Thomas Dann

Hello, Dave,
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​I’m reaching out to share my debut novel, Midnight in Memphis (published by Crooked Lane Books), a Southern noir crime thriller set in 1955 Memphis. I’m hoping that I can inspire you to include me in a podcast.

Midnight in Memphis has already drawn praise from Scott Turow, Thomas Perry, and others (see below), and it received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which called it “A superb debut… Dann creates a vivid, searing portrait of Memphis in the 1950s, balancing gritty suspense with resonant themes.”

About the book:
In a city scarred by racism and ruled by the crumbling E.H. Crump political machine, Detective Burdett Vance and Officer Eustace Johnson — a white veteran cop and a Black rookie with his own hidden vendetta — must form an uneasy alliance to stop a killer taking vengeance for decades of lynchings by targeting the daughters of white Memphis. As tensions escalate, the investigation threatens to ignite the city into chaos, while Burdett’s old flame becomes the killer’s next target. This novel grapples with themes of racism, corruption, political power, and original sin — issues from the 1950s that feel strikingly relevant today.
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One unexpected development from having written this book is that I find myself slip sliding into the old family whiskey business. My family owned a distillery in Memphis in the 19th and early 20th century, and our flagship whiskey was Old Yannissee (immortalized in Faulkner’s Go Down Moses). Of course, that was a century ago and Old Yannissee is long gone, but when I was writing Midnight in Memphis, it seemed natural that my hero Burdett would kick back with a fifth of Old Yannissee when he needed to drink and think. Then I learned that the USPTO had just denied a trademark application for Old Yannissee because of the deceptive suggestion that the applicant, a San Francisco distiller, was related to my family. Next thing I knew, I had filed for the trademark myself (accompanied by voluminous family history, of course), and next month I’ll be distilling the first barrel of Old Yannissee in over a century. The strange paths that our writing can lead us down…

About me:
In was born and bred in Memphis, five generations deep. I’ve spent time variously between the East and West Coasts, studying creative writing at Stanford, working for years as a felony defense investigator for the Washington, D.C. Public Defender, then as a lawyer, company builder, and writer.

So that’s my story. Early reviews and interviews mean the world to debut authors like me, and I’d be honored if my novel could be featured in The Thriller Zone. I can provide an advance reader’s copy (print, digital or ePub).

Thank you so much for your time, and for supporting mystery and crime fiction!

Warm regards,
Thomas Dann