Author Interview - Judith Finkel

Describe your book in five words or less.
Texas Justice – Will justice prevail?
Where Danger Lurks – How long should you trust?

How did the ideas for your books come to you?
Texas Justice was inspired by a crime and trial which gripped Houston. A lone assailant walked into a wig shop, slit the throat of an employee, stabbed the owner fourteen times and attacked her husband when he came to her rescue. A college student with no history of violence and no physical evidence to connect him to the murder scene was arrested and tried. After reading fourteen volumes of his trial transcript, I wrote Texas Justice. In my fictionalized version of events, the young man’s mother tries to find the actual killer, while never admitting to herself that it could be her son.

The idea for Where Danger Lurks came to me when a fellow attorney was accused of sexual molesting his daughter’s seven-year-old friend. He and his wife urged the authorities to investigate the victim’s step-father. Besides thinking of the affect the accusation had on both girls, I wondered how either man would cope with the fear of losing his family, his reputation and his freedom. At what point would either wife lose trust in her husband? If she lost it too soon, she’d ruin her marriage. If she lost it too late, she’d endanger her child. Where Danger Lurks, my fictionalized version of these events, involves the reader in the answers to these dilemmas and the search for the guilty party.

What is the hardest part of writing for you? What's the easiest?
The hardest part is editing.
The easiest part is writing the first draft.

What's next for you? Are you currently working on or have plans for future projects?
I’m working on my memoir The Three Stooges Gene. It got its title because my paternal grandmother’s cousins were Moe, Shemp and Curly Howard. So whenever I do something eccentric, my husband mutters, “It’s the Three Stooges gene.”

Why did you choose to write for specific genre?
From the time I was a child reading Nancy Drew mysteries, I have loved a “who done it?”

What's it like hearing that readers are eagerly awaiting your book's release date?
Exciting.

What is one question that you've always wanted to be asked in an interview? How would you answer that question?
What made you write your books?
They were in me and just had to come out.

What was your road to publications like?
I grew accustomed to agents sending me rejections on strips of mimeographed paper. When I got letters from agents saying they were sorry they couldn’t take on new clients because they thought I had sent them something of quality, I was so desperate I saved those rejections.

Then in 2008 Fireside Publications held a contest to determine the mystery/suspense/thriller they would publish in 2009. I entered by sending fifty pages and a synopsis. They notified me I was one of four nationwide finalists and requested the complete manuscript of Texas Justice. A few months later they declared me the winner and published it in February of 2009.

When I finished Where Danger Lurks, I submitted it to Fireside which published it in January.

Both books are available on Amazon.com and Firesidepubs.com


Author Bio:



Judith Groudine Finkel practiced law for twenty-four years before retiring to complete her legal thriller Texas Justice. After winning a nationwide contest Fireside Publications held to choose the mystery/suspense/ thriller it would publish in 2009, Texas Justice was released in February of that year. Judith’s second novel Where Danger Lurks has just been released by Fireside. She is currently working on her memoir The Three Stooges Gene, excerpts of which have appeared in the Houston Chronicle, Motherwords Magazine, This Path and The Three Stooges Journal. Her short stories have been published in the Birmingham Arts Journal, Choice Works, the Cuivre River Anthology Volume III, the Heartland Review, Moment Magazine and Sin Fronteras Journal.

Among other writing honors, Judith was the recipient of a Summer Fishtrap 2008 Fellowship. Her short story, “Two By Four,” earned second place in an international contest sponsored by Moment Magazine which was judged by Anita Diamant, the author of The Red Tent