My guest today, Brooke French, is the author of three thrillers, two starring intrepid disease ecologist Letty Duquesne and another series with lawyer Tess Oliver. French knows her way around the legal world for sure, having spent well over a decade as a successful lawyer in Atlanta. She refers to herself now as a "recovering lawyer" and a full-time writer, which is a good thing for everyone out there looking for fast-paced, deeply-plotted and well-written thrillers.

My guest today is the writer behind the Twin Cities Mystery Series featuring detectives Erik Jansson and Deb Metzger, which have been widely lauded for clever plots, witty and intelligent dialogue and just generally being great reads. She is also an excellent short fiction author, including a story in the great new anthology ON FIRE AND UNDER WATER, which came out from Rock & a Hard Place Press in September and which explores the intersection of climate change and crime.

For more than two decades the Men of Mystery conference has celebrated the many great men who write the mysteries so many of us love. Established in 2000 by the late Joan Hansen, this very popular events is put on these days by today’s guests, Jan Wilcox and Cindy Woods. Over the years Men of Mystery, or MoM for short, has featured a literal who’s who of great male mystery writers: T. Jefferson Parker, Matt Coyle, C.J. Box, Michael Connelly, Baron Birtcher, Stephen Mack Jones, Brad Thor, Lincoln Child, William Kent Krueger and so many more, including this year’s headliners Craig Johnson and Walter Mosley.

This year’s event marked MoM’s 25th anniversary, and so I’m really pleased to have Jan and Cindy here with me today on the Open Mic: Writers in Their Own Words to talk a bit about the conference’s great history and hopefully its future. You can also watch the episode on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/XFSbhwwIVc8