Publishers' Weekly generously included my name in an essay on historical mysteries they ran this past spring. I was honored. The company was select, and it felt great to be in it. Now they honor me again: with an author interview -- a good interview that made me think about why I do the things I do, and why my books are set up the way they are. It's not that I'm a thoughtless author, but rather that each novel takes over and I'm not always aware of the larger picture or how I fit in with…

I have always been very lucky with my reviewers and owe them a lot. PW has been wonderful, and so have the print reviewers, those talented people who write for newspapers. As we know, their jobs have been cut drastically as circulation has plummeted and the recession cut into advertising funds. Only a small handfull still work, and frequently (so I've been told by one of them) the choices of what they review are made for them. That means that bestselling authors are more likely to get…

And that's very good news indeed. I'm grateful. PW has generally been good to me, but it is particularly helpful now because my new publisher, Severn House, is very pleased.

Given the reputation of Kirkus for savage reviews, I'm pleasantly surprised. Still, a star would have been nice.

The Masuda Affair, Author: Parker, I.J., Severn House,…

I find that I like doing interviews. The only one that was uncomfortable was the very first one, where the interviewer was working for the local newspaper and inisted on coming to my house. My first thought was: what will he think of my house? Maybe I'd better clean, rearrange the furniture, cover the coffee table with impressive books, give the dog a bath, make coffee . . . What do interviewers eat? Do I need to buy a new outfit and get my hair done? By the time the man showed up, I was a…

THE CONVICT'S SWORD was released a year ago, my last book with Penguin. I didn't get as many reviews as I'd hoped for, given that I was prouder of that novel that any of the earlier and well-reviewed books. Now I'm with a smaller publisher (Severn House) and reviews are even harder to come by. So I really didn't expect the pleasure of getting a review on last year's novel, and such an intelligent and well-written one one at that.

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