The Disease

T he desire to write is a disease, a congenital condition. Writers are born with the germ. We don’t contract it later on. Hopefully we discover what’s wrong with us early, otherwise perhaps we wind up institutionalized rather than published. I am sure there’s a cure — a traditional education, a 9-5 job, or an…

Read More

Black Out Q&A

My brilliant (and beautiful and oh so young) publicist Sarah Breivogel interviewed me about BLACK OUT for the press kit. It was a great idea and I really enjoyed her intelligent and thought-provoking questions. I hope you enjoy my answers! Q) BLACK OUT is a stand-alone thriller and a departure from your character Ridley Jones.…

Read More

The Lost Girl

The theme of “the lost girl” is something I find surfacing in my work again and again. She turns up missing, murdered, abused, neglected. She’s helpless, powerless, unable to circumvent the horrible things that befall her. In earlier novels, my protagonist true crime author Lydia Strong* has an obsession with lost girls, never realizing until…

Read More

The Talented Ms. Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith In some ways, I suppose I have always felt a bit alienated by noir fiction, although I adore that smoky, mysterious atmosphere — the hourglass-shaped dame half in the shadows, the cigarette dangling from pouting lips, the impossibly virile man with a gun and a low ball of whiskey. My early exposure to…

Read More

Enemy At The Baby Gate

Like generals heading into battle my husband Jeffrey and I prepared for every possible condition in readying ourselves for the arrival of our daughter. Overwhelmed by the horror stories of those who’d headed into the fray before us, there was no attack — from colic to breastfeeding issues, from sleep deprivation to sexual starvation —…

Read More

A HELL OF A WOMAN: An Anthology of Female Noir

When Dave Thompson, owner of one of my favorite independent booksellers in the country, Murder by the Book in Houston, asked me to contribute to a forthcoming anthology called A HELL OF A WOMAN, I jumped at the chance. A HELL OF A WOMAN: An Anthology of Female Noir will be published by Busted Flush Press…

Read More

Ridley Jones Crosses the Pond

Ridley Jones is a globetrotter, we know this. One might find her in France, Germany, The Netherlands, to name just a few of the places publishing her adventures. Thanks to the stellar foreign rights people at Crown, BEAUTIFUL LIES and SLIVER OF TRUTH have been sold in 26 territories and counting. So I am thrilled…

Read More

Blindsided by a Diaper

Ocean Rae … a delicious, juicy strawberry of a child, a Tasmanian devil, a tumble of kisses and hugs, my own tiny hurricane. I worship her, dream about her, can’t remember who I was before she arrived. It has been nearly eighteen months since our daughter was born and to say nothing has ever been…

Read More

Books That Changed My Life

Late last year I was asked to write a piece for The Sun-Herald in Victoria, Australia about the books that changed my life. I have loved so many types of books since I was a child that I found this very difficult – as though I’d been asked to say which people in my life…

Read More