Sunday, March 29, 2009

Talking with Linda Barnes

It's funny that the people I think I'll have the most trouble interviewing on Mystery Matters are the ones I end up truly comfortable with. Maybe it's because I write cozy mysteries with a librarian and a cat - so the idea of speaking with someone who writes about a hard-boiled, former-cop private investigator leaves me wondering where I'll ever find a heart-to-heart connection.

But that connection certainly happened right in the middle of my conversation with Linda Barnes about her Carlotta Carlyle mysteries, when Linda said, after a listener emailed a question about Carlotta's mob-connected boyfriend Sam Gianelli, "A lot of my friends are smart women who've made dumb choices about guys."

Soon after that, she said that one of her greatest accomplishments was that readers in Germany started a Big Sisters program there after learning about Big Sisters through Linda's books. In those two moments I felt Linda reach across the phone line and grab my heart. I knew we were connected as people, as women, as fellow-writers, and in that ineffable bond of reader and writer. Count me as a proud Linda Barnes fan, for more reasons than just her good books.

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