Here is an audio clip I obtained from the F.B.I. of an interview with Joshua Wade shortly after his arrest in connection with Mindy Schloss’s disappearance. The interview appears in Chapter 40 of ICE AND BONE. What you obviously can’t see is Wade’s reaction when Agent Thoreson claims they “talked to Mindy.” Both Agent Thoreson and Detective Perrenoud, who were in the room, told me that a devious smirk came over Wade’s face: From Chapter … [Read more...]
New York Times Bestselling Author Steve Jackson Reflects On An Unexpected Reward From Writing SMOOTH TALKER
Writing true crime books has it's ups and downs. It can be a dark road through hell researching and writing about the terrible things human beings--if some killers can be classified as such--do to other human beings. It also has its rewards, some of them quite unexpected, as I was recently reminded. Anyone who reads my books knows that I'm not big on going into the gory details, or including the more "shocking" photographs included in … [Read more...]
True Crime Author Steve Jackson Discusses SMOOTH TALKER Picture Puzzle Pieces
I've been asked why I chose to write SMOOTH TALKER: Trail of Death, especially as I have already written about serial killer Roy Melanson in the past. In 2002, I published a book called NO STONE UNTURNED: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators, which was about the history and some of the best early cases involving NecroSearch International. NSI is a group of scientists, as well as former and current law enforcement … [Read more...]
Richard Godwin on Horror Fiction
In this series of posts I want to look at what links horror fiction and crime fiction. The posts are part of the launch of my Vermont based novel The Pure And The Hated. I have spent several years if my life in Vermont. My wife is from the state and the novel is set there. While it is a crime novel, it is also Noir, it is a revenge tragedy, and it is part horror. What do we mean when we talk about horror? What is it that horrifies us? The genre … [Read more...]
Richard Godwin: The Bad Guy in Crime Fiction
Savage Highway is about bad guys and the breakdown of law and why justice fails. In a lawless world revenge is justice. I want to discuss other authors here before I focus on the novel itself. Savage Highway is about the frontier. Both of the authors I will be discussing today portray bad guys in a variety of ways. In Burke we have the pairing of two lawless cops, Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell. And Purcell is an extreme example of the bad … [Read more...]
Monte Francis on the Cases Behind His New True Crime Book ICE AND BONE
I began reporting on crimes and murder trials as a TV reporter for the NBC affiliate in Fresno, California, KSEE in 1999. During the five years I spent in California’s Central Valley, I had the opportunity to cover a number of high-profile cases. Among them was the trial of Scott Peterson, who was ultimately convicted of murdering his pregnant wife Laci in 2004. Two years prior, I covered the trial of Cary Stayner, the hotel handyman responsible … [Read more...]
Why the Fascination with Ted Bundy?
It’s true; Ted Bundy is different from all other serial killers. It’s not that he’s more evil or callus than the rest of that diabolical lot. It’s just that when you look at him, at his appearance and demeanor, and what he’d accomplished and where he was going, he just doesn’t fit the mold of a cold-blooded killer. But it isn’t just how he appeared on the outside that both fascinate, and yes, startles, but what he did while committing … [Read more...]
Nickell’s Cents; Volume 5 Repeat Offender Update
REPEAT OFFENDER UPDATE: Once again, we're back with Sin City Cop and Author Bradley Nickell for an important update about the Daimon Monroe case detailed in Bradley's wildly popular true crime thriller, REPEAT OFFENDER. The case is back in the courtroom for what might be the final provocative, chaotic, and hopefully inspiring episode. Check out the video below for the Repeat Offender update. If you haven't read the book yet, you're … [Read more...]
Richard Godwin’s SAVAGE HIGHWAY Receives Great Review from Dead End Follies
International bestselling author Richard Godwin's new thriller noir book, SAVAGE HIGHWAY, received a great review from the Dead End Follies blog. SAVAGE HIGHWAY follows the mystery of the disappearance of women from a truck stop on a remote highway in Arizona and was released from WildBlue Press on January 19th, 2016. Get your copy of SAVAGE HIGHWAY today! "Richard Godwin writes the extreme and the disturbing very well. He's very good at … [Read more...]
True Crime Author Steve Jackson Interviewed For 48 Hours Story On Oregon Murder Case
Show aired March 5 In the course of working on a potential book in Oregon about a man accused of murdering his girlfriend and mother of his child by pushing her off a cliff in 2009, I suddenly became a focal point of a January hearing over a defense motion to dismiss the case. Pre-trial efforts to dismiss a case are not unusual. However, the defense attorney, Mike Arnold, partly based his witness questioning during testimony on the … [Read more...]
