An Interview with Tom Carter

We are delighted to welcome author Tom Carter back to Omnimystery News.

Yesterday we featured an excerpt from his new mystery Nashville: Music & Murder (Sing Before Dying; February 2017 trade paperback and ebook formats) and today we're pleased that he agreed to answer a few follow-up questions about the book.

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Omnimystery News: You could have chosen either a male or female lead for your murder mystery. Why did you go with a female?

Photo provided courtesy of
Tom Carter

Tom Carter: My lead character is a woman because I think women are more vulnerable to physical ambush. I also incorporated a woman because my protagonist was adapted from Nashville's celebrity women who were stalked, including Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and Taylor Swift. I had no difficulty in finding the hostile voice of protagonist "Maci Willis." That too was rooted in truth, as women have been yelling at me for years. I think that readers always sympathize with a woman more than a man in life threatening situations. The protagonist in The Silence of the Lambs was female. So was the victim in Kiss the Girls. For that matter, King Kong hassled a woman decades ago.

OMN: Into which genre would you place your book?

TC: It a suspense/thriller novel.

OMN: What came first when writing this book: the character or the storyline?

TC: I started my novel with the storyline. If I put forth the plot, I could always make the protagonist reactionary. I made her respond to situations that resembled what I saw as a working newspaper police reporter.

OMN: Describe your writing environment for us.

TC: I have a conventional office whose main wall is mostly glass. At night, I close the blinds. I surround myself with the 18 books I've successfully written.

OMN: What are some of your outside interests?

TC: I read.

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Author Tom Carter has collaborated to write the autobiographies of more country music stars than any other writer in the world. Carter co-wrote with Reba McEntire, Glen Campbell, Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Ronnie Milsap, LeAnn Rimes, Jason Aldean and Ralph Emery. Including hard back and paperback editions, Carter's co-written memoirs have been listed seven times on The New York Times and twice on the USA Today best-sellers list. Now, for the first time, Carter has written a fictional murder mystery set on Nashville's Music Row, home to celebrities and their recorded music.

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Nashville: Music & Murder by Tom Carter

A Murder Mystery

Publisher: Sing Before Dying

As a teenager, Maci Willis fled the poverty and sexual abuse of her Louisiana childhood with the hope of finding a new life as a Nashville recording star or greasy spoon waitress. Despite the odds, the former fate unfolded, and Maci recorded hit songs for two decades while indulging a pampered lifestyle void of risks and regrets.

But all of that changed during one fateful performance.

While Maci sang a fourth encore to a crowd of 18,000, the music was shattered by a gunshot fired by an obsessed fan. She emerged triumphant from the attempt on her life — only to face another attempt shortly afterwards. Was it a coincidence? Or was something more sinister at work?

— Nashville: Music & Murder by Tom Carter