
PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis, trailer and excerpt below. Read the first two short stories with Amazon Look Inside.
Also do not miss out on our Q&As with authors Jaden Terrell ("Peace, Sometimes"), where she discusses her novel River of Glass, and Catriona McPherson ("Kissin’ Don’t Kill"), about The Child Garden.
Diversion Books will be awarding eight eCopies of Killer Nashville Noir: Cold Blooded to randomly drawn winners via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).
Synopsis | Trailer | The Stories | Teaser | Author Q&A: Jaden Terrell | Author Q&A: Catriona McPherson | About the Authors | Giveaway & Tour Stops
Synopsis
Bestselling authors Jeffery Deaver and Anne Perry join rising stars like Dana Chamblee Carpenter and Paul Gail Benson in a collection that proves Music City is a deadly place to be when your song gets called.Featuring stories by: Donald Bain, Robert Dugoni, Jefferson Bass, Mary Burton, Jonathan Stone, Steven James, Maggie Toussaint, Clay Stafford, Heywood Gould, Jaden Terrell, and more…
Every year, some of the biggest names in the thriller world converge in Tennessee for the Killer Nashville conference, an event where stars of the genre rub elbows with their most devoted fans, where the bestsellers of tomorrow pick up tricks of the trade, and where some of the best writers of today swap dark tales of good deals gone bad, rights made wrong, and murder in all shades...
This collection of new stories features some of the biggest names in suspense, from bestsellers to ferociously talented newcomers. Grouped around the classic theme of murder, KILLER NASHVILLE NOIR: COLD-BLOODED is a first-class collection and a must-have for fans of the genre.
The Stories
In Plain Sight | Kissin’ Don’t Kill | Ripple | The Hunt for Skippy Walker | Rich Talk | Mailman | High Noon at Dollar Central | Repressed | The Coal Torpedo | Giving Blood | Shutter Speed | He’ll Kill Again | Lullabies and Lightning Storms | The Keepsake | Peace, Sometimes | A Matter of Honor | Sad Like a Country Song | Second Thoughts | The Virgo Affair | Savage Gulf |In Plain Sight by Jefferson Bass
A group of undergraduate students from the University of Tennessee aren’t surprised when they stumble upon a decomposing body in the famed “Body Farm”. Featuring the Jefferson Bass recurring characters of Bill Brockton and Miranda Lovelady, the shock comes after they realize this particular body wasn’t supposed to be there.Kissin’ Don’t Kill by Catriona McPherson
Agatha and Anthony Award Winning author Catriona McPherson knows that there’s more to a happy home than appearances, good food being one of them. And, it’s always best to honor your commitments until the bitter end. In this story of geriatric love, the spice is still in the pudding.Ripple by Baron R. Birtcher
Baron R. Birtcher’s recurring characters Mike Travis, a retired cop, and Snyder, a military veteran, get roped into a mission to maintain government secrets when an old friend, Rex Blackwood, comes to the sleepy Hawaiian isle of Hualalai seeking something that is not supposed to exist. There are no umbrella drinks at the bar for this reunion.The Hunt for Skippy Walker by Donald Bain
Inside us all is the desire to be something more than what we are. The weak want to be stronger. Those who have little want more. All Willard Walker wanted was to be happy. Instead that part of him that wanted to be more became someone else he couldn’t control. Bain is known for Murder, She Wrote, but Jessica Fletcher never experienced anything this dark.Rich Talk by C. Hope Clark
Set in C. Hope Clark’s Low Country, defense attorney Harlowe Franklin and his wife Lavella O’Hara Franklin have the perfect life until boredom rocks their worlds. Now both deal with the situation in their own way, putting their butler Stevens square in the middle.Mailman by Jonathan Stone
George Waite is the perfect mailman — through rain, snow, sleet, and hail. And he knows when things aren’t right. The newly transplanted Muscovito family is different from everyone in the neighborhood. The neighbors want to know more about the reclusive residents…and so does George. Unfortunately, some mail was never meant to be opened.High Noon at Dollar Central by Maggie Toussaint
When a burglar keeps breaking into the county’s local stores – the liquor store, the Dollar Central, the art center – Maggie Toussaint’s series character Baxley Powell is dragged into personally investigating the crime by her long-time, best friend, Charlotte Armstrong. But when the clues point to Baxley herself – and even to her family – not even Charlotte knows what to do next. From unlikely sources come unlikely powers as Powell discovers when she is finally face-to-face with the person who wants to do her in.Repressed by Jeffery Deaver
From the author of The Bone Collector comes Sam Fogel, a professor of Northern transplant displaced in a quiet North Carolina town who becomes disturbed when he sees an old, yellow Buick. After visiting a therapist on his wife’s suggestion, he comes across repressed memories. Can Sam’s discovery save his marriage, his family, his sanity? And will a cold case finally be solved.The Coal Torpedo by Blake Fontenay
