Episode 1 features thriller author Lisa Klink and her terrific book, All In. You can listen to it here or you can listen on i-Tunes.

I am giving away a copy of All In, autographed by Lisa, as part of my April giveaway, in one big bundle o' books: All In plus Steph Cha's noir, Dead Soon Enough, and Krista Davis' cozy, The Diva Steals a Chocolate Kiss. And a $10 Amazon gift card. If you'd like a chance to win the book bundle, all you have to do is sign up for my newsletter before April 30th. Everyone on the list at midnight Pacific Time, April 30th, will be automatically entered to win.

No spam, by the way, just a monthly newsletter. I won't sell, rent, lend-out, or ransom your e-mail address.

In this interview, we talk about Lisa's novel All In (thriller) and her work in The Dead Man book series (horror/thriller). If you'd rather read the interview than listen, here's the transcript!

Enjoy!

Episode 1: Lisa Klink

Welcome to Destination Mystery, a podcast for people who love a good mystery. I'm Laura Brennan.

Lisa Klink started her career in the world of Star Trek, writing for Deep Space Nine and Voyager before coming back to earth on shows such as Martial Law and Missing. In addition to writing for television, she scripted a theme park attraction and authored graphic novels, short stories, and three novels in The Dead Man series. Lisa is also a five-time champion on Jeopardy, but most important for today's chat, Lisa is the co-author, with Joel Goldman, of the thriller All In.

Laura Brennan: Lisa, hi and welcome!

Lisa Klink: Hi! How's it going?

LB: I'm doing very well. I'm so excited to be here. I loved All In.

LK: Oh, thank you.

LB: You're welcome. And I want to talk to you about it, and about the genesis of the project, but the first thing I want to do is gush about Cassie. Because it's so rare that we see, I mean it's not rare these days to find a kick ass woman protagonist, but to find a book where the woman is actually more kick ass than the man – –

LK: Yeah.

LB: I mean, love Jake, Jake's great and he's great at what he does, he's super fantastic at poker and at his life – –

LK: Mmm-hmm.

LB: And his livelihood, but you know, Cassie's the one who saves their ass. Again and again. So tell me a little bit about her first. How – – was it deliberate? Did you guys decide – – because you wrote this book with Joel Goldman.

LK: Yes.

LB: Did you guys decide to do that deliberately?

LK: I wish I could take full credit for Cassie, but Joel Goldman is actually the one who came up with Cassie and Jake. He has written several ongoing series with detectives and cops and lawyers. He has a whole bunch of series going on and he wanted to start a new series with this pair Cassie and Jake, an asset recovery specialist and a poker player. So he kind of had all of that in his mind when he brought it to me, and had a couple of paragraphs bios for each of them. So he was the one who decided that she was going to be the pro at this, kind of doing the Oceans Eleven stuff. And that Jake was going to be, as you said, talented in his own way but kind of the sidekick in her business in a way.

LB: Oceans Eleven is a very apt comparison, not just because of the casino settings but also for the tone and the depth of the characters. It's such a well-balanced book, it's hard to call either of them a sidekick, certainly in terms of their emotional development. It's really Jake almost who gets more of that, in this first book anyway.

LK: Yeah, well that obviously is the interesting part. I mean you can have all the fireworks and escapades that you want but really what you're reading for and hopefully what you're reading a whole series for is the people. And they need to start from a place that needs some development.

LB: All of the characters are so distinct. Even your thugs are not just sort of the typical henchman. They have back stories and personalities and -- how much of that was sor...