December 2008 Archives

One does not often associate a bestselling thriller writer with the Whiffenpoofs, Yale's storied a cappella singing group. But then, one does not come across a background like Joseph Finder's too often.

After a childhood spent with his family in Afghanistan and the Philippines, Finder ended up back in the states. He went on to graduate from Yale summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and got a Masters in Russian studies at Harvard--where he also taught for a time.

Then, at 24, he published his first book, a non-fiction expose of Dr. Armand Hammer and his ties to the Soviet Union. From here he turned to fiction, with The Moscow Club (1991). He's been at it ever since. His most recent bestseller is Power Play (2007).

The first thing I wanted to know was what Finder does differently as a thriller writer today than when he started.

"The basics of what I do remain the same," Finder says.  "I try to tell a gripping story with fast pace, heroes you want to root for, characters who have interesting back stories, and inside information you can't get anywhere else."

There have always been stories about "terrors from the deep" but a new thriller puts a twist on this long-standing genre. Amidst the ice storm that swept over New England, ITW contributing editor Cathy Clamp sat down to talk with Jeremy Robinson about his January release, Kronos. Admittedly, the "talk" was by email, and the author was without power, typing the first part of our conversation on his cell phone---it being the only link to the outside world.

There haven't been a whole lot of good "terror from the deep" stories in that region for a long time. Was there a particular event that made you think of this plot, or do you just have a twisted mind that can't help but think of such things?

Good terror from the deep novels are indeed hard to find. As a huge fan of the genre I'm even more picky than most. So when I set out to write my own deep sea story I wanted it to be as original as possible. So we start with a story akin to Moby Dick where Atticus Young, the main character is out for vengeance against the mystery creature that swallowed his daughter whole. But it's what he discovers during his quest for vengeance that turns the story its head, and I've been told by the producer/director of the Jaws documentary, The Shark is Still Working, "totally reinvents the genre." It took me a few days to come up with the twist, but when I did I knew it was right, and very exciting. So I think it was more of a conscious effort of coming up with a twist, than a twisted mind...though I've been told my mind is fairly twisted.

A couple of your quotes mention "high-tech." Tell me a little more about the techie nature of the plot that might make readers drool.

The high-tech in Kronos comes in the form of a mega-yacht called the Titan. It is part pleasure yacht, part battleship, featuring advanced weaponry, systems, and security, including a submersible that zips through the water like a fighter jet--and is just a lethal. All this is put to the task of hunting down the creature that swallowed Atticus's daughter.

Better Than Bulletproof tells the story of a Marine and a perpetual "screw up," who join forces to rescue an autistic boy from a web of murder and government conspiracy. A romantic suspense thriller that asks the question: how far should the government go to protect a pharmaceutical company that holds a worldwide cure in one hand and an epidemic in the other? 

Gina Rodgers, the heroine, is a struggling advertising artist who has just landed the account of a lifetime when her sister mysteriously disappears leaving behind a five-year-old autistic son. Dropping everything in her Dallas job, Gina travels to Mississippi to care for Adam and look for her sister. There she discovers an unexpected ally in the child's play therapist, Harlan Jeffries, an ex-military sniper seeking redemption through working with special needs children.

As they search for her sister, Gina and Harlan are caught up in a conspiracy involving murder, betrayal and a pharmaceutical company cover-up that reaches to the highest levels of government.

With her book coming out January 13^th , along with all that entails, Kay Thomas was gracious enough to sit down with contributing editor Christine Goff and answer a few questions. Here is what she had to say.

This is your debut novel.  Give us a little background about yourself as a writer.

I didn't always know I wanted to write. The first week of "Freshman Comp" my professor read something I'd written out loud to the entire class as an example of something "well done." I still remember how that made me feel.

Unfortunately, that feeling didn't last...I was a one hit wonder in composition and was thrilled with the C that I barely squeezed out of there with. A few years later, I took a couple of creative writing courses at a community college and started a manuscript. Got a hundred pages into it, got stuck, and then life got complicated for a while. Finally, in 2004, I joined Romance Writers of America and things started to really gel for me in terms of writing and process. Better Than Bulletproof is my debut novel, but it's my third completed manuscript.

Its been a funny old year, 2008. And not always ha-ha funny, either, with the credit crunch that loomed over the year's end and many retailers and publishers reportedly facing tough times.

But for all of that, there was much that was grand about 2008 as well. Here's just a small selection of why '08 was a thrilling year as well as a brief glimpse into the future to see what the next year should bring our way.

Author of nine novels, Rick Mofina, grew up in a working-class family east of Toronto, in Belleville, Ontario, Canada.  He started writing fiction in grade school and never looked back.  Five of his novels were about reporter Tom Reed, and three starred ace journalist Jason Wade.  His latest, Six Seconds, is a standalone international thriller and has received outstanding reviews from such publications as Library Journal.  Mofina talked to contributing editor, Jeff Ayers, about Six Seconds and his career.

