Eye on Books - Author Interviews

Mary Kay Andrews - "The Fixer Upper"

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:53:57 CDT

A young up-and-coming Washington lobbyist is forced to take a sudden detour from her ambitious career path when her boss is caught up in a political scandal, in the Mary Kay Andrews novel "The Fixer Upper." Suddenly homeless, jobless, and virtually broke, Dempsey Killebrew reluctantly takes on the challenge her father offers her: go to the small town in Georgia where he has just inherited an antebellum mansion, fix it up and "flip" it. Oh, if only it were that simple.

Brad Thor - "The Apostle"

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:40:38 CDT

In bestselling thriller writer Brad Thor's world, when the President needs a counterterrorism operative he can count on, he usually turns to series hero Scot Harvath. But as Thor's book "The Apostle" opens, a new president has taken office, and may not have as much use for Harvath and his unique skillset. That is, until the daughter of a well-connected political family is kidnapped in Afghanistan. The president calls on Harvath, but the terms of ransom may require Harvath to free one of the world's worst terrorists.

Joe Scarborough - "The Last Best Hope"

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:01:30 CDT

Don't mistake the failures of Republicans in recent years for a failure of conservatism, says talk show host, and former Congressman, Joe Scarborough. America is a conservative country, he maintains, just not "conservative" in an ideological sense. The way to counter a liberal ideologue is not to become a conservative one, he says. Scarborough points the way ahead in his book "The Last Best Hope."

Norman Ollestad - "Crazy for the Storm"

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:32:05 CDT

Eleven-year-old Norman Ollestad was on his way to pick up a trophy for winning a youth skiing championship on February 19, 1979. His father chartered a Cessna airplane to take him and Norman from L.A. to Big Bear City. With them were Norman's dad's girlfriend, and the pilot of the plane, four people in all -- and only one would live to see the end of the day. The plane wandered off course in a blinding blizzard and smashed into an 8,600-foot mountain. The pilot and Norman's father were killed instantly. Sandra, the girlfriend, was badly hurt but survived, for a while. But only 11-year-old Norman, whose father had trained him to be rugged and bold, survived, by painstakingly working his way down the mountain, by his fingertips. Now, 30 years later, he's ready to tell the story, in a book called "Crazy for the Storm."

Dean Koontz - "Relentless"

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:47:10 CDT

Cubby Greenwich is a bestselling author. But he's also got a problem: a reviewer hates his new book. Now, to most authors that's not a problem, but in Cubby's case, he has to find out who this mysterious reviewer, Shearman Waxx, is. No one knows who he is. Cubby tracks him down, then wishes he hadn't, in the Dean Koontz book "Relentless."

Michael Connelly - "The Scarecrow"

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:08:08 CDT

Veteran newspaperman Jack McEvoy has lost his job at the L.A. Times, but still has one more story he has to finish, in Michael Connelly's thriller "The Scarecrow." Yes, it is a murder story, yes there is a dastardly villain, but the real scary part of the story -- well, one of the scary parts -- is Connelly's account of the death spiral of the American daily newspaper.

Sebastian Barry - "The Secret Scripture"

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:00:42 CDT

Two people's stories tell a single tale, in Irish playwright and novelist Sebastian Barry's book "The Secret Scripture." A 100-year-old mental patient named Roseanne McNulty has been penning her autobiography, while her psychiatrist, an enigmatic man named Dr. Grene, is keeping a journal of his own. Together their narratives form what Publishers Weekly called "both a sparkling literary puzzle and a stark cautionary tale of corrupted power."

John Feinstein - "Are You Kidding Me?"

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:39:52 CDT

The U.S. Open is always golf at its very best. The world's finest and most accomplished gather at some of America's most difficult courses, and the winner is usually at around even par. Sudden-death playoffs are rare -- there have been only three since the first U.S. Open in 1895. The last one was in 2008, when Tiger Woods battled Rocco Mediate through 90 holes of golf, including an 18-hole playoff round, before Woods emerged victorious on the sudden-death hole. Now that story is told through Mediate's eyes -- and the words of veteran sports writer John Feinstein -- in a book called "Are You Kidding Me?"

Lincoln Child - "Cemetery Dance"

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:06:15 CDT

When a New York Times reporter is attacked and stabbed to death in his Manhattan apartment, it appears to be a pretty open-and-shut case. Witnesses saw the victim's neighbor walking out of the building, covered in blood, immediately after the attack. But as we learn in the Lincoln Child-Douglas Preston thriller "Cemetery Dance," that creepy neighbor couldn't possibly have been the killer -- because he's been dead for two weeks. Enigmatic FBI special agent Aloysius Pendergast, making his ninth appearance in a Preston-Child book, is soon on the case.

Dr. Larry Dossey - "The Power of Premonitions"

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:42:30 CDT

You know that feeling you get, that something is about to happen? You can't quite put your finger on it -- maybe it came to you in a dream -- but it's, something. And then you know that chill you get when the thing you felt, happens? There is power in those premonitions, says Dr. Larry Dossey. His book "The Power of Premonitions" is packed with real, breathtaking examples of how we can put our own premonitions to work for us.

Laila Lalami - "Secret Son"

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:17:17 CDT

A young man born into poverty in Morocco finds his life taking a bizarre turn, when he discovers that his father is not dead, as he had always been told, but is in fact a prosperous businessman. In Laila Lalami's novel "Secret Son," Youssef winds up in a fancy apartment with all the comforts of a home he never knew. But, of course, they didn't all live happily ever after...

Jessica Bram - "Happily Ever After Divorce"

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:14:38 CDT

Divorce is frequently seen as an endpoint, the conclusion of a union, and, often, the end of joy and happiness. But Jessica Bram determined to make her divorce a more positive experience, or at least to find joy and happiness in spite of her divorce. And it worked, she says. Bram calls her book "Happily Ever After Divorce."

Laurie R. King - "The Language of Bees"

Tue, 26 May 2009 18:34:26 CDT

A long trip abroad is over, and now it's back home to the south of England for Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, in Laurie R. King's new mystery "The Language of Bees." It's the ninth book in her series featuring the brilliant young Russell and the legendary but fading Holmes. Upon their return to Sussex, the couple faces twin mysteries, a painful visit from the past, and a threat to their life together.

Reza Aslan - "How to Win a Cosmic War"

Tue, 12 May 2009 18:27:27 CDT

The "war on terror" is unending, unwinnable, and unlosable, says Iranian-born American scholar Reza Aslan. The title of his book -- "How to Win a Cosmic War" -- is meant to be provocative, for Aslan believes there is no winning the kind of war that the United States declared on September 12th, 2001. "How to Win a Cosmic War" is a call for nations to strip world conflicts of their religious connotations.

Peter Schechter - "Pipeline"

Fri, 08 May 2009 09:36:46 CDT

An America that is -- still -- cripplingly dependent on foreign energy must face down a newly resurgent, and energy-rich Russia, in Washington, D.C. consultant Peter Schechter's thriller "Pipeline." What Russia has, and the U.S. desperately needs, is natural gas. And before this book is over, panic will turn to terror then to the very precipice of war.