The Civil War has just ended and historical figure Allan Pinkerton is in Washington, D.C. in the office of President Andrew Johnson on a mission to set wrongs right. But Johnson may have another agenda than the truth and – if Johnson has his way – the person responsible for the deaths of 1,700 American civilians may go unpunished.Giving Blood by Jon Jefferson
In a tale of conspiracy, Jon Jefferson (National Geographic filmmaker and half the writing team of NY Bestselling author Jefferson Bass) shares the twisting story of George Hartley who only wanted to make a difference in this world, but discovered no one was paying attention. After his wife is cruelly taken from him, he is willing to give his blood – and even someone else’s – to even the score.Shutter Speed by Anne Perry
The world-famed author Anne Perry – creator of the detective characters Thomas & Charlotte Pitt, William Monk, and Hester Latterly – historically examines another time and crime of passion. Eighteen years after World War I, Londoner and fashion photographer Jenny McAllister seeks only peace. William Churchill is at odds with Hitler. Within this time of heated escalation and world dominance, Jenny comes upon a street fight with a fatal ending in which one of her pacifist friends is killed. The murderer is unknown. The clue is hidden, but visible, if only Jenny can expose it.He’ll Kill Again by Heywood Gould
From the writer and director responsible for Fort Apache the Bronx, The Boys from Brazil, Cocktail, and Rolling Thunder comes an eerie tale of an average janitor whose only ambition seems to be going to a local bar called O’Meara’s every Thursday night to spend some of his paycheck. Amid the bar brawls on this particular Thursday, he hears a gagging, chocking noise, and – before he knows it – his life is about to change.Lullabies and Lightning Storms by Dana Chamblee Carpenter
The newspaper clippings in Cassie’s attic read Gideon Gets Its Own Bubble Baby. For years to come, reporters, church groups, students, and tourists crowd Cassie’s house to view her daughter Sybil. She hardly speaks but when she does, it’s to softly whisper a prophecy in the form of broken lyrics — to those who come seeking answers and to those who never ask.The Keepsake by Mary Burton
Recurring characters officer Georgia Morgan and homicide Detective Jake Bishop take up the case of murdered Grace Duvall, a twenty-eight-year-old, unsolved, cold case. The aging widower, Lance Duvall, visits the police every year in hopes that some new information leads them to his wife’s killer. This year, the officer and detective get a tip they can’t ignore.Peace, Sometimes by Jaden Terrell
Shamus nominee Jaden Terrell shares the story of serial rapist Waylon Bayard. In prison for the unthinkable, he does it again. Escaping to an isolated cabin, with a victim tied, and his old tools on the table, Waylon finds peace in the arms of a woman he never expected. But with peace comes a price. Waylon Bayard never saw that coming.A Matter of Honor by Robert Dugoni & Paula Gail Benson
Pride comes before a fall. Wrongful Death author Robert Dugoni (called “the best of Scott Turow and John Grisham”) teams with writer Paula Gail Benson in a tale of Southern honor as attorney Sara Ainsley Sims and agent B.A. Azevedo learn first-hand that a cold-blooded killer attacking prominent politicians in the South Carolina Statehouse will stop at nothing until a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old grievance has been addressed.Sad Like a Country Song by Eyre Price
When desperation, aspiration, and alcohol mix, Jimmie Dallas steals a song from another up-and-coming musician named Golden Boy. When he hits it big in Nashville – largely from this song – Jimmie gets an unexpected visit from the original songwriter, Mr. Atibon, who convinces Jimmie that fame isn’t always what one thinks – especially when one bargains with the Devil. Eyre Price, the author of the Crossroads thriller series, shows a side of Nashville that few rarely see.Second Thoughts by Steven James
Murder never goes as planned. And some victims are exceptional. What happens when someone asks, “Help me die”? From the mind that created the “Bowers Files” – Steven James – comes a psychological portrait of a character so determined and singular that he is unstoppable. And just when he thinks it is over, the urge to kill comes again, but that is love, a very dark thing.The Virgo Affair by Daco
Operation Virgo calls for Daco’s recurring double-agent Jordan Jakes to seduce and fall in love with former NASA scientist Ben Johnson, who now spends his time crafting cocktails for his bar’s patrons. As the night goes on, and the spies begin to descend, Jakes quickly learns the only person she can trust is herself.Savage Gulf by Clay Stafford
Everyone wants to be successful, and nothing lets one know life didn’t turn out as planned like a thirty-year high school reunion. By all accounts, Jack’s life is falling apart. His business is upside down. He suffers the loss of his wife. But between the punch bowl and the restroom, an opportunity presents itself to even the score. From filmmaker and author Clay Stafford comes a story of justice, as unique as the darkness beyond the cliffs of Savage Gulf.Teaser: Excerpt
