Authors Joyce and Jim Lavene are revisiting my blog today to talk about their newest release, Those Who Walk in Darkness. Welcome back!

Why do you write cozy mysteries?
I like to write about criminals getting their comeuppance and not thinking about all the gore that goes into other type of mysteries.

Please tell us about your book. What ideas or images inspired this novel?
My daughters worked at Pinkerton and brought home a video of how the company began. Then Joyce and I thought what if and it took off from there.

Do you have an ideal reader in mind when you write? If so, please describe that reader.
I guess any author would like a reader to enjoy what they write and want to read all of their books.

Please describe your writing routine.
I start out at six writing for an hour. Eat breakfast then take the grandkids to school. When I get back I make a latte, then write until noon. After that it’s basically revision time and promo work.

What advice do you give new writers just starting out?
Know what you want to write and be persistent about it. Never give up on your dream. If you want it bad enough, you will achieve it.

More about Those Who Walk in Darkness:
Three years ago, Julia Jackson was a well to do young woman from Boston whose fiancé, Jonathon, was killed right before her eyes. Obsessed with finding the killer, a man whose face she saw only in a flash as he walked up and shot Jonathon, she leaves her family and her life behind. She starts a new life as ‘Jacks’ Jackson—a cigar smoking, dead eye, female Pinkerton agent…pretending to be a man.
Now Allan Pinkerton needs Jacks to find the man who kidnapped the wife and son of a railroad official, David Boyd. Their only clues are the severed finger from the man’s wife, complete with wedding ring, and a map of the Qualla boundary, the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina.
Jacks doesn’t like the way the whole thing sounds from the beginning. David Boyd isn’t important enough to target for a kidnapping. And why travel so far with two hostages?
But Pinkerton tells her that he believes the man responsible for the kidnapping worked with Jonathon’s murderer in a train robbery five years ago. Jacks agrees to go after the kidnapper with hopes of catching him before he can reach his home grounds.
Pinkerton insists that Jacks bring three men with her—Boyd, her new partner, and a Cherokee guide named Running Wolf, who’s always watching her, like he’s trying to figure it out.
Can Jacks catch the kidnapper with her secret — and her life — intact?

Joyce and Jim Lavene write award-winning, bestselling mystery fiction as themselves, J.J. Cook, and Ellie Grant. They have written and published more than 70 novels for Harlequin, Berkley, Amazon, and Gallery Books along with hundreds of non-fiction articles for national and regional publications. They live in rural North Carolina with their family.

Webpage – http://www.joyceandjimlavene.com

Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/joyceandjimlavene

Amazon – http://amazon.com/author/jlavene

Twitter – https://twitter.com/AuthorJLavene

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