What is your writing background?

I was 15 when I sold my first short story. I was 18 when I hitchhiked to California and wrote a (dreadful still unpublished) novel about the experience. In university I studied Journalism and English Literature, including a course in American Detective Fiction. I was a cub reporter at The Toronto Star, the same paper where Hemingway worked, before I embarked on a career in journalism that spanned three decades and several newsrooms. My reporting has put me face-to-face with murderers on death row in Montana and Texas. I covered a horrific serial killing case in California, an armored car heist in Las Vegas and the murders of police officers in Alberta. I have flown over Los Angeles with the LAPD, and gone on patrol with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police near the Arctic. I have also reported from the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East.

It was during my time as crime reporter with the Calgary Herald that I sold my first book, If Angels Fall. I am now working on my tenth.

Blaize Clement is the author of the best-selling Dixie Hemingway Mystery Series, which features the plucky Florida pet sitter and amateur sleuth, Dixie Hemingway. In the fourth book of the series being released this month, Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof, Dixie thinks she's made a great new friend who's in hiding from a sadistic husband. When her new friend is murdered, Dixie is determined to bring the husband to justice. Until she learns there is no husband.

Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof has been called a "taut and topical mystery, filled with local color from Florida's Sun Coast." The Big Thrill caught up with Dixie's creator to ask her a few questions about her popular series and what led her from her former profession - psychotherapy - to writing.

You say in the bio on your blog, "I'll write a Dixie Hemingway mystery every year until I run out of ideas." How did you come up with the original idea for the series?

Story ideas grow so organically that it's hard to remember exactly how they began. I wanted a character who had keys to other people's houses, so decided on a pet sitter. I live close to Siesta Key, which is a beautiful and quirky place, so I set the story there. While I was playing around with the idea of a pet sitter, I wrote a scene in which she finds a man drowned in a cat's water bowl. I hadn't intended that, but there it was. Everything else just evolved from that one scene.

Derek Gunn didn't reinvent the vampire novel.  Instead he stripped it back to its roots, in the process tearing away the pretensions other writers have used to humanize the fabled bloodsucking monster.  His books are not comforting paranormal romances; they are violent and visceral supernatural thrillers.

Derek Gunn has fashioned a bleak (is there a happy?) post-apocalyptic world where the depletion of the global oil supply has led to economic ruin, followed by the stagnation of technology.  Modern society collapses into tribal fiefdoms.  But the challenge of trying to survive under these conditions is trivial compared to the terror when vampires make their appearance.  Since antiquity, vampires have bided their time hiding in the margins and cracks of civilization.  Now vampires emerge into the chaos to enslave humanity and take their place at the top of the food chain.

Vampire Apocalypse: Decent Into Chaos (Black Death Books) is the second installment in Gunn's Vampire Apocalypse trilogy.  Humanity is in retreat after near annihilation by the vampires.  The young and impetuous Peter Harris gathers remnants of the human army and enlists seasoned vampire hunters for a desperate counterattack against their undead overlords.  The vampires seem all powerful but even they have mortal weaknesses.  Behind the monolithic façade of the victorious vampire forces, dissent and rivalries threaten to plunge the vampires into civil war as the factions compete for human blood and scarce resources.  The story is an intense battle of human against vampire, vampire against vampire, and even human against human.  Every author introduces a unique take on the vampire mythos and Gunn uses the concepts of anti-vampire bullets coated with a special substance and thralls--humans infected by vampires but not yet completely undead.  Thralls provide the cannon fodder in the vampire campaign against humans.

"It's very much like giving birth to a porcupine," says John Ramsey Miller. "It starts and stops and pricks at you every minute during the process, and when it's out of your brain and in your hands, it's a marvel."

The process he speaks of is writing a novel, and there aren't too many novelists who would disagree with his assessment of the craft.

Miller's latest marvel is a thriller called The Last Day, the story of a husband and wife -- two good people struggling to get over the loss of their child -- who turn out to be sitting ducks for a psychopath seeking revenge for something they are completely unaware of having triggered. The couple, a talented surgeon and a successful businessman, live in an isolated house on the edge of the North Carolina woods, unaware that an extraordinary evil is watching them -- a killer who has chosen this day to be their last.

"The seed for this book came out of a missed flight to Phoenix for Thrillerfest and a chance encounter with an odd seatmate," Miller says. "I was talking with my editor and told her the story at lunch and she loved it and said I should build a story around how one chance encounter could change someone's life, trigger a chain of extraordinary events that were outside their frame of experience and could kill them or make them stronger without destroying the basic good within them."

