Doni: First, Charlie Price, I am absolutely beside myself with joy over the news that you won an Edgar Award in New York Thursday for your book, “The Interrogation of Gabriel James”. What a spectacular honor – the thrill of a lifetime. You must feel so … gosh, forgive me, I almost said what you felt. Sorry.
So, Charlie, tell us, how do you feel about this award?
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that this follow-up to last year’s Edgar Award winner, The Interrogation of Gabriel James, is a taut, well-written page-turner that benefits from the author’s experience working with troubled youth. Angel’s whole life has been something parents hope their own kids never experience: a drug-addicted mom with more optimism than sense, whose succession of abusive men culminates in Scotty, a cunning meth-head who abuses Angel sexually (though we’re spared the details), murders her mother, and is bent on killing her, as well. In order to save her own life, the 14-year-old, sporadically homeschooled Angel, in the middle of the desert and dependent on the kindness of strangers, must call on resources she didn’t know she had — and become a person she didn’t know she was.
HE IS WAITING. HE IS WATCHING. HE WILL HUNT HER DOWN.
Angel has lived through more than a young girl should have, but she’s determined to stay alive.
Her mother is dead, her body buried in a shallow grave by her latest boyfriend, Scotty – a ruthless, illegal hunter who is prone to violence and who now wants Angel dead before she can talk to the police.
But on the run in the scorching heat of the open desert, where can she hide?
A thrilling, horrifying cat-and-mouse game that will keep you on the edge of your seat. You won’t be able to put it down before it ends, one way or another.
Book Overview:
Desert Angel is the story of Angel, a fourteen year old girl caught in a destructive, inappropriate relationship with her mother’s boyfriend. After he kills her mother, she is in a fight for her life because Scotty is a hunter who is determined to find Angel and silence her forever.
This book is included in the YALSA 2012 nominations for Best Fiction for Young Adults.
Charlie Price is one of Figment’s judges for the teenquake contest and the author of a number of mystery novels. His latest, The Interrogation of Gabriel James, is about a Montana teenager who becomes wrapped up in both a local murder and a classmate’s disturbing private life. Below, we ask Charlie a few questions about his work and accomplishments.
The Interrogation of Gabriel James was inspired by a true story you came upon while working with at-risk teens. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience, without giving away too much of your new book?
Overview:
Ben Mander’s junior year is derailed when his mentally ill mother erupts in the school office. “You meet the nicest people in the lobby of a psychiatric hospital,” says Ben about his mysterious new friend, Marco, who also has a mentally ill mother. Marco tells a story that turns Ben’s idea of reality upside down. Soon Marco’s tale begins to uncomfortable mirror Ben’s own life. Is Ben losing his grip? Or is he experiencing an unforeseen boundary between time and space?
“Mental illness and addiction and writing—don’t they go together? Seems like a perfect fit to me,” says Charlie Price when asked how the idea for Dead Connection (Roaring Brook/Brodie) came about. His debut novel, which revolves around the disappearance of a high school cheerleader, is peopled with characters from society’s fringes: a borderline psychotic 22-year-old, who may have seen the cheerleader leaving school the day of her disappearance; an alcoholic cop; a loner teen who spends his days in the local cemetery communicating with dead children.