IN PLAIN SIGHT
by Jefferson Bass
“If you have to puke, don’t puke on the bones,” I said.
Laughter— bravado on the surface, nervousness underneath— skittered through the group of students. Most of the thirty bleary-eyed undergraduates milling outside the wooden gate of the Body Farm would be fine, but judging from my experience in prior years— and my assessment of several queasy-looking faces today— a couple of these kids would lose their breakfast.
It was a sunny Saturday morning in late April. The spring semester was winding down, many of my students were desperate for extra credit, and the Body Farm— my outdoor human-decomposition research lab at the University of Tennessee— was due for its spring cleaning. Spring cleaning at the Body Farm didn’t involve dusting, weeding, or collecting empty beer cans; spring cleaning, Body Farm-style, involved collecting bones— bare and not-so-bare— and hauling them into the processing facility for simmering and scrubbing. A Saturday morning might not be the kindest time to schedule the project, I reflected. Even under the best of circumstances, tugging bones from leatherized skin and plucking them from greasy, decomp-saturated dirt was not a task for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. For young novices whose Friday night parties had given way to Saturday morning hangovers, it could be particularly nausea-inducing. It was not entirely in jest that my facility— the Anthropology Research Facility, or ARF— was sometimes called the Brockton Anthropology Research Facility: BARF.
Unlocking the padlock on the outer chainlink fence, I swung the gate open, the corner of the gate scraping an arc across the asphalt for the final few feet. Then I unlocked the heavy chain securing the inner wooden gate— part of an eight-foot-high privacy fence that shielded the Body Farm’s rotting residents from prying eyes and delicate sensibilities— and led the students into the clearing inside, so they could begin the messy work of cleaning up.
Today’s bumper crop of skeletons— we planned to harvest forty— had spent anywhere from six months to a year-and-a-half ripening at the Body Farm. Most of the bodies had been donated, either through the wills of the donors themselves or by their families after death. A handful, though, were unidentified or unclaimed bodies from medical examiners in various Tennessee counties: John Does, Jane Does, and— in a few cases— people whose identities were known but who had no loved ones to claim them and bury them.
My graduate assistant, Miranda Lovelady, divided the students into ten three-member teams; two team members would collect and bag the bones, and the third would document each bone as it was found. Next, she handed each team a topographic map of the facility’s three fenced acres, with X’s and case numbers marking the location of every set of remains. On each team’s map, four X’s were highlighted in bright pink, indicating which four skeletons the team was responsible for bagging. Miranda’s many jobs, as my assistant, included overseeing the osteology lab and tracking body donations. As a result, she tended to have a better handle than I did on who was out here, and where, and since when.
Following in Miranda’s wake was another graduate student, Nick Costanza. Nick handed each team four red, plastic biohazard bags, as well as four copies of a diagram of the human skeleton. The diagram showed the bones of the body in outline form; as each bone was found and bagged, its outline on the diagram was to be inked in, creating a visual checklist of the skeletal elements. I didn’t expect us to find every single element— squirrels, raccoons, and ’possums would surely have made off with a few small bones from hands and feet— but I felt confident that we’d recover somewhere around 8,000 bones by the end of the day.
Nick’s help was a pleasant surprise. A second-year master’s student, Nick was obviously bright, though lately— all of this year, in fact— he’d seemed to be floundering. His attendance had been spotty, and the first draft of his master’s thesis was months overdue. His offer to help today was an encouraging sign, a sign that he still cared about doing well in the program, or at least had enough insight to realize that he, like the undergraduates, could benefit from some brownie points.
“Thanks, Nick,” I said when he finished handing out the diagrams and biohazard bags. “Good to have you out here today.”
He started to smile but then seemed to have second thoughts, self-consciously clamping his lips together and reddening.
“Remember, it’s not a race,” Miranda cautioned as the teams prepared to disperse. “It’s more important to be thorough than to be fast. And it’s most important of all to be careful. If you step on a bone and break it, you’ve made it a lot less useful for teaching or research.”
“Step on a bone and you lose five of your ten extra-credit points,” I added. “Step on two, and we’ll be bagging up you a year from now.” More laughter, not quite so nervous this time. “Okay, let’s get to work. Lunch in three hours. Pulled-pork sandwiches and barbecued ribs.”
Cold-Blooded - available NOW!
UK:





