I read all of Raymond Chandler’s novels several times and thought how great it would be to write a mystery novel myself one day. After selling my business I wrote one, then wrote another one. But when the publishing bug hit and I decided to get serious about writing I took an extension course at UCLA, wrote THE BRIMSTONE MURDERS, and with this novel I hired a writing couch, Mike Sirota. The MS was picked up almost immediately by the first publisher who saw it.

M.A.: What about other work? Do you write in any genres other than mystery?

J.S.: Other than a few articles here and there, I stick to mysteries.

M.A.: What was your funniest writing-related moment?

J.S.: Like most authors, I often laugh out loud while sitting at the computer pounding out humorous passages. The first time it happened, my wife, Judy, stuck her head in door and saw me all alone laughing like a nut. She wondered if I’d flipped out or something. Soon she started to laugh along with me. She stopped when she read the material I’d just typed out. “What’s so funny about this?” she asked.

M.A.: So, what's your current writing project? Is it a mystery, too?

J.S.: I have a new book coming out in late January, 2009 called GUILTY OR ELSE. As I said, I only write mysteries and I’m presently working on another untitled Jimmy O’Brien novel scheduled to be released in 2010.

M.A.: Other than MysteryAuthors.com, do you have any websites where readers can find out more about you and your work?

J.S.: Of course. www.jeffsherratt.com


Thanks again for agreeing to take a Minute for Mystery by joining us here today.

Interview with Mystery Author Courtney Mroch

MysteryAuthors.com is proud to have bestselling mystery author Courtney Mroch with us for an interview today. Thank you for joining us.

M.A.: Tell us a little about your featured mystery, Beneath the Morvan Moon.

C.M.: Beneath the Morvan Moon is a romantic suspense set in the Burgundy region of France. The French have a saying that goes “No good wind and no good people ever came out of the Morvan.” (The Morvan’s located in the Burgundy region.) Basically, my main character, Gretchen Lauterbach, has kin from the Morvan. Her grandmother grew up in Brevard, then fled when the people of her village murdered her fiancé because they believed him to be a werewolf. They buried his head separately from his body to make sure he would not come back to life. On her deathbed, Gretchen’s grandmother gives her a map marking the locations of her fiancé’s graves and asks her to set this wrong right by burying his head with his body. But there are a lot of other people with shady motivations in Brevard at the same time, and Gretchen suddenly finds herself trying to separate more than one fact from fiction in order to keep her life.

M.A.: Can you share with us (without giving anything away, of course!) a personal favorite moment or line in your book?

C.M.: I love when Gretchen and Zach, her love interest in the book, are arguing. Zach suspects she’s trying to claim a cloak with the powers of transforming a person into a werewolf and ends up searching her room and creating a big brew haha even though Gretchen keeps proclaiming her innocence. (And getting mighty irked that he won’t believe her.) At one point she tells him, “Believe it or not, Ripley.” It cracked me up when I wrote it because at that point she was speaking through me. That was totally the character talking and the first time that had ever really happened to me. I got a huge kick out of it.

M.A.: Why mysteries? What makes them so compelling for you to write?

C.M.: I am not the most avid mystery lover. I fully admit it. I went through a Nancy Drew phase pretty hard growing up, but when it fizzled I leaned more towards horror. But my mom always loved mysteries, and so did my dad, and I felt like I should attempt mysteries for them. Why, I don’t know. I guess because they always admired the writers who could craft such clever plots, and more than anything I wanted my parents to consider me clever, too. For me mysteries don’t come naturally and are very hard to write, but I hope to one day craft one that could be considered clever. Not only by my parents but by the reading community, too.

M.A.: What about other work? Do you write in any genres other than mystery?

C.M.: Yes, I write in horror, romance, and fantasy as well.

M.A.: What was your funniest writing-related moment?

C.M.: I can’t think of anything funny that’s ever happened to me while writing. I have a lot of funny stuff that happens to me that I write about, but I’ve never been privy to a funny writing-related incident. Never been asked to sign someone else’s book at a signing or anything like that. Darn.

M.A.: So, what’s your current writing project? Is it a mystery, too?

C.M.: I finished a manuscript called The Ghost of Laurie Floyd over a year ago. It’s kind of a romantic mystery too, but like I did with Beneath the Morvan Moon I mixed too many genres together. (In addition to mystery and romance, there’s light horror, fantasy and paranormal intertwined in BTMM.) Or, rather, the mystery doesn’t dominate, nor does the romance or paranormal aspect so no publisher wants it. I’ve had interest but all have walked because it’s not paranormal enough for one place, not mystery enough for another, etc. So I put that aside and am trying to finish a couple others I have started. Both are definitely single genre works, one a horror and the other a romance, so I’m hoping for better luck.

M.A.: Other than MysteryAuthors.com, do you have any websites where readers can find out more about you and your work?

C.M.: Well, when I’m not writing fiction I am a Senior Blogger for Families.com where I write about the harmony and strife of married life in the Marriage Blog, and about animals big and small in the Pets Blog. For a listing of my articles I encourage people to visit this link http://members.families.com/petscribe/blog. And there’s always my website at www.courtneymroch.com.

Thanks again for agreeing to take a Minute for Mystery by joining us here today.