There is also a contest involved with the Virtual Book Tour. At the bottom of every post there will be the "Word of the Day." Take all fifteen words and unscramble them to form a quote. The first person to give me the exact quote and the person who said it will win signed and personalized copies of all five of my Kensington/Pinnacle books.

For now, enjoy the grilling my fellow ICBers have bestowed upon me.

CAITLIN ROTHER: What was the most challenging aspect of the book to research?

COREY MITCHELL (CM): I love research! It is my favorite part of each of my books. I love uncovering bits of minutiae that no one else has mentioned before. I also love making the various connections that others may not have seen on the first go-round.

Many people are familiar with the case of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena. What I found additionally interesting were the murders of Jose Ariel Acosta and Patricia Lopez. I was able to locate new information on their deaths, more than likely at the hands of Jennifer and Elizabeth's killers. It felt good to give a voice to these two long-forgotten victims.

LAURA JAMES: I'd like to know what you think are the true crime genre's greatest challenges today?

CM: Stop writing and publishing crap books on crap cases. The usual "ripped from the headlines" tripe that land sub-standard authors a book deal two days after a crime is committed do our genre absolutely no good.

Honesty and integrity are essential. True reporting, combined with emotional story-telling, make for a powerful combination. But, it must all be rooted in fact. True crime stories with "imagined" dialogue are not real and do not deserve to be categorized under the genre title. They become fictional "mysteries."

Finally, publishers need to stay away from the "hot case" concept. True crime books are more than just blogging about the latest headline grabber. They don't all need to be about pretty, rich, white women killed by attractive white male killers that occurred within the last five years. There are so many fascinating stories which fall outside these stringent guidelines and need to be and deserve to be told.

STEVEN LONG: Describe your work habits when you are actually writing the book. For example, how many pages do you target writing each day? How many hours do you write each day on average?

CM: Boy, I am the worst when it comes to being disciplined as a writer. I am definitely not one of those 9-5ers that writes every day. I tend to write my books in my head as I am researching them. Once I know the research is complete (or as close as I can get to being completed) and the interviews have all been conducted, only then do I sit down to type out the manuscript. And, since I am a three-finger typist, I liken the actual writing process to Chinese water torture. As a result, I tend to finish my books rather quickly -- usually over a 2-3 month period. Of course, I spent the previous year or more with the book inside my head so the process is merely dictation at that point.

While writing the manuscript, I try to write 1,000-2,000 words a day, somewhere between 4-8 pages. I am usually required to turn in 95,000 words or more for each book.

Currently, I take care of my 2 1/2 year-old daughter, Emma, during the day. I hand her off to her mother and my wife around 4:30 p.m., visit with my wife for half an hour, answer e-mails, then eat dinner. That means I don't get started until 7:00 pm. I will usually write until 11:00 pm or when I am too tired. I also spend several hours on Saturdays and Sundays writing. Finally, my wife is a teacher so I try to schedule my books around summer time when I can do most of the interviews and more writing.

CAROL ANNE DAVIS: I love all of your books and have Pure Murder on order from Amazon. Can't wait for it to arrive! In the meantime, can you tell me a little about the book?

CM: Thanks, Carol Anne! I am a big fan of your work as well.

Pure Murder is about the murders of two teenage girls, Elizabeth Pena and Jennifer Ertman, by a group of six young men in Houston, Texas, back in 1993. Elizabeth and Jennifer were out with friends during the summer and needed to get home before their curfew. Since they were running late, they decided to take a shortcut through a public park and were accosted, raped, and massacred by six teenage boys ranging from ages 14-18.

The second half of the book covers the trials and tribulations experienced by the parents in the byzantine legal system of plea bargains, delayed executions, illegal immigration issues, cases going to the United States Supreme Court, executions scheduled and then overturned, and even interference from President George W. Bush.

It is one of the worst crimes in United States history and has had an immense impact on the Texas and U.S.'s legal systems.

I hope you enjoy it.

STAR LABRANCHE: Out of so many murders and investigations in the world, what drew you to this one?

CM: I was introduced to this story by my friend and fellow In Cold Blogger, Andy Kahan, while we were speaking at the Tri-County Republican Women's Group Luncheon about my book, Evil Eyes. Andy was furious because one of the killers, Derrick Sean O'Brien, had just been given a stay of execution the day before.

Over the next few months, Andy kept telling me about the case, the horrific murders, the fight the parents of the victims encountered, the craziness of the trials, the numerous legal implications involved, and more. I had been in law school at the time of the murders and was completely oblivious to them even though I grew up right outside of Houston.

As Andy schooled me on the case, I saw the similarities between this one and the Yogurt Shop Murders case I wrote about for my third book, Murdered Innocents. Female teenage victims, teenage boys who committed the murders, the impact on a major Texas city, and more. I knew I had to write about this case.

MICHELLE GRAY: Blood money -- define.

CM: It is what any true crime writer worth their salt will be accused of writing before people have read a single word of what you have written. The age-old complaint that true crime authors are merely parasitic leeches feeding off the bones of murder victims, killers, etc.

Every book I write, without fail, I am accused of making "blood money" off of it. Inevitably, this criticism comes from ill-informed non-true crime readers who don't even bother to crack a book on the subject and believe that anyone associated with the genre is The Devil. It comes with the territory.

I've even had a key figure in one of my books, who had unprecedented access to the manuscript prior to publication, proof it for changes which I readily made, tell me how great the book was, and then later go on the news and claim they did not speak to me and that I will be making "blood money" off of it. Of course, I'm not going to go on the air and slam this person because I understand the tragedy of sudden loss and how each person grieves differently. I would never be so presumptuous as to tell someone how to grieve and that is exactly what that person was doing when they lashed out at me.

While I sympathize and empathize with the losses these families incur, eventually these stories become part of the greater good for society. These stories need to be told to assist, protect, and educate future generations. If one person reads one of my books and can remove him or herself from a potentially dangerous situation based on what they have learned, my job is done. If one person gathers comfort and solace from the knowledge that they are not the only person in the world to have suffered such a tragedy, then my job is done. If one student learns about the mind of a sociopath from reading one of my books and decides to pursue a career in law enforcement, or forensic science, or grief counseling, then my job is done.

Definitely things that cannot be categorized under the banner of "blood money."

BURL BARER: Before you began writing true crime, were you a reader of true crime books?

CM: Oh yeah. I read Helter Skelter when I was nine years old and have been traveling this dark path ever since. I actually seldom read true crime any more now that I write it for a living. At first, I stopped so as not be influenced by other writers' styles and methods. Now, it's kind of the "butcher syndrome." You know, the butcher does not want to come home and eat meat every night after slaughtering and preparing it all day.