Q: First of all, please tell us about BONE VALLEY, your third book, which is published by
William Morrow and goes on sale October 24, 2006.

A : Oh, please, try and stop me from talking about it. Set in Manatee and Sarasota Counties, in
southwest Florida, BONE VALLEY is a classic mystery that continues the adventures of Lilly
Belle Rose Cleary, the gutsy and nutty trial attorney of SKINNY-DIPPING and WILDCAT
WINE. This time she is dipping into the world of environmental law when she defends two
activists sued for defaming oranges. The only trouble is that these men are radical in their fight
against the phosphate mines in the region, and one of them is soon blown up, right in front of
Lilly. Add that to a bankrupt phosphate company’s dead CEO found floating in pool of toxic
waste, and Lilly quickly figures there is something more than libeled fruit at risk. And even as
Lilly suspects she is falling in love with her surviving environmentalist client, she learns he has a
history of blowing things up.

Just in case falling in love with her client, a potential killer, isn’t enough, Lilly’s mad-hatter
brother comes down from Georgia to help out, bringing his own brand of chaos, and Lilly adopts
both a homeless handyman and an orphan baby blue jay.

But BONE VALLEY is also a legal thriller, told with an insider’s understanding of the world of
tort law, and told with an especially jaundiced eye at the so-called veggie libel laws and the
phosphate mines.

Q : Let’s see, BONE VALLEY is your third novel, right? And SKINNY-DIPPING was your first
novel, right?

A : Well, SKINNY DIPPING was my first published novel. I have two prior novels that live in
boxes in the back of the closet.

Q : Let’s see, your heroine, Lilly, is an attorney, right? And you are an attorney?

A : Yes, Lilly is a trial attorney, and I was an appellate attorney.

Q : That suggests the obvious question, is Lilly based upon you?

A : Oh, no, and please be sure my mother-in-law understands that. Lilly is wholly a creature of my
imagination. Sure, some of her experiences and attitudes were influenced by my own, and Lilly
and I do have in common the love of whole, organic foods, but that’s pretty much it.

Q : So, you both eat tofu, but otherwise, you aren’t her?

A : Right. As they say, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Q : BONE VALLEY, like WILDCAT WINE and SKINNY DIPPING are all set in or around
Sarasota, Florida. When there are so many Florida thrillers out there, why set another book in Florida?

A : To paraphrase Tim Dorsey, Florida is such a pretty place, people forget how bizarre it can be.
Also, it didn’t hurt that I’ve spent half my life on the gulf coast of Florida and I practiced law in
Sarasota. But mostly, it’s because Florida is a truly bizarre state.

Q : Florida, a bizarre state? Really?

A : Here’s a short, but true story: The first time I argued a case in federal court in Miami, my co-
counsel on the flight down entertained me by telling me that when he was in Miami the week
before, the phones in the courthouse had been stolen. Plus he’d had to crouch on the floorboard
of his car when a gun-fight broke out in downtown. Naturally, I was good and calm by the time
the plane landed in Miami. But, actually, other than getting semi-mugged by a polite man who
wanted a kiss as well as my purse and being hissed at by the opposing party in the courtroom,
everything went fine.

Q : So, Florida is a wild place, with wild people. Speaking of wild people, I’ve read SKINNY and
WILDCAT, and your characters are ——well, yes, a bit crazy. Where does that come from?

A : From life. From looking around. From listening. I have excellent radar for people’s inner
weirdness, and I appreciate their outer weirdness too.

Q : Yeah, weird is good, I agree. Now tell us something about you.

A : Well, let’s see——it took me five colleges, three trailer parks, two communes, uncountable
minimum-wage jobs, and ten years to get formally educated, but I had a really good time.
Professionally, I’ve been a newspaper reporter in Alabama, a lawyer in Sarasota, a college teacher
and a reference librarian in Tallahassee, and a writer in Georgia. My mother is deeply worried I
can’t hold a job——so I hope this writing thing works out to reassure her. Plus it’s fun.

Q : Ah, this “writing thing,” tell us about that. Did you have any training or background in writing
fiction before SKINNY DIPPING?

A : Oh, sure, not resume-building stuff, but I’ve been writing fiction since grade school, short
stories, plus notes and excuses to teachers mostly. In grad school, I did study with Barry Hannah,
who is one totally cool and funny man, as well as one of the modern masters. And, as I
mentioned, I wrote those earlier two novels that live in the back of the closet.

Q : What did you learn from those first two novels?

A : That I was going to need a bigger closet unless I learned to write a better novel.

Q : Are there more books coming? More on Lilly, the tofu-eating attorney/sleuth?

A : Oh, yes. A fourth one, as yet unnamed, is currently in production and due out the fall of 2007.
Lilly is summoned back to her southwest Georgia home when her reclusive mother is accused of
killing a man in a dispute over a deep freeze full of voodoo eggs. My editor and I are trying to
come up with a pithy title that conveys loss and suspense in a humorous way, preferably in either
two words, or with a country-western flare to it. Anybody with any ideas?

Q: Okay, we'll look forward to BONE VALLEY this October, and for the fourth one in the fall of
2007. Thank you.