Over the last few months I’ve had the opportunity to interview several authors for The Big Thrill, published by the International Thriller Writers. Sometimes I’ve been able to talk over the phone, but at the very least we exchange a few emails. Meeting these other authors and learning about their own struggles and successes is something that I’ve really enjoyed.
Below is the article I wrote about a wonderful Texas writer named Harry Hunsicker. I worked on the article on the train coming back from Thriller Fest in New York, so I had all sorts of writerly inspiration zinging around inside my head. If you would like to read the entire article, please click on the link at the end of the excerpt to go to The Big Thrill.
The Grid by Harry Hunsicker
Harry Hunsicker’s third book in the Jon Cantrell thriller series could be described in many ways as a twenty-first century Western. For starters, THE GRID is set in Texas. Cantrell is a lawman but also a drifter, having found employment as a rural county sheriff after a prickly history as a DEA contractor. He wears boots and carries a gold-plated star. Instead of a violent death in a saloon brothel, he is soon investigating a killer who knocks off cheating husbands looking for hookups online.
Cantrell’s challenges don’t end there. However, in THE GRID, it’s not a cattle rustler or a train robber who rides into town, but rather a terrorist that is attacking power-generating stations.
It’s all in a day’s work for a lawman in the New West, and Cantrell is more than up to the task. He’s savvy, tough, and has a lot of compassion—but he’s definitely got a burr under his saddle. He’s always ready with a quick-draw quip: “Not counting the power plant, I figured the town’s three biggest industries were food stamps, bass fishing, and diabetes.”
This lawman is also something of a philosopher: “On some level we all live in a special world filled with mirrors that flatter the image of how we’d like things to be.” Well said, Cantrell.
Recently, author and native Texan, Harry Hunsicker answered a few questions about Cantrell, terrorists, and cowboy boots.
David Healey author 