An Interview with CJ Lyons of The Big Thrill

Judas Kiss is the third novel featuring Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson. How has Taylor as a character changed and grown with each book?

Taylor is who she is - pragmatic, moral, compassionate, strong - some would say to the point of being intractable. In Taylor's world there are black hats and white hats, good versus evil. Simple, right? But life is full of change. Every experience alters us a little bit, opens our eyes a bit. That's the way I see Taylor, altering incrementally book to book so she doesn't achieve a sense of peace and finality each time.

I like loose ends. I like to torture the poor woman, put her in situations to see just how she's going to react. And sometimes she surprises me. In addition to the crime at hand, Judas Kiss is an exploration into her past, and I think the revelations make her a richer, deeper character. I've forced her into a gray area, which is difficult for woman who has such a strong code.

How has Taylor's relationship with her FBI profiler significant other evolved over the course of the series?

This might sound a bit paradoxical considering what I just said, but her relationship with Baldwin has evolved tremendously. She's grown as a partner, has learned to trust, to let her heart speak before her head. Loving and being loved is a challenge for Taylor, one that she'd never quite mastered before him. Baldwin is her soul mate as well as her lover, and accepting this new personal life (the engagement, moving in together) ultimately makes her a better woman.

Taylor's private life is forced into the public spotlight in Judas Kiss. How does Taylor deal with this?

Many women have something in their past that haunts them, something they'd like to do over. Taylor is no different. It's very, very difficult for her, because it's not only her personal life, it's her personal sexual life splashed across the headlines. The media seizes on her indiscretion and her most intimate details are exposed all over local and national television. If that's not bad enough, the situation is compounded by another leaked video that raises questions about her role in the death of her ex-partner and ex-lover. Her fall from grace is blood in the water for the cable news shows, and the local media feasts on her disgrace.

I believe the horror she feels will resonate with many women. But she's a tough cookie. She handles it the only way she knows how, by moving forward, finding out who's responsible and making sure they get punished. To use a terrible cliché, she doesn't waste time crying over the spilt milk.

Judas Kiss deals with sensitive topics such as pornography and the murder of a pregnant mother all in the traditionally "safe" setting of suburbia. How do you use this setting to jar your readers from their complacency?

The crime stories that seem to capture our interest as a society are the ones that take place where we feel the safest, which is inside our own homes. That's where the majority of homicides take place. And we all know how much the media loves a good suburban murder, especially in my fictional Nashville. There's a sense of the fantastic surrounding the case, an "it could have happened to me" mentality couple with the media frenzy - satellite trucks parks on quiet streets, reporters camped on the lawns, every moment chronicled.

This book was right from the heart. Twisted as I am, my imagination usually guides the stories. I made an exception for Judas Kiss. The murder of Corinne Wolf was based on a real case. In 2006, I saw an article from a North Carolina newspaper about a young pregnant mother named Michelle Young who was found murdered by her sister. Her death was violent, and her child had been alone in the house with her mother's corpse. The media reported a number of salient details, including the bloody footprints the child had left through the house. I watched the case, hoping there would be a resolution. Unfortunately, Michelle Young's murder still isn't solved. Her husband is the prime suspect. That became the opening of Judas Kiss, but the rest of the story is an utter fabrication.

Your books feature a lot of realistic details about police procedure and forensics. What's your most memorable adventure in research?

I have a fabulous team of experts who are incredibly patient with me. I devise scenarios then ask them if I have it right. I've done ride-alongs with Metro homicide and Metro patrol, have been to the Medical Examiner's office to identify a skull, delved into the mind of a serial killer with the head of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.

The most memorable was the night I was out on midnight patrol, my first overnight run. We got called to a stabbing, and beat the first responders to the scene. It was in the projects, dark and dreary, and the cop I was with parked and told me to stay on his six, then took off into the gloom. I hightailed it out of the car and followed. The scene was a bad one; the man had been knifed in the stomach. His friends and family were crying. One was trying to help push the stomach contents back inside his body. The victim died on the scene. It didn't end there - we caught the suspect, found the murder weapon, had a chain of custody incident, then transported the man (a killer, sitting a foot behind me, openly telling us WHY he murdered his friend) to the station, where we saw him to booking.

I got home at six in the morning, overwhelmed. When I sat in my chair and looked down, I saw I had the man's blood on my cowboy boot. What I felt was beyond description, really, but the books took on a whole new meaning for me. Before, they were entertainment. Now, they're a bit darker, more serious. More a reflection of what the reality is on the streets of Nashville.

