On Wednesday, January 6, co-author Richard Rossner, aka M.J. Richards, will be interviewed on The Authors Show.  He will be talking about his new multicultural mystery novel, Dishonor Thy Father, written with co-authors Mike Robinson and Marilyn Anderson. The podcast will air one day only. It runs 15-20 minutes and can be heard any time between 12 AM and 11:59 PM on The Authors Show app or at TheAuthorsShow.com. The way the novel was developed is almost as fascinating as the book itself.

A few years after reading a magazine article about an "honor killing" in America, the film and television writing team of Marilyn Anderson & Richard Rossner decided to create a screenplay that used this tragic practice as a key element in a murder mystery.  While they originally wanted to write a screenplay, several other projects took focus, and their idea lay dormant in the traditional "trunk" of great ideas.  But the story they developed was so compelling, they kept coming back to it.

Finally, Anderson suggested they bring in a third writer – a novelist – to help turn their exciting tale into a novel.  They enlisted author Mike Robinson, who thought the detailed story Anderson and Rossner had crafted was well worth jumping into the project.  

The three writers sent pages back and forth between them, until a final version of Dishonor Thy Father was completed.  It was published in August 2020 to enthusiastic reviews from the Manhattan Book Review, Kirkus Reviews, San Francisco Book Review and many readers on Amazon.  The team of Anderson & Rossner used the pen name of M.J. Richards.

The story begins as a 15-year-old girl in Iran is viciously attacked by her father for holding a boy's hand. In running to escape certain death, she undertakes a dangerous journey to a new land with unfamiliar customs, where she must hide the truth from everyone she meets. 

Twenty years later, amid racial tensions in a Los Angeles hospital, a female Muslim doctor is murdered, sparking a controversial police investigation. The lead investigator, Detective Michael Tucci, finds himself compromising both his job and his life as he embroils himself in an affair with the beautiful Dr. Tara White, the victim's associate, who could be the killer's next target.

Yasmine Mohammed Ex-Muslim, Human Rights Activist, Founder of Free Hearts, Free Minds said about the novel: "Though this story is fictional, thousands of women across the globe are real life victims of honor violence and honor killing every year. Hopefully Dishonor Thy Father will help shed some light on this atrocity that is rarely addressed." 

Dishonor Thy Father can be purchased on Amazon on Kindle or paperback at DishonorThyFather.us, as well as at other book sellers.