Debra Webb, author of more than fifty novels of romantic suspense, has led a life as adventurous (though not quite so dangerous) as her books. She's lived in Germany, worked for NASA, and currently resides in Alabama. Her latest, Find Me, hits stores December 30, and promises to make readers more than happy. Romantic Times says, "...Webb moves to a whole new level with this book, and the ending is off-the-charts creepy."

Tell us about Find Me.

Investigative reporter Sarah Newton debunks supernatural myths, and forces the truth to light whether people want to hear it or not. Now, with a popular teenager found tortured and murdered - and another girl missing - Sarah's out to prove it's not the work of an ancient curse, but a cold blooded killer. She'll expose one Maine village's darkest secrets...while keeping the truth about her own past hidden from view.

As Youngstown's newest councilman, Kale Conner's unofficial job is to minimize the bad publicity from Sarah's stories and, if possible, to keep her in line. But with time running out, and his own family at stake, Kale finds his neighbors' terrible deeds might be too deadly to sweep under the rug...and he and Sarah are headed toward a heated endgame with only one shocking way out...

I'm hoping readers will really enjoy this one. The story is near and dear to my heart. I was thrilled at RT Magazine's review: ...Webb moves to a whole new level with this book, and the ending is off-the-charts creepy.

Geoff McGeachin has taken a lot of pictures in a lot of difficult scenarios. But the Australian said he started writing precisely because it was hard.

"I'd harbored a dream of being a writer since I was very young but having so much respect for writing done well meant I had a great fear of being crap," McGeachin said. "Once I started teaching I needed to encourage photography students to try things without being paralyzed by the fear of failure and I suddenly realized that this was also a lesson for me."

McGeachin's latest novel, Dead And Kicking, is being released by Penguin/Michael Joseph in January. And as in his last two books, photographer and undercover agent Alby Murdoch is sucked into a labyrinth of intrigue, this time after inadvertently taking a sensitive picture while documenting a movie shoot in Vietnam. As he makes new enemies and allies throughout Southeast Asia, he finds himself ricocheting among hired killers, political piranha and organized crime bosses.

E. J. Rand's Reluctant Sleuth novel, Say Goodbye, won a best unpublished manuscript award and was launched in February, 2008. Perfect Cover, his second novel, is a medical thriller about a troubled hospital where women are attacked during the night shift. Gary and Becca are newly-weds. Becca is a nurse at Ridgetop, the hospital where the attacks are occurring. To protect his new wife, Gary gets her off the night shift and starts investigating the attacks. It doesn't take long for him to uncover a murderous plot. Not wanting to be left out of the action, Becca volunteers as a police decoy, which puts her in mortal danger. E. F. Watkins, author of Black Flowers, praises Perfect Cover: "Danger stalks the halls of a hospital...a frightening thriller!"

E.J. Rand's inspiration for the thriller came when he was a patient for what he describes as "nine glorious days." He adds, "My room was beside a nursing station. I had nothing to do except listen, ask questions, and take notes. I adore female nurses. My villainous scheme drew eye-twitches from a hospital security director, and comments like 'that's one of my nightmares.' "

In between the hard southeaster blows, there have been some glorious summer days through the festive holidays - like today.  The sea is a warm translucent green.  A light breeze ruffles white caps on a surface that otherwise sparkles as if diamonds had been thrown upon it.  Elsewhere on the Cape peninsula there are traffic jams and heat and frayed tempers in the shopping malls.  But I sit tight on the mountain and don't venture out unless it is to evenings like last night in a nearby cellar where Lonesome Dave Ferguson was laying down the sort of sound track I think belongs with crime fiction.

Lonesome Dave is a one man phenomenon.  A harp player with a beat box into which he records live loops, layering and building on these with his voice and his harmonicas to construct a sound that is pure heartache.  Blues.  Americana.  Country twang, he calls it.  I love it.  He's got four songs on his MySpace site.  Listen to them, they're worth it: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=196115982

Anyhow, while he was taking a smoke break, one of the people at our table, no doubt picking up the vibe, lent across and tapped my arm.  'You crime writers,' he said, 'are all just repressed serial killers, aren't you?  Too scared to do what you write about.  In your Payback, you killed a lot of characters.'

I did a quick mental body count and decided to admit to seven, although there'd also been the bombing of a club that took out four.  But then we were talking about a territory ruled by vigilante mobs, drug dealers, arms traders, and a vengeful woman.

'Seven,' my moral accuser said, 'in one novel!  That's outrageous!'

Contributing editor Janice Gable Bashman chats with Grant McKenzie about his debut thriller, Switch, which hit the shelves in Australia on December 4, 2008. Switch also will be available in the UK in July 2009, in Germany in August 2009, and in Canada in July 2010. McKenzie has had a distinguished career as a journalist, and his short stories have appeared in Out of the Gutter and Spinetingler magazines.