What's up next for Taylor?

Next fall, Taylor is going to have another run-in with a serial killer in Edge of Black. He's a completely twisted lothario, a necrophiliac who starves his victims to death in his basement. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to go on the road to promote that one...

JT Talks to John Seigenthaler about 14

Click here to listen to the podcast of John Seigenthaler's A WORD ON WORDS interview with JT about her latest Taylor Jackson novel, 14

JT Talks to John Seigenthaler about ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS

Click here to listen to the podcast of John Seigenthaler's A WORD ON WORDS interview with JT about ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS.

XM Radio's Kim Alexander talks to JT about 14

I'm Kim Alexander and this is Fiction Nation. The book is 14, the new thriller by J.T. Ellison.

J.T. Ellison's new book featuring Nashville deb-turned-cop Taylor Jackson is out; it's called '14'. This time Taylor is tracking a serial killer who has seemingly returned from the dead, and she's also planning her wedding — guess which one is scarier? As usual, J.T. works on a realistic canvas — her hometown — which makes the cavalcade of lunatics who crop up to ruin Taylor's special day even more menacing. (Although if you can find anything more terrifying than a caterer please do let me know about it.) There are a couple of plot twists that I certainly didn't see coming (I love that) and one 'ripped from the headlines' event that J.T. swears she wrote long before the news story broke. (Hint, it involves a pervy attorney general.)

I have talked to J.T. a couple of times over the last year and it's been a pleasure to see her continue to explore the world of her tough minded heroine, Nashville cop Taylor Jackson. I don't recall reading a lot of serialized fiction as a kid — there was the obvious Lord of the Rings and a few others, but somewhere along the line it became the done thing to create a character and a universe and keep talking about them. If you're lucky and good, your main characters and the world they live in are interesting enough to warrant return visits. If you're not, the reader realizes you're telling the same story over and over.

I think some fantasy fiction falls prey to this — how many elves can defeat the evil sorcerer and return the sword to its rightful king? J.T. Ellison is good and isn't afraid to take Taylor Jackson to places she probably wouldn't want to go. I can almost picture Taylor getting the script for the book and saying, "Oh no, I am not doing this. It's scary and weird and out of my comfort zone. I am not getting married!"

Because while serial killers, press conferences and trips to the morgue are all in a day's work for Taylor, getting an up-do and a big white dress? That is a whole different thing. True, she's been with her hot FBI fiancé John Baldwin for a while and the time was right, but Taylor is clearly more comfortable drinking cold coffee on an all night stakeout than wearing white satin pumps and getting in front of her family. Speaking of which, Taylor's mother and father figure pretty prominently in this book, and the disconnect between the resolutely, no, defiantly blue collar woman she's become and the deb princess her parents raised her to be is coming more and more into focus. As the series continues I'll be keeping an eye on her slowly unfolding past. Oh, and there's a family of serial killers, a creepy old house, the young victims are piling up and the wedding is at the end of the week. Guess which one makes our girl Taylor quake in her boots?

Hear my interview with J.T. Ellison on Fiction Nation, on Take Five, XM 155 on Wednesday, September 10that 7:00am, on Thursday, September 11th at midnight, on Friday September 12th at 11:00pm, on Saturday September 13th at 6pm, on Sunday September 14th at 10:00am and 8:00pm, and on Monday September 15th at 12:00 midnight. You can also hear Fiction Nation on Sonic Theater, XM 163 on Thursday September 11th at 3:00 pm in its half-hour format. All times EDT.

An Interview with Cathy Clamp of The Big Thrill

You'll double-lock your doors after reading 14

By Cathy Clamp

Ten victims, each with pale skin and long dark hair. All have been slashed across the throat, the same red lipstick smeared across their lips.

In the mid-1980s the Snow White Killer terrorized the streets of Nashville, Tennessee. Then suddenly the murders stopped. A letter from the killer to the police stated that his work was done.

Now four more bodies have been found, marked with his fatal signature. The residents of Nashville fear a madman has returned, decades later, to finish his sick fairy tale. Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson believes the killings are the work of a copycat killer who's even more terrifying. For this monster is meticulously honing his craft as he mimics famous serial murders...proving that the past is not to be forgotten.

Big Thrill contributing editor Cathy Clamp recently sat down with J.T. Ellison, author of the upcoming thriller, 14, and chatted about this new episode in the life of her ongoing character Taylor Jackson.

