* This conversation is not for little ears. Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomes Joe Clifford to the studio. ABOUT JOE: Joe Clifford is the author of several books, including The One That Got Away, Junkie Love, and the Jay Porter Thriller Series, as well as editor of the anthologies Trouble in the Heartland: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen; Just to Watch Them Die: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Johnny Cash, and Hard Sentences, which he co-edited. Joe's writing can be found at www.joeclifford.com. ABOUT SKUNK TRAIN: Skunk Train follows two teenagers, Kyle and Lizzie, who stumble upon stolen drug money and set off to find Kyle’s father, a Hollywood director he’s never met, with drug dealers, dirty cops, and the Mexican mob on their heels. Kyle Gill, fifteen, lives with his older cousin, Deke, in the backwater Northern California town of Dormundt. Kyle has been cutting class for the past three weeks. When Kyle returns home one afternoon, he discovers Deke and his business partner, Jimmy, are holding one hundred pounds of marijuana, which they discovered abandoned at their dealer’s house. Knowing people will soon come looking for the dope, Deke and Jimmy set up a quick deal at the Skunk Train Inn, a skeezy roadside motel, but the buyers turn out to be dirty cops. In the ensuing melee, Deke is killed, Jimmy escapes, and the dirty cops flee. Kyle takes off in Jimmy’s truck with the money that was transferred before the shootout. On a mission to find his father, Kyle heads to San Francisco, where he meets Lizzie Decker, a wealthy high school senior, whose father has just been arrested for embezzlement. Together, Kyle and Lizzie join forces, but are soon pursued by Jimmy, the two dirty cops, and the Mexican cartel, as a third detective closes in, attempting to tie loose threads and solve the Skunk Train murders.

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