ITW contributing editor Mark Combes recently got a chance to catch up with Chris Grabenstein and chat about the second in his Christopher Miller Holiday Thrillers, Hell for the Holidays.

Grabenstein is best known as the writer of the very popular and Anthony Award winning Ceepak Mysteries.  But Chris isn’t content with just one best-selling series - the Miller Thrillers are Grabenstein’s second series and he’ll be starting a third middle grade series in 2008.  Yes, that’s correct.  Three series at one time.  He blames it on his advertising background.

“I’m used to the pace of advertising.  My first professional writing job was doing Burger King copy for James Patterson at J. Walter Thompson, NY. There is no writer’s block in adland – just unemployment.  So, you get used to a fast work pace.

“My publisher said he liked former advertising writers because ‘we don’t waste people’s time.’  I guess that comes with spending close to two decades writing thirty second spots where you had to grab the audience’s attention in the first two or three seconds and only had a grand total of seventy words to make your entire point.”

And Chris’ Thrillers certainly do that – grab you from the beginning.  In Hell for the Holidays, the prologue starts with Miller’s daughter having a very nasty nightmare and Miller confessing to himself that he’s not sure he can keep her safe.  It’s short.  It’s scary.  And you know something bad is going to happen very soon.  That Miller will again have to save his daughter.

“I have a soft spot for children in jeopardy.  I also think, from a story telling perspective, children in jeopardy are our worst nightmare. Civilization, in some ways, was established to protect children.  Our guardians, the cops and FBI agents, are put to the ultimate test when protecting kids.”

And as with any good thriller, the pace Chris sets is relentless.

“The Christopher Miller books are thrillers from page one.  If the Ceepak books are page turners, the Millers are page rippers.  Severe danger of paper cuts, the pages flip by so fast.  I think mysteries are more about solving a puzzle, thrillers are more about pure adrenaline and classic irony – the reader knows things the actors on the pages do not!  Makes for many a sleepless night.”

James Patterson hired Chris Grabenstein as a junior copywriter at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York. His TILT A WHIRL won the Anthony Award for “Best First Mystery,” MAD MOUSE was named one of Kirkus’ “Ten Best Mysteries of 2006,” and WHACK A MOLE came out this summer. Ceepak #4 HELL HOLE will be published by St. Martin’s Minotaur in 2008. He also writes the Christopher Miller Holiday Thrillers (SLAY RIDE and HELL FOR THE HOLIDAYS) and his Young Adult Ghost Story series will debut in 2008 from Random House.

ITW contributing editor Mark Combes is an avid sailor and Scuba diver and travels extensively in the Caribbean pursuing his passions. He works in book publishing and this is his first novel.