Did your heroine work on the original files in the 80's that she never solved, or is this a case of having to dig up old files to figure out what originally happened?

Taylor was actually in junior high when the original Snow White murders took place. The case sparked her interest and she always vowed that if she had a chance, she'd try to solve the mystery. When she started with the Metro Nashville Police Department, she checked the files out of storage and memorized them. The case sat in the Cold Case files for thirteen years before bodies with the Snow White's signature began showing up in Nashville. Now, being the Homicide Lieutenant, she not only has the jurisdiction, but the team to solve the case. Hardly a dream come true, but a fulfillment of a desire she's had since she was a child.

Did you model the events or killings on any real cases that happened in Nashville? If so, were they ever solved?

Nashville has never had an egregious, famous serial killer, thank goodness. For the story to work, though, I needed to give us a killer on par with serial killers like the Boston Strangler, the Zodiac, the Son of Sam. A killer who has altered the culture of a city through their reign of terror. The Snow White killer became that man in Nashville's history.

You were a White House staffer in your "previous life" before beginning to write novels, which would be a really interesting job. What led you to Nashville, and what triggered the desire to write a thriller?

I went into politics after an English professor in college told me I'd never make it as a writer. I was out of the game, so to speak, for fifteen years, and just started writing again in 2004. My husband and I met, courted and married in D.C., but he wanted to come home to Nashville, and in 1998 I finally acquiesced. I had my doubts - but Nashville is an amazing city. I was intrigued by the contradictions - the class structure, the politics, the very southernness of the city. I was reading another great regional series - John Sandford's Prey books - and I thought it would be fascinating to have a Nashville version. We have the same kind of crime as the big cities, but we're perceived as a town overrun with musicians and songwriters. I wanted to give my readers a chance to see the Nashville I see, not necessarily the one they've become accustomed to.

You've mentioned you have a cat who runs roughshod over you. I've noticed that writers with pets who have "personalities" (myself included! LOL!) tend to also inflict similar animals on their protagonists. Does Taylor have a unique pet?

No, Taylor has been a loner for a long while. With her long hours and total dedication to the job, she would feel like she was abandoning any pet she left at home. But now she has Baldwin. He doesn't qualify as a furry friend in the truest sense of the word, but he is an addition to her life that makes her richer. I, on the other hand, have a very poorly trained cat who rules the roost in the Ellison household. She's got me wrapped around her little paws.

What surprised you when you were doing you research for the book?

I research heavily, spending time with law enforcement, talking to experts. But for this book, I needed a trip to New York. I hadn't been since high school, and I wanted a refresher course to see how it smelled, what it sounded like, where to place my scenes. The city quite literally blew my mind. I've been back five times now, and loved every trip. But that first visit as an adult will stay with me.

Did you originally intend any subplots or characters traits that didn't make it to the final edit?

Sure. There's always a trail that needs to be reigned in, or a character who isn't serving their purpose. My editor (Linda McFall) is fantastic, and she knows exactly what threads to pull. I'm lucky, I rarely have to cut much from the content. My stories are twisty, but still linear, and I tend to add as I revise. And add. And add...

Anything else you'd like readers to know about? Are you planning any contests or book tours to promote the book?

I'll be on tour starting September 3, and go for six weeks, wrapping up my out of town events in Baltimore, for my very first Bouchercon. I like the set up I've got for this book - for All The Pretty Girls, I covered thirteen states in six months. Fun, but exhausting. This is much more concentrated - in addition to my Tennessee stops, I'm going to Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Maryland and Nebraska, where I'm joining one of my favorite authors, Alex Kava, for a couple of stops on her tour. This schedule is more intense up front, but then it's over, and most of the rest of my dates are relatively local. I'm starting a new book as we speak that is due in March, which means I need more time at home on the computer. The tour dates are on my website, http://www.JTEllison.com.

Thanks so much for taking the time to give our readers some insight into your new book. It's due out September 1st from Mira. Right? It sounds like it's going to be a great read!

It is, and I hope everyone will love it. Thanks for having me!

Contributing editor Cathy Clamp is the co-author, with C.T. Adams, of two USA Today bestselling paranormal romantic thriller series from Tor Books. They were recently nominated for a Career Achievement Award in paranormal romance by RT BOOKreviews Magazine, which will be awarded in April, 2008. Their next thriller, TIMELESS MOON, hits the shelves in March, 2008.