Here at Casa Mysterioso, instead of recycled site-owner publicity, we offer interviews with other people in the arts--writers, musicians, actors, entertainers, and sometimes just plain characters. We add new ones all the time, and site visitors are invited to contribute. If we use your interview, we'll pay $35. Query by e-mail.

Interview with Jan Burke
Interview with Jeremiah Healy
Ben and Diane (An Interview with Stephen Booth)
Cold Days and Deadly Nights (An Interview with Steve Hamilton)
Mysteries (An Interview with Irene Marcuse)
The Stone Monkey (An Interview with Jeff Deaver)
The Salaryman's Wife (An Interview with Sujata Massey)
A Kiss Gone Bad (An Interview with Jeff Abbott)
Charlotte Justice (An Interview with Paula Woods)
Blood Money (An Interview with Rochelle Krich)
Letter From New Orleans: (An interview With Andy J. Forest)
The Lady From Charm City (An Interview with Laura Lippman)
Crescent City Views (An Interview with Anne Rice)

 

Interview with Jeremiah Healy
by Andi Shechter

JH is Jerry Healy, AS is interviewer Andi Shechter.

AS: What was the incentive for writing a new series, when you have a successful p.i. series?

JH:  Several reasons. One, I enjoy writing both p.i. and legal thrillers. In fact, I'd done a legal thriller in 1998 entitled The Stalking Of Sheilah Quinn. It was well received (starred review in Publishers Weekly; three hardcover printings by St. Martin's), but caused consumer confusion: When people saw my name on the spine, they assumed it was a private eye novel. Accordingly, it seemed sensible to use a pseudonym for any subsequent legal thrillers, including this new series. Also, since the narrative device in the new series is varying POV among 4 different characters, two male (one Jewish-American and one Italian-American) and two female (one African-American, one Irish-American), I thought a gender-neutral first name like "Terry" made sense. However, since the "first among equals" is the young female criminal defense attorney, Mairead (pronounced the Irish way, "Muh-RAID") O'Clare, I thought it made sense to use an Irish-American last name like "Devane."

AS: Your new protagonist is female and a lawyer, (unlike the male p.i. Cuddy) although she is still based in Boston. What brought Mairead about?  Did you base her on any of your students?  

JH: Mairead is a composite of a number of my former female students. And I'm helped tremendously in the research on the books by former students, both male and female, who practice criminal law in Boston.

AS: When we first met, you had two (full-time, I might add) careers, teaching law and writing. You finally gave up the teaching a while back.  Do you miss it?

JH: I missed teaching terribly the first two years I was a full-time writer, mainly from the socialization standpoint (the loss of thirty colleagues in a sorority/fraternity every working day). Now after seven years, I certainly don't miss the committee meetings and the exam design/grading. The nice thing about mystery writing is that I still get to stand in front of an audience from time to time and perform like a stage actor. It's just that now it is at mystery conventions instead of in law school classrooms.

AS: Your books are set primarily in the Boston area where you live, with side trips, as it were, to Florida and Maine where you also spend time.  And your settings are so alive, so real, that I was just wondering  - any chance I can convince you to take a villa in Tuscany?

JH: Sure, if you're buying. Seriously, I do think setting some books in other locales gives the character a fresh look in a "fish out of water "sense, and therefore allows the reader to see a new side of that character.

[NOTE TO READERS:  If you have not read Healy's Spiral, the next question contains a major spoiler you might want to skip.]

AS: There's no other way to ask this, so forgive me if it's rude, but in Spiral, what caused you to make such a major major change in Cuddy's life? Why, after so many books and a developing relationship, did you decide that Nancy had to die?  Was this a hard decision?

JH: Not rude at all, and partly a fresh look answer as well. I felt it was time to do something to shake Cuddy up, and so I decided to return him to his original status-- that of a recent widower--to explore how he'd deal with a second major blow in the same area of his life and character. While I don't have plans right now for a 14th Cuddy novel, the second collection of the Cuddy short stories, entitled Cuddy Plus One, should be available in April, 2003. 

 What's next from Jerry Healy:  The first book in the O'Clare series, Uncommon Justice, is available in paperback now from Berkley Publishing Group. The second, Juror Number Eleven, will be out in paperback in June, 2003, and the third,  A Stain Upon The Robe, will appear in August, 2003.  Cuddy Plus One will be available from Crippen & Landru Press (http://www.crippenlandru.com/).

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