PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION:

A taut suspense thriller!

Trevor Schalk was an eccentric millionaire obssessed with reincarnation right up to his murder in 1980. Now Tim Gilbraight is having weird dreams in which he's a bitter, rich man--despised by everyone around him. It's up to PI Amy Devlin to determine if Schalk is a past life or a past lie.

(preview | official Past Lies website)


AUTHORS' COMMENTS:

[Christina] Strangely enough, this was our second collaboration with Chris Mitten. And I say 'strangely' because we met Chris one year at the San Diego comic-con. We thought "Hey, great guy! Talented artist! James, we want to work with him!" So we sent Chris three one paragraph ideas of stories we wanted to tell and he just jumped all over Past Lies. That was his favorite, hands down. But somehow we ended up working on The Tomb first. And of course, once The Tomb came out everyone started realizing how talented Chris was and his time became rather scarce. But we promised not to do Past Lies without him because he had so warmed to the idea. So obviously, we finally got to tell that story with the talented Chris Mitten attached. Everyone has responded really well and Oni wants to do more Amy Devlin stories. Sadly, Chris really is too important and too busy for us now (sob). And we told him we'd put Amy on hold if he really wanted us to. But Chris is an all around great guy and gave us his blessing to go forward without him. And so we're beginning work on All Saint's Day set to debut in late 2008. And while we've been paired with another really talented artist... we miss you, Chris! Come back.

[Nunzio] Amy Devlin was not the original lead character for this idea. This idea is loosely based on a premise we had a ways back for our P.I. character Sarah Mackenzie. As mentioned when discussing The Tomb, we once had a P.I. character for a feature script who didn't solve murders, but instead wound up in a romantic comedy. In response to people's desire to see that character solve a murder, we came up with this premise - about solving a 25 year old murder on behalf of the reincarnated victim. It was to be Sarah Mackenzie's big murder case. Then we put the idea aside and instead developed a TV pilot script for the character focusing on the ins and outs of her personal life. Because Oni has a producing partner who is attached to the film and TV rights of the books they do, we could no longer pitch Past Lies to them with Mackenzie as the P.I. or else we'd have to sell them the pilot (which I doubt they had the money or inclination to buy). So we needed a new P.I. We didn't want her to be the same character with a new name, so we ditched the whole jaded, bitter ex-cop angle, and went 100% the other way. Turned out that was the smartest move we could make. Amy the newbie P.I. who is as fake in her own way as everyone else in the story gives the story a fun new twist and a P.I. type that seemed fresh and new. Now we love Amy as much as we loved Mackenzie, and as Christina said we're about to start work writing her next case. More news on that soon, we promise!