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Jodé Millman
Thriller
Author of the Attorney Jessie Martin crime series
Jodé Millman is the author of the best-selling Seats: New York theatre guidebooks. Her debut thriller novel, The Midnight Call (our review), was released by Immortal Works Publishing in 2019 and is now available in audiobook format. The unpublished manuscript of The Midnight Call was short-listed for the 2014 Clue Award and received the First Place Blue Ribbon as “Best Police Procedural” by Chantireviews.com. It went on to win the 2020 Bronze IPPY Award for Suspense and the 2021 Independent Press Award for Legal Thriller. Hooker Avenue (our review) is the follow-up installment in her “Queen City Crime Series.”
Jodé received her BA and JD from Syracuse University, her MA in English Literature from Eastern Michigan University, and has taught at Detroit Mercy Law School and Marist College. Jodé co-hosts and co-produces the Backstage with the Bardavon podcast which interviews artists appearing at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie, NY (available on Apple Podcasts, iHeart Media, Spotify and Google Podcasts). She is a regular contributor to The Sisters in Crime Quarterly and BookTrib.
Learn more about the author on her website.
BOOKS:
Hooker Avenue (2022)
The Midnight Call (2019) — Book | Audiobook
Seats: New York (Third Edition) (2008)
Seats: Chicago (2004)
Biggest literary influencers:
Elmore Leonard, Ayn Rand, Phillipa Gregory, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Shakespeare, Truman Capote, Don Delillo
Last book read:
Lethal Strike by Robert Galbraith
The book that changed your life:
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. When I was in high school, my mother suggested that I read this novel. At that time, it was the longest novel that I’d ever attempted to read (750 + pages). Not only is The Fountainhead a thriller, it is a manifesto to human individuality. It is inspiring that an artist, architect Howard Rourke, destroys his own masterpiece because his personal convictions clash with political and corporate corruption. In all of Rand’s writings, she espouses the Objectivism philosophy that “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” Since that time, I’ve read everything that Rand has written, including her journals and letters, and she remains one of my literary and philosophical idols of all time.
Your favorite literary character:
Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus is the consummate literary American lawyer who believed in the innocence of a black man accused of rape during the Great Depression-Era in Macomb, Georgia. Lee drew upon her father, Amasa Coleman Lee, who in 1919 unsuccessfully defended two black men accused of murder. Lee, like me, attended law school and many of the elements contained in Mockingbird parallel our country’s struggle with civil rights in the 1950’s. The case of the “Scottsboro Boys” may have influenced the character of Tom Robinson, the man accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a white woman in Lee’s book. In Scottsboro, nine black youths were arrested on a train passing through Point Rock, Alabama, when two white women claimed to have been raped by them to avoid prostitution charges. All but one of the defendants was sentenced to die in the Alabama electric chair. In Mockingbird, Atticus Finch insists on telling the truth even though he knows he will fail. The telling of the truth is essential to his honor and inevitably life threatening for his children, Jem and Scout.
Currently working on:
The next installment in my Queen City Crimes series, a sequel to my debut novel, The Midnight Call. It continues with my protagonist, Jessie Martin, teaming up with her old friend and occasional adversary Detective Ebony Jones to solve the mystery of eight missing women. The novel, Hooker Avenue, is based upon another notorious Poughkeepsie crime that occurred in the late 1990’s.
Words to live by:
Perseverance! Don’t give up!
If you don’t ask, you won’t get a “Yes”!
Advice to new and aspiring authors:
Think outside the box. Not everyone needs an agent to get published, and there are inventive ways to draw the attention of publishers. I was discovered through a Twitter pitch contest – #pitmad!
Articles / Reviews:
Testimonials:
“Witty, smart, and entertaining. An intriguing mix of hopes and fears, where the line between right and wrong blurs into some juicy, legal skullduggery.”
—Steve Berry, International and New York Times bestselling author of The Malta Exchange
“Death comes to a small city–itself caught up in a struggle for survival–and slowly begins to dismember the lives of all involved. Most at risk is pregnant attorney Jessie Martin, who will soon be engaged in a battle for justice, freedom, and ultimately, the life of her unborn child. Jode Millman tackles issues of wealth, power, and mental illness–as well as the ability of a woman to speak up in a world designed to suppress her. The powerful ending of this novel dwells in terrifying ambiguities–while leaving readers with hope that the best lies ahead for a heroine not afraid to answer the midnight call. ”
—Jenny Milchman, Mary Higgins Clark award winning author of Cover of Snow & Wicked River
“Jodé Susan Millman’s The Midnight Call is an impressive debut. Deft plotting peels back the payers of this deliciously creepy and convoluted suspense novel in which surprises abound and nothing is as it seems. Don’t think you know how this plays out- just put yourself in Millman’s capable hands and enjoy the ride.”
– Karen Dionne, USA Today and #1 International bestselling author of The Marsh King’s Daughter.
