Writer’s Corner welcomes authors Rob Jung, Brian Lutterman, and Chris Norbury for a conversation about The Kill Code Collective, an ambitious collaborative medical thriller created by the five members of Midwest Mystery Works. Five authors brought characters from their own mystery and thriller series into a single story—then had to figure out how to make five voices, five fictional worlds, and five very different characters work together as one novel.
Recorded on: October 23, 2026
Writer’s Corner is a television interview program featuring conversations with writers, authors, reviewers, publishers, and other literary voices from Minnesota and beyond. Created by Alan Miller, the program has long offered thoughtful conversations about books, craft, publishing, and the stories behind the stories.
In this episode, Michael MacBride takes a turn hosting Writer’s Corner, because usual host and Kill Code Collective co-author, Rob Jung is joined by fellow Midwest Mystery Works authors Brian Lutterman and Chris Norbury to talk about one of the more unusual experiments in collaborative fiction: getting five established mystery writers to write one thriller together.
The Kill Code Collective begins with two mysterious deaths involving failures of implanted cardiac devices. As questions grow around the Minnesota-based manufacturer behind the devices, the story expands to include stolen patient data, corporate secrets, blackmail, and the terrifying possibility that medical technology has been deliberately weaponized. Investigating the threat is an unlikely collection of characters drawn from the five authors’ existing fictional worlds, including aircraft mechanic Sierra Bauer, attorney Pen Wilkinson, hacker Louise “Weezy” Napolitani, musician and action hero Matt Lanier, and international fixer Henri Hawke.
But the story behind the book may be nearly as interesting as the thriller itself. Midwest Mystery Works consists of Rob Jung, Brian Lutterman, Chris Norbury, Julie Holmes, and John Baird Rogers. Rather than dividing up an anthology or contributing separate stories, the five authors set out to create a single, unified novel using characters they had already developed independently. The project took roughly two years and involved dozens of meetings, rewrites, comments, and collaborative revisions as the authors worked to turn five writing styles into one coherent story.
The result is The Kill Code Collective, released in May 2026: a medical and technological thriller that allows readers familiar with the authors’ individual books to see their characters collide, cooperate, and occasionally clash in an entirely new setting. For readers meeting them for the first time, the novel also serves as an introduction to five different mystery and thriller worlds.
Rob, Brian, and Chris discuss the opportunities—and inevitable complications—of collaborative writing, including how writers accustomed to controlling their own stories learn to surrender some of that control, how established characters behave when another author is writing around them, and what it takes to make a multi-author novel feel like a single book rather than five stories stitched together.
Brian Lutterman is a former trial and corporate attorney and the author of the Pen Wilkinson suspense series as well as the psychological thriller Incel. Chris Norbury is the author of the Matt Lanier mystery-thriller series, including Straight River, Castle Danger, and Dangerous Straits. Rob Jung is an author, publisher, producer, and host whose novels include The Reaper, The Sower, Judgment Day, and Cloud Warriors. Together with Julie Holmes and John Baird Rogers, they make up Midwest Mystery Works.
Learn more about each of these authors at their webpages here:
- Rob Jung: https://robjungwriter.com/
- Brian Lutterman: https://brianlutterman.com/
- Chris Norbury: https://chrisnorbury.com/
- Julie Holmes: https://julieholmesauthor.com/
- John Baird Rogers: https://johnbairdrogers.com/
- Midwest Mystery Works: https://www.facebook.com/MidwestMysteryWorks
Writer’s Corner is shared in connection with Bell Cow Productions, a literary media and author-support platform focused on connecting writers, readers, bookstores, libraries, and literary communities.
Bell Cow Productions: https://www.bellcowproductions.com/
Special thanks to Eagan-TV, Writer’s Corner’s home station. In the Twin Cities South Metro area, Writer’s Corner airs on E-TV Public Access, Comcast Channel 15, and CenturyLink Channel 8834. The program also airs on additional public TV stations serving communities throughout Minnesota and the Midwest.
Writer’s Corner: http://writers-corner.org/
Eagan-TV: https://eagan-tv.com/
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