US:





About the Authors
Donald BAIN | Jefferson BASS | Paula Gail BENSON & Robert DUGONI | Baron R. BIRTCHER | Mary BURTON | Dana Chamblee CARPENTER | C. Hope CLARK | DACO | Jeffery DEAVER | Blake FONTENAY | Heywood GOULD | Steven JAMES | Jon JEFFERSON | Catriona McPHERSON | Anne PERRY | Eyre PRICE | Clay STAFFORD | Jonathan STONE | Jaden TERRELL | Maggie TOUSSAINT |
Follow Jefferson Bass:







Follow Catriona McPherson:






Follow Baron R. Birtcher:





Follow Donald Bain:






Follow C. Hope Clark:







Follow Jonathan Stone:




Follow Maggie Toussaint:









Follow Jeffery Deaver:






Follow Blake Fontenay:






Follow Jon Jefferson:







Follow Anne Perry:







Follow Heywood Gould:




Follow Dana Chamblee Carpenter:






Follow Mary Burton:











Follow Jaden Terrell:






Follow Paula Gail Benson:





Follow Robert Dugoni:










Follow Eyre Price:







Follow Steven James:







Follow Daco:







Follow Clay Stafford:






Giveaway and Tour Stops
Enter to win one of eight eCopies of Killer Nashville Noir: Cold Blooded.Remember to comment to win!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
2 comments:
Thanks so much for introducing us to this anthology. What an amazing list of contributors to it!
When it comes to hazardous waste disposal, Bio medical waste bags manufacturers in India lead the way with innovative and high-quality products. These bags are made with durable plastic that can withstand heavy loads and sharp materials, ensuring no leaks or tears. Widely used across hospitals, labs, and other healthcare facilities, these bags are an essential tool for maintaining hygiene. Their compliance with waste management regulations makes them a trusted choice for safe and effective waste containment.
Post a Comment