{Character Interview} Matilda Massengale of 'White Witch'

We’re thrilled to be talking to Matilda Massengale from Larry D. Thompson’s WHITE WITCH.  It is a pleasure to have her with us today at Pimp That Character!

Thank you for your interview, Matilda. How old are you and what do you do for a living?

Now, honey, you know it’s impolite to ask a woman her age. Let’s just say that I’ve been practicing law in Montego Bay, Jamaica for 30 years. Your readers can figure the rest out.

Can you tell us about one of your most distinguishable features?

That’s pretty easy. I’m six feet tall (not including my three-inch heels). I weigh somewhere north of 300 pounds (that’s as high as my scale will go). I have a voice that commands the courtroom and a personality to match. The folks around Montego Bay call me Hurricane Matilda. I’m kinds proud of that nickname.

What would I hate the most about you?

Why, there’s nothing to hate about me, unless you’re on the other side of the case. Then you hate the moment I set foot in the courtroom.

Where do you go when you are angry?

I live in a house up the mountain from Montego Bay. It also serves as my office. Out back I have a pond full of lilies and gold fish with flowering bushes all around. When I get angry, I’ll take a glass of bourbon on the rocks out to that lovely spot. Between the pond and the bourbon, in about thirty minutes I’ve forgotten what I was angry about.

What is your most treasured possession?

My Cadillac Escalade, particularly after I’ve just had it washed. Reminds me I’ve come a long way from being a street urchin.

Do you think the author portrayed you accurately?

Actually, I’m a little worried about that. He described me so well that I was wondering if he had a camera on me 24/7.

Do you have children?

Nope. I was married as a young woman, but I ran that sorry scoundrel off in a few months. Never wanted to get married again.

What is your favorite weather?

We only have two kinds of weather in Jamaica, the hot season and the rainy season. I suppose I would choose hot and dry.

Do you like to cook?  If so, what is your favorite thing to cook?

You can take one look at my figure and know the answer to that one. My specialty is pork, rice and beans with plenty of Jamaican spices.

If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?

I would want to be in court, trying to get some poor soul off for a crime he didn’t commit.

About the Author

After graduating from the University of Texas School of Law, Larry spent the first half of his professional life as a trial lawyer. He tried well over 300 cases and won more than 95% of them. Although he had not taken a writing class since freshman English (back when they wrote on stone tablets), he figured that he had read enough novels and knew enough about trials, lawyers, judges, and courtrooms that he could do it. Besides, his late, older brother, Thomas Thompson, was one of the best true crime writers to ever set a pen to paper; so, just maybe, there was something in the T[LDT1] hompson gene pool that would be guide him into this new career.  He started writing his first novel about a dozen years ago and published it a couple of years thereafter. He has now written five highly acclaimed legal thrillers. White Witch is number six with many more to come.

Larry is married to his wife, Vicki. He has three children scattered from Colorado to Austin to Boca Raton, and four grandchildren. He has been trying to retire from the law practice to devote full time to writing. Hopefully, that will occur by the end of 2018. He still lives in Houston, but spends his summers in Vail CO, high on a mountain where he is inspired by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains.

His latest book is the captivating thriller, WHITE WITCH.

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About the Book:

Title: WHITE WITCH
Author: Larry D. Thompson
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Pages: 291
Genre: Thriller

BOOK BLURB:

Jamaica is a place where the surreal is simply everyday reality. When a ruthless American aluminum company plans to strip mine the Jamaican rainforest, they send former Navy SEAL Will Taylor to Montego Bay to deal with local resistance on their behalf. But he’s unaware that the British had signed a treaty deeding the rainforest to the Jamaican Maroons, descendants of escaped slaves, over 300 years ago. The Maroons fought and died for their land then, and are more than willing to do so now, whether it’s the British or the Americans who threaten them this time around.

Upon Will’s arrival, a series of inexplicable murders begin, some carried out with deadly snake daggers that were owned and used by Annie Palmer, a voodoo priestess better known as the White Witch. She was killed 200 years prior, but is said to still haunt the island at night, and the local Jamaicans are certain she’s responsible for the gruesome murders, her form of retaliation against the new turmoil taking place in the rainforest.

And Will has been forced directly into the middle of it. After a few close calls, he’s finally convinced to leave his company and join forces with the Maroons, headed by Vertise Broderick, a Maroon who resigned from her position at the New York Times to return to Jamaica to stop the mining. Together they hire a Jamaican attorney to prove that the Maroon/British treaty is still valid to stop the mining, and they take it upon themselves to solve the White Witch murders, because the legend of the White Witch can’t possibly be true…

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