#1 New York Times best-selling author Lee Child describes Switch as "a terrific little-guy-in-big-trouble thriller...think Saw meets Payback moving at speed - with the emphasis on warp." Tell us about Switch and what makes it such an exciting read.

It's definitely a fast-paced thriller with a chilling premise. My protagonist, Sam White, is an ordinary guy who has to face his worst nightmare. After a late-night shift in a dead-end job, he returns home to find his house in ashes and the remains of his wife and daughter being carried out in body bags. In the blink of an eye, he has lost everything that ever mattered. But then he receives a phone call. The caller tells him the bodies don't belong to his family. His loved ones are alive, and Sam can still save them. Instantly, Sam is plunged into a deadly race against time that will challenge him to question how far he's willing to go in order to save the ones he loves. And that's just the beginning.

President Will Lee is having a rough week. As he prepares for the upcoming election, the usually cool and collected President Lee has several crises going on at once, from loose nukes to a close political ally with skeletons in his closet. And as if that weren't enough, Kate Rule Lee, his first lady and CIA director, is contending with another threat: the return of a dangerous and unusually cunning fugitive Teddy Fay.

There's plenty of the usual trouble to be found in Washington, from double-crossing political appointees to an impending sex scandal. But with the threat from abroad looming, the president puts every resource he has--including Lance Cabot and Holly Barker--into damage control as the clock ticks down to election night. From the seedy world of muckraking journalism to the murderous hotspots of Central America, there's enough intrigue to keep even the sharpest and most daring of intelligence agents on edge.

With his usual blistering pace and dry wit, Stuart Woods has created another adventure that shows why he's truly the master of the genre.

Stuart Woods is the author of more than thirty novels, including the New York Times-bestselling Stone Barrington series and Holly Barker series. He is an avid sailor and pilot who lives in Key West, Florida, Mount Desert Island, Maine and in New York City.

The President's Henchman is a great title!  I really like it.  Here's a quick snapshot:

It's only a matter of time--and not that long a time--before the United States elects its first female president. Which will make her husband--what?

Well, if he's the ex-cop who solved the murder of the president's first husband and brought the killers to justice...and if he's not the kind of guy to stand on formality...and if he doesn't want to be the head of the FBI...and if he takes out a license and becomes the first private eye to live in the White House...

That would make him The President's Henchman.

Jim McGill's first case is to find out who is stalking a member of the White House press corps, before that stalker turns the tables on McGill and maybe even threatens the president herself. He also has to be a shadow adviser to a young Air Force investigator who is looking into a he-said-she-said charge of adultery leveled against a female colonel working at the Pentagon, a case with the potential to derail the new president's administration before it has a chance to begin.

The President's Henchman is Joseph Flynn's seventh book, his most powerful story to date.  I like the premise and can't wait to read it. It's my kind of thriller. 

His previous titles are Farewell Performance, Gasoline Taxes, The Next President, Hot Type Digger, and The Concrete Inquisition.

Joe graciously accepted an interview with me.

With so many genres to chose from, science fiction, horror, western, etc, how did you settle with the thriller genre?

As a young reader, I enjoyed the classics of mystery and adventure by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Arthur Conan Doyle. As a teenager, I picked up the books my older brother brought home. In that way, I was introduced to the likes of John D. MacDonald, Ross Thomas, Donald Hamilton, Ian Fleming, Alistair MacLean. All of these authors had their way with my young, impressionable mind. Even so, I thought I was going to make my way in life as a lawyer. I was on my way to my first day of college when my first story idea popped into my head. I called it Lester's Curse, and it wasn't a thriller at all. It began with the assumption that anyone, even God, can mess up when he tries something new. In this case, God put a little too much follow through into his creation of humanity and came up with Adam, Eve, and Lester. Adam and Eve were the biblical Ken and Barbie. Lester was a gnarly little guy. Hardly suited to be the father of mankind, and not Eve's idea of a hunk at all. The serpent came to Lester and warned him that he was about to become history. Lester went to God and demanded a fair crack at winning the reluctant Eve's affections. A competition was set up, but it was rigged. The outcome, though, was very close, thanks to Adam's self-absorption and Lester getting tips from the serpent. Still, Adam won. But Lester put his curse on Adam, Eve, and by extension the rest of us. He told them. "No matter how beautiful you are, no matter how good you have it, you'll never be satisfied." And isn't that pretty much the way it is?

It was only sometime later that my childhood influences led me back to the mystery/thriller track. But even now I sometimes do what I call "a book without a body-count."

