In Simone St. James' 'Murder Road,' a lakeside honeymoon turns into a murder mystery

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

In 1995, a mostly pre-digital age, it was much easier to get lost–especially on a strange road in the middle of the night. This time period is the setting for Simone St. James' thriller Murder Road, which came out earlier this year. In the book, newlyweds are en route to a lakeside cabin in Michigan when they take a wrong turn and discover a hitchhiker needing help. That chance meeting lands the young couple at the center of a series of mysterious murders. In today's episode, NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with St. James about weaving the supernatural into her fiction and the appeal of true crime.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong.
0:05.5	When was the last time you were truly lost? Not in the existential way of, oh, I feel lost in my life.
0:11.1	I mean, actually, geographically lost. It's not something that happens often in the digital age,
0:17.0	and it's why author Simone St. James set her thriller in 1995. It's titled Murder Road,
0:22.9	and she told Empirous Ayesha Rosco that she really wanted to dig into that feeling of being
0:28.0	lost and desperately trying to figure your way out of that position. Setting her book in 1995
0:33.3	also let her write about another thing that used to happen more often back then, hitchhiking.
0:39.0	That's coming up.
0:40.9	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:45.7	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.
0:52.3	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
0:56.0	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
0:59.6	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:05.8	Honeymoons are supposed to be times of love and connection.
1:09.3	But in the novel Murder Road, a wrong turn puts two newlyweds at the center of a murder investigation.
1:16.4	And that's just the beginning of the twists in the thriller by best-selling author Simone St. James.
1:22.9	She joins us now. Welcome to the program.
1:25.2	Hi. Thank you for having me.
1:26.7	So the story centers on this
1:29.3	couple that just got married and there's more to both of these characters than immediately
1:35.9	meets the eye. Can you tell me a little bit about April and Eddie and where they are at the
1:41.8	start of the book? The book is set in 1995, and April and Eddie have just gotten married the day before.
	...

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