Category Archives: News

What Stop, You’re Killing Me is Reading This Month

Most of the reviews for HUSH MONEY have included some variant of the phrase ‘we hope this is the first in a series.’  Here’s another, from the good folks at Stop, You’re Killing Me.  Which is all good, because Jack will be back in GREEN-EYED LADY, coming in May:

Hush Money (Minotaur 2012) introduces Jack MacTaggart, a junior lawyer with Henley & Hargrove, the oldest and snobbiest law firm in Pasadena, California. When socialite Sydney Everett’s champion show-jumper Hush Puppy dies unexpectedly, Jack is assigned the insurance claim. The vet doesn’t find any sign of trauma and gives a verdict of cardiac failure, but the insurance company suspects foul play. Jack finds the brittle and calculating Sydney Everett distasteful, but is instantly attracted to her stable manager, Tara Flynn, who sincerely mourns Hush Puppy’s death. Tara, a grand prix equestrian competitor, helps Jack understand the complex world of professional show-jumping and provides a disconcerting riding lesson to demonstrate the physical strength needed by the riders. Jack’s investigation into Sydney’s stables uncovers high monthly payments that look like blackmail, and then the necropsy on Hush Puppy turns up a parasitic infection that appears to have been intentional. A sudden death that just could be murder adds to the tension, and Jack fears that he might be the next victim. Jack is an engaging narrator, his quips balanced by true empathy for those he feels are deserving of help. His other client is Victor Tazerian, a trash collector whose insurance company refuses to pay for a medical procedure that might cure his leukemia. The procedure requires harvesting Victor’s bone marrow while his leukemia is in remission, which the insurance company claims is an unnecessary procedure since Victor is not sick while in remission. The quirks and tricks of legal negotiations are presented with humor in this fast-paced legal thriller, hopefully the first in a series.

You can read about more books on their August list here

News Alert: I’m Gonna Learn How to Fly!

Or, at least, I feel like I will after learning of the generous and lyrical praise of Hard Twisted from British director, writer, producer and actor Sir Alan Parker, perhaps best known for Bugsy Malone, Fame, and The Life of David Gale:

Greaves’s deft prose twinkles like Okie campfires (in the night). Storytelling at its most compelling: raw, yet tender and as dangerous as warm moonshine breath on a young girl’s neck.

My deep thanks to Sir Parker.

NEWS ALERT: Ellory calls Hard Twisted

Bestselling UK crime fiction write RJ Ellory just finished my new book, Hard Twisted, and had this to say:

“Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Mailer, Capote and Berendt, Greaves has crafted a McCarthy-esque non-fiction novelisation that is,  at once, both timeless and classic.  A truly extraordinary accomplishment, and a wonderful, wonderful book.  I was left speechless.”

Thank you, RJ.

Inspiration in Memoriam

Where do fictional characters come from?  More often than writers would care to admit, they come from real life, whether consciously or unconsciously, as a whole or in part.  Take HUSH MONEY‘s Russ Dinsmoor for example.  Here is my eulogy to the real-life Don Mike Anthony.

He passed away on June 1.

Verdict on a Cover

The art director of Minotaur Books posted this fascinating entry about the evolution of the cover and packaging of HUSH MONEY, the first in a series.

When the subject of cover art for HUSH MONEY first came up, I immediately thought of a Pasadena artist named R. Kenton Nelson, whose work I admire greatly. I went as far as to contact Kenton, who expressed interest, but, alas, too late, as the folks at St. Martin’s Press had already begun working with John. Continue reading →