Jane Whitefield makes a triumphant return this month in Runner, the latest novel by thrill-master Thomas Perry.  Perry is the author of seventeen novels and it's good to see that after several best sellers, an Edgar award (for The Butcher's Boy) and a New York Times notable book of the year (Metzger's Dog) Perry has decided to give his beloved Native American series character a new lease on life.

Jane is a unique and fascinating character. Since she was 20 her personal mission has been to help people who are running for their lives.  Think someone wants to murder you?  Jane will take you to a place where nobody knows you and teach you to live under a new identity.

Jane's first five adventures appeared between 1995 and 1999.  Then she dropped out of sight.  Her creator used that time for personal growth.

"I've always believed that the most important thing for a writer to do is learn to be a better writer," Perry says.  "Writing a series is comfortable, and being comfortable isn't the best way to learn to improve.  So after five books, I put Jane aside and wrote only stand-alone novels for the next nine years."

On a cold January morning, a nightmare awaits in a small Sussex village. A deranged young man goes on the rampage, shooting everyone in his path before taking his own life. It is a senseless, tragic event, but sadly not an unfamiliar one.

At least, that's what everyone thinks.

Only Julia Trent - a schoolteacher believed to be the sole survivor - knows there was a second man involved. But after being shot and badly injured, her account of the massacre is ignored.

But she cannot let it rest there. Together with Craig Walker, the journalist son of one of the victims, Julia sets out to find the truth. As they peel back the layers of a dark and dangerous conspiracy, they discover the slaughter didn't begin on that bitter day in January. And worst of all, it won't end there...

It is inexorably obvious that British born New York Times and USA Today bestselling author A. J. Hartley has an affinity for archaeology, as his books take readers on a visually explosive rollercoaster ride that melds fact and fiction.

Hartleyʼs newest thriller, What Time Devours unleashes protagonist Thomas Knight from the crypts of standalones. It seems over the two-book series Knightʼs arc revolves around his acceptance of his destiny, as he goes from a down-and-out teacher, contemplating suicide, to a trail-blazer covering the globe, solving mysteries.

In A. J. Hartleyʼs previous novel, The Fifth Day, Knight has an estranged relationship with his brother but when his brother is killed, feels like he owes something to him and follows a trail of secrets to unveil what happened. Now, after having that mystery behind him, we see Thomas Knightʼs arc develop more as A. J. Hartley brilliantly takes us into his third novel, What Time Devours. Hartley draws the reader in with a centuries-old mystery that surrounds a long-lost rare, priceless Shakespearean play. To find it, Thomas Knight will have to enter a beguiling story which drags loss and death after it like one of Shakespeare's tragedies. It is a mystery, Thomas Knight finds, that is bound to time and all it devours.

A. J. Hartley has authored three novels published by Berkley/Penguin: The Mask of Atreus, April 2006, On The Fifth Day, July 2007 and now his third What Time Devours, January 2009. He also has a fantasy series coming out in February 2009, published by Tor books, entitled Act of Will. Visit A.J. Hartley's website at www.ajhartley.net.

Contributing editor Ace Antonio Hall is the former Creative Director for The Hollywood Actors Academy. He is the author of Distorted Minds and is working on his first novel, a futuristic thriller called DEAD WORLD LIVING.  

For those readers who aren't yet familiar with your books, bring us up to speed Stealing The Dragon and Beating The Babushka.

Stealing the Dragon is a novel about San Francisco's Chinatown, human trafficking and the Hong Kong Triads, a book that is currently being adapted for film.  It introduced a private detective named Cape Weathers and his deadly companion Sally, who was raised by the Triads to be a trained assassin. Beating The Babushka deals with the Russian mafiya and the movie business, partially based on some real skullduggery that goes on behind the scenes in Hollywood.

Greasing The Piñata is the third Cape Weathers novel.  Can readers jump on without having read the previous novels?

Absolutely. I think I come from the Lee Child school of thriller writing in that I think of these books as a series of standalone novels which happen to share some recurring characters. You can jump in with any book.

Tell us about how you created the character of Cape Weathers.

I wanted an amateur sleuth, someone for whom an investigation could get more personal. I also wanted a lead character who doesn't have all the resources of a police department behind them, someone who has to find their own way.

Museum curator Natalie Landau is desperate to learn who murdered her reporter sister in Iraq and why. Pursued by powerful forces seeking the mysterious gift her sister Dana sent her before she was killed, Natalie is fighting for answers and for her life. Dana had thought the evil eye necklace she found in Iraq was a trinket, never imagining it concealed a  biblical treasure from the dawn of creation: a treasure taken from the palace of Nebuchadnezzar and hidden for centuries, possessing the power to transform -- or  destroy -- the world. As enemies close in on Natalie  from all  sides, her only ally is former MSNBC bureau chief Jim D Amato. Together they try to stay alive and find out what is so powerful, so valuable that bodies pile up all around them as they race to outrun danger and death. 

