John Sandford returned to the program to talk about his latest offering in the series that features his crime investigator Virgil Flowers. John has appeared on the program a half dozen times over the years and while we do spend a lot of time discussing each book and the story lines we also have had some conversations that have taken us to some other interesting places. In an interview many years ago John talked about something he enjoyed doing in his spare time; conducting archaeological digs in Israel. In a more recent interview he mentioned how he got an idea for a story after he experienced a troubling reaction to some medications he had been taking.
In this most recent interview John gives us a glimpse into his writing process. At one point he felt stuck and was having some difficulty figuring out a plot point in the story. Then one day when he was taking his dog for a walk the solution suddenly came to him. John is one of the hardest working authors I know. He produces a new book every six months. And after selling millions of copies of his titles he still does the grunt work of patiently doing interviews with people like me.
In "Deep Freeze" Virgil returns to a small town in Minnesota where he has investigated crimes before. In another book in this series Virgil came to town to discover that the local school board had been killing people. In this one Virgil is once again trying to investigate a homicide and the locals are wary of him. It turns out that some residents of the area have been producing altered Barbie dolls that are being sold on the black market. Virgil isn't interested in the Barbie bootleggers but the situation is difficult to ignore. The people who are tampering with the dolls are fiercely protective of their illicit industry and Virgil pays a heavy price just for being in close proximity to their operation. This book is clever and quite entertaining. After you give this podcast a listen I think you'll probably want to read it.
The Book Nook on WYSO is made possible by five local library systems in southwest Ohio: the Greene County Public Library, Washington-Centerville Public Library, Clark County Public Library, Dayton Metro Library, and Wright Memorial Public Library.