"Jill Gregory and Karen Tintori return with another extraordinary thriller after their outstanding The Book of Names. Their new  novel, The Illumination, skillfully weaves history, ancient art, dark legend and religious fanaticism into a story of high-stakes terror and international intrigue. The excitement stays at a high pitch from the opening scene at the looted Iraqi National Museum to the final sensational twist. A page-turner extraordinaire." -- Douglas Preston, author of The Monster of Florence and do-author of The Wheel of Darkness

"Stirring and imaginative. A tense, intelligent, and surprising thrill. Drum tight in execution, fueled by imagination, the plot is as sharp as a broken shard of glass. If you like your tales loaded with intrigue, treachery, and a wealth of secrets you're going  to love The Ilumination." -- Steve Berry, author of The Charlemagne Pursuit

"The intrigue is high. The excitement is palpable. The story is  priceless. Combining mysticism, history and  fanaticism, this is one  thriller that's simply impossible to put down until you've reached the  ending - breathless and so well satisfied. Kintori and Gregory are first rate  story tellers and this book is more fine proof of their ability!" -- M.J. Rose, international bestelling author of The Memorist.

Jill Gregory and Karen Tintori are writing partners and long-time best friends. Jill Gregory is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and Karen Tintori is the author of several acclaimed family memoirs. They live in Michigan.

New York Times Bestselling author Erica Spindler started her writing career with romance novels, but crossed over to suspense, "taking advantage of what I've come to call my 'dark gift.'" That dark gift has provided her with fourteen bestselling thrillers, the latest of which is Breakneck.

Breakneck is a sequel to Copycat, starring Detectives M.C. Riggio and Kitt Lundgren. The story focuses on a killer who is stalking a group of young cyber-thieves. The detectives, part of the Rockford, Illinois Violent Crimes Bureau, begin investigating the murder of a young man with no criminal record, not even a noise complaint. He is just the beginning of a string of murders of young adults, apparently clean-cut and law-abiding with no apparent motive for their murders.

Judas Kiss is the third novel featuring Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson.  How has Taylor as a character changed and grown with each book?

Taylor is who she is - pragmatic, moral, compassionate, strong - some would say to the point of being intractable. In Taylor's world there are black hats and white hats, good versus evil. Simple, right? But life is full of change. Every experience alters us a little bit, opens our eyes a bit. That's the way I see Taylor, altering incrementally book to book so she doesn't achieve a sense of peace and finality each time.

I like loose ends. I like to torture the poor woman, put her in situations to see just how she's going to react. And sometimes she surprises me. In addition to the crime at hand, Judas Kiss is an exploration into her past, and I think the revelations make her a richer, deeper character. I've forced her into a gray area, which is difficult for woman who has such a strong code.

How has Taylor's relationship with her FBI profiler significant other evolved over the course of the series?

This might sound a bit paradoxical considering what I just said, but her relationship with Baldwin has evolved tremendously. She's grown as a partner, has learned to trust, to let her heart speak before her head. Loving and being loved is a challenge for Taylor, one that she'd never quite mastered before him. Baldwin is her soul mate as well as her lover, and accepting this new personal life (the engagement, moving in together) ultimately makes her a better woman.

Taylor's private life is forced into the public spotlight in Judas Kiss.  How does Taylor deal with this?

Many women have something in their past that haunts them, something they'd like to do over. Taylor is no different. It's very, very difficult for her, because it's not only her personal life, it's her personal sexual life splashed across the headlines. The media seizes on her indiscretion and her most intimate details are exposed all over local and national television. If that's not bad enough, the situation is compounded by another leaked video that raises questions about her role in the death of her ex-partner and ex-lover. Her fall from grace is blood in the water for the cable news shows, and the local media feasts on her disgrace.

I believe the horror she feels will resonate with many women. But she's a tough cookie. She handles it the only way she knows how, by moving forward, finding out who's responsible and making sure they get punished. To use a terrible cliché, she doesn't waste time crying over the spilt milk.

Contributig editor Karen Harper recently discussed the new thriller Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts with its author Laura Benedict's.

Please briefly describe your story.

Roxanne, Del and Alice have been friends since childhood--a childhood full of silly games and the kind of mutual cruelty only young girls understand. The only man who almost came between them was Father Romero, their teacher at Our Lady of the Hills school in Cincinnati. Long after the three ruined his life and career with a single, ugly lie, Romero makes a Faustian bargain that will give him his revenge. Now grown, the three find themselves at the mercy of the devil himself and no one around them--not even an unborn child--is safe.

Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts has been called "an intelligent novel that elevates the horror novel."  Do you think horror novels engage the reader's brain as well as emotions?

Horror novels--if they're done well--engage the emotions at a particularly primitive level, the ancient place in our brains where the "fight or flight" response has a very low threshold. But that doesn't mean that horror novels are necessarily simplistic. I would argue that horror novels have more in common with surreal literature than anything else. They speak to the reader from a world that's likely to suddenly become dreamlike, with dream-logic, and anyone who has ever tried to write a convincing dream knows that it's a challenging exercise. As to whether horror novels as a genre engage a reader's brain as well as their emotions--A series of shocking, evocative images by themselves are likely to end up being just an exhausting chore for the reader. That's how I feel when I watch a slasher film: exhausted. A good book in any genre goes for both.
 
Dare we ask if anything in your own life inspires your frightening plots?  Your bio presents a midwestern, family-oriented person.  In other words, has anyone at a signing ever asked, "Why does a nice girl like you write terrifying horror stories?"

People ask me that all the time--mostly, I think, because I'm now somebody's actual mother, and nobody wants to imagine that their mother might think about nasty, scary or violent things! But do we really know what goes on in other people's heads? I am extremely family-oriented. I gave birth to two Virginians, so I flinch a bit at the midwestern description--but I do currently live in the Midwest. I go to church on Sundays. And, yes, I bake cookies, make trips to the dry cleaners and throw baby showers. But when I see a dry cleaning bag on my bed, I see a possible agent of my death. I look out into my woods and imagine snipers and stalkers in addition to the bobcats and coyotes that are already there. If my husband is five minutes late in calling me, I imagine that he's been kidnapped, run off the road, or has decided--at just that moment--to run away and create a new identity for himself. It is never dull in my head (or for my family, I fear). Fortunately, I have been able to fashion my personality disorder into something reasonably constructive!

Contributing editor Keith Raffel recenly chatted with William Bernhardt about his latest thriller Nemesis.

I hear you've identified the infamous 1930's serial killer, the Cleveland Torso Murderer, in your new book.  But Nemesis is not true crime, it's a novel.  What's going on?

Nemesis is called a novel because I have created dialogue and interior monologue for the three main characters.  Nonetheless, the majority of the book tracks the historical record closely, and at the end, I propose a solution based upon my research.  It's a novel based upon true events. 

How did you come up with the idea behind Nemesis?

I've been interested in Eliot Ness all my life, probably since I first saw an episode of The Untouchables, but only a few years ago learned that he was involved not only with putting away Al Capone but in the pursuit of Cleveland's infamous Torso Murderer.  That struck me as an even better story--a legendary crimefighter up against America's first serial killer.  The problem, of course, was that the story had no ending because the mystery was never officially solved.  So I began my research.  
 
Nemesis features the gang-busting true-life hero Eliot Ness.  Were looking for a break from your Ben Kincaid series of legal thrillers?  Was Nemesis easier or harder to write than a Ben Kincaid?  Is Eliot Ness going to show up again in your writing?

I love writing the Ben Kincaid novels, but I also prefer to do something else between them, so I'm always looking for good ideas outside the Kincaid universe.  Nemesis was much harder to write.  All my books have required research, but Nemesis far more than most because of my desire for historical accuracy and because, of course, I wanted to solve the mystery.  I don't have any plans to write another book with Eliot Ness, but you know the great axiom of the creative life: never say never again.

Big Thrill managing editor, Joe Moore, recently chatted with Nashville-based literary publicist, Tom Robinson.

For the thriller fans out there that may not know, what is a publicist? How did you become one? What are the qualifications?

I'm what is called an independent publicist. I'm self-employed and work with authors to promote their upcoming book. As a publicist I'm helping them get publicity, coverage and awareness for their title and for themselves.  I always say being a published author is a numbers game as there are so many out there hoping to catch the attention of the reading public. I try to help authors break through and get their share of publicity. This is an "impressions" game. The more impressions you get through publicity and advertising the better off you are. I develop a plan that incorporates both. In the ideal situation you combine publicity with advertising whether you're selling food, cars, furniture or promoting authors and their books.  The key is to target it all for your audience. Part of my job is to also work with the publishing house publicists, who are of ten trying to juggle so many titles at one time. We're out there trying to achieve the same goals and I can devote more time to the efforts. There's a lot of followup and grunt work that goes with this.

As for how did I get the job?  I'm hired by the authors. I started focusing on authors and books almost 4 years ago when ITW member Tasha Alexander took a leap of faith and hired me for her debut novel.  Since then I've had the good fortune of working with many fine authors. Authors contact me through my website via e-mail or phone. Some have been referred by other authors and literary agents. I talk with the potential author by phone. We discuss their book, objectives and author background. We also discuss my plan and fee. The author needs to contact me about five months prior to book release as there is so much advance work and media contact to be done. Waiting until two or three months out is pushing it as you've missed some deadlines and valuable media pitch time. Why am I qualified? I believe I'm qualified because I have a deep, comprehensive understanding of media. I've been in media for 30-something years as a columnist, magazine writer, magazine editor, PR and ad executive and manager.  I've been on the other side and understand what media is looking for or what a book editor might be looking for, or a blogsite might be interested in. I understand publicity, advertising, marketing, brand imaging and how they all blend. I've also managed to make and continue to make good contacts. In the end I believe I've gotten some good results for authors.

Lisa Unger's BLACK OUT has been optioned by longtime Martin Scorsese producer Barbara De Fina, writer and director Austin Chick, and Andrew Kletjian.

Chick has written, directed and produced two films, XX/XY and August, both of which Lisa calls "brilliant and quirky."  He also provided uncredited contributions to the script of Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Barbara De Fina's has produced such blockbuster classics as Goodfellas, Casino, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence and The Color of Money.

Lisa is "thrilled and excited to have these mega-talented people attached to BLACK OUT."

For more information, see the recent article in The Hollywood Reporter.

Canada's premier mystery writers' and fan conference Bloody Words will be in Ottawa from June 5-7, 2009. Confirmed guests of honor include Denise Mina, Louise Penny and Barbara Fradkin with Mary Jane Maffini as Mistress of Ceremonies. For more information and registration forms, please visit www.bloodywords2009.com.

By Karna Small Bodman

As I heard the first news reports of the tragic attacks on Mumbai, India I had this eerie "déjà vu all over again" feeling.  It was positively weird because when I had the idea for my debut thriller, CHECKMATE, which came out in hardback in early 2007 and is now out in paperback, I researched a (then) obscure terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba and "created" a militant cell that stages attacks on Indian targets in an attempt to foment more trouble between India and Pakistan - two nuclear armed nations that have already fought three wars. In my novel, the White House gets involved in diplomatic efforts to forestall retaliation against Pakistan and there are more twists as all sides race to find the perpetrators and protect against further attacks.

Now, of course, we learn that this very group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, is responsible for the Mumbai attacks, as well as many others, and their training camps have been the breeding ground for militant operating throughout the region. As soon as the story hit the airwaves, I started getting emails and dozens of requests to do radio interviews about how CHECKMATE predicted the actions of this terrorist group.

In the interviews, talk show hosts all seem fascinated with the idea that some novelists are writing stories based on current events -- as many ITW authors are right doing right now. Then again, there are many fine authors who have taken a real event and done a "what if" to create a story.  I'm reminded of Nelson DeMille's thriller, The Lion's Game, which was based on our country's bombing of Libya back in the mid-80's.  In that story, DeMille imagined a young Libyan character who was so incensed that we bombed his country that he comes over here and tries to systematically track down and kill every member of the bombing squad. And when I met DeMille at Book Expo, I told him I had been in the Situation Room of The White House the night we bombed Libya and so his great story brought it all back to me. That was a "look back." Now many of our authors are "looking ahead" with prescient accuracy.  In fact, many have been invited to The White House to share their ideas with national security planners to try and anticipate various chilling scenarios.

Perhaps instead of calling our books "fiction" they should now be called "faction."

For more information on CHECKMATE, please visit Karna's website.

Toronto-based production company Media Headquarters has optioned the film and television rights to Howard Shrier's BUFFALO JUMP and its sequel, HIGH CHICAGO. The contract--which happened to arrive on November 13, Howard's birthday--was negotiated by entertainment agent Carl Liberman, head of the literary department at The Characters Agency.

Media Headquarters, headed by partners Rob and Shari Cohen, has produced award-winning drama, documentary, reality and children's programming, including the recent miniseries The Summit, starring Bruce Greenwood and Christopher Plummer. Broadcaster and distributor partners have included CBC, CTV, CanWest, PBS, NFB and many others.

For more information on BUFFALO JUMP, please visit the Random House website. 

The first book in the Vampire Apocalypse series, A WORLD TORN ASUNDER (2006), by Irish writer and ITW member Derek Gunn, has been optioned for film and by LA-based producer/screenwriter Richard Finney.

A movie script has been penned by Richard Finney and Franklin Guerrero, based on the book. Their adaptation led to a recent partnership on the project with producer, Robert Lawrence (Die Hard: With a Vengence, Clueless, The Last Castle). Currently the project is in development and is being represented by the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) who is packaging the project for the studios.

The second book in this series, DESCENT INTO CHAOS, was released in October 2008. The third book, FALLOUT, is due out in 2009. For more information, please visit Derek's website at http://www.derekgunn.com.