Wollie Shelley smells a wrongful death.  She may be a greeting card artist in L.A., moonlighting as a dating correspondent for a talk show, but when her friend and former boyfriend, David, a television producer, dies, she knows something is fatally amiss. 

David was terminally ill.  So why did he die by gunshot? Was his death a suicide? Assisted suicide? Or something else?   A prime suspect is Wollie’s best friend, Joey, a minor celebrity, who also dated David.

Motivated by love and a concern for justice, Wollie relies on her brain and the help of friends to solve the question, says Dead Ex author Harley Jane Kozak. “She has a fish-out-of-water sensibility, a complete lack of qualifications for solving crimes.”

Kozak, a Hollywood insider herself, is fascinated by how the world of celebrities and show business interacts with the criminal justice arena.  How does publicity influence the process? 

She has some insight on that.  As a rising star, she performed in many feature films including When Harry Met Sally and Parenthood, as well as soap operas such as The Guiding Light. 

Her transition from stage to pen evolved as part of her dramatic training. “I’m a compulsive writer. I used to write long, character biographies and essays when preparing for roles in plays. I’d write twenty-page letters to friends,” she says. “I guess I was a writer waiting to happen.”

Harley Jane Kozak started acting at the age of five.  After graduating from the New York University School of the Arts, she landed roles in feature films, soap operas and prime time television programs.  She turned to novel writing in her mid-30's.  Dead Ex is her third Wollie Shelley novel.  She lives in California and is currently working on more novels in this series. Read an excerpt of Dead Ex here.

Fourteen years ago, the seven-year-old son of Giorgio, an eminent archeologist, vanished in the tunnels beneath Rome’s ancient Circus Maximus.  Believing one of his students responsible, Giorgio beat the student to death.  The professor served a long sentence and was released, his child never found.

In David Hewson’s Seventh Sacrament—the fifth book in the Nic Costa series—Roman Inspector Nic Costa and his colleague, Leo Falcone, revive this mismanaged, cold case. 

Asking questions that should have been asked before, Costa and Falcone head back into the labyrinthine underworld of Rome, to the lost cult of Mithras, and to Giorgio.

“I became fascinated by underground Rome,” says bestseller Hewson.  “When I looked into the subject, it was impossible to get away from Mithras.”

Followers of Mithras, a religion that originated in Persia, adhered to a rigorous form of hierarchy. Practitioners were divided into seven levels, from novice to expert. To rise through the ranks, an ordeal or challenge had to be undertaken. 

“Many aspects of Mithraism—such as we know them—mirror practices in Christianity,” says Hewson. “Both had the idea of seven sacraments.”

Hewson’s enchantment with Rome began in childhood.  Raised in a children’s home in northern England, the charity library was filled with Victorian versions of Roman and Greek classics.  “The idea of the Mediterranean as a warm, human, exciting place was planted in me there, I guess,” he says.  “I still think the place (Rome) is the greatest city on earth, and I’m not a city man.”

David Hewson is the bestselling author of a dozen novels.  He started out as a journalist and worked for many years as a staff reporter in London for The Times and as a weekly columnist for the Sunday Times.  Born in Yorkshire, England, Hewson lives in the town of Wye in Southern England and has just signed on to write three more Nic Costa books.  Read an excerpt of Seventh Sacrament here.

Griff Burkett wants to make up for lost time. A former all-star quarterback imprisoned for throwing games and saving points gets caught and serves five years. But the hustler in him isn't tamed completely. When he's released, a multi-millionaire makes him an offer too good to reject: Impregnate the millionaire's wife--the old-fashioned way--and get paid a sum Griff can't refuse.

 "I thought this would be an interesting character," says Play Dirty author and New York Times bestseller Sandra Brown.  "Griff is someone who has betrayed his fellow teammates, his fans, the sport itself, while living every person's dream. Why would he risk it? Why would he throw it away?"

In Play Dirty, A big shocker occurs in the middle of the book that changes the whole direction of the book, she says.

Brown, who has written more than sixty novels, says all her characters are conjured up and are a product of her imagination. "Something starts niggling in my mind and determines whether it wants to be a book," she says. "Then I get excited all over again.  I've been working hard at it for more than thirty years.  My enthusiasm for writing, for telling stories has never dimmed."

Sandra Brown is a #1 New York Times bestselling author.  She has written nearly seventy novels, fifty-five of which have been NY Times bestsellers. Her novels have been translated into more than 30 languages.  Texan born and raised, Brown worked in television, including weather casting and feature reporting for the nationally syndicated program PM Magazine. She is the recipient of the 2007 Texas Medal of Arts Award for Literature. Click on this link and watch a short video about Play Dirty.

Burned out on life, Lee Henry Oswald wants to be left alone.  This former private investigator and veteran of the first Gulf war is working as a bartender in Dallas, living in an extended stay hotel after his house was destroyed in a fire.  But his peace-seeking fantasy is short-lived.  Two people desperately need his help.

“He’s someone who helps people out of jams,” says Crosshairs’ author Harry Hunsicker about his third Oswald thriller.

Anita Nazari, a contrary but brilliant medical researcher, is under threat of a shadowy-quasi-governmental operative.  In an unrelated case, Oswald’s old army buddy is dying from cancer caused by Gulf War Syndrome, a syndrome characterized by a set of non-specific symptoms such as fatigue, neurological problems, post-traumatic stress.  His friend’s problems stem back to exposure to an oil field fire during a mission he went on in Oswald’s place.

“Oswald is someone who can walk the line, who can work both sides of the law,” says Hunsicker. “He can’t escape what he’s destined to be.”

The story also deals with how we treat the environment. “We put a lot of poisons in the air—I’m not talking about the big industrial stuff,” says Hunsicker. “It’s the everyday household materials such as cleaning fluids and pesticides. I don’t think we understand what we’re doing to our environment.”

Harry Hunsicker is a fourth generation Texan from Dallas.  He works as a commercial real estate appraiser and speaks on creative writing when he’s not writing his next Lee Henry Oswald mystery.  His debut novel was nominated for a Shamus award, best first novel, in 2005.  Read an excerpt of Crosshairs here.

Alan Jacobson interviews James Patterson, recipient of ITW's second Thrillermaster award at Thrillfest in New York

Begin with the knowledge and expertise acquired by heading a major New York ad agency. Mix in two English degrees and a genuine love for writing, and you have the recipe for immense financial and critical success. James Patterson is the author of 36 novels, a body of work that has grossed 1.5 billion (yes, billion) dollars in worldwide sales. Impressive, yes. But more impressive is the man behind the novels.  

James Patterson signing at Thrillerfest: Photo Alan Jacobson

Jacobson: What's your take on the thriller genre today vs. where it was 10 or 20 years ago?



Patterson: The quality in general is way up, the bar is higher, the writing is better. What has been missing, though, has been those real breakthrough Day of the Jackal types. I don't come across many of those very often.



Jacobson: What do you enjoy most about the writing process?



Patterson: There are some writers who don't really like to write; they like to have finished a book. My style is pure storytelling, so it's not as laborious as it is for some. Somebody said "You're lucky if you find something you like to do and it's a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it." That's sort of my situation. I love to tell these stories. I've got a folder here with hundreds more to tell that I'll never have the time to write.



Jacobson: What's your typical writing day like?



Patterson: I pretty much write seven days a week. I write early in the morning, from 5 o'clock to 7, then about 10:30 to 11:30, and then usually late in the afternoon. I do it because I like to do it. I really look forward to going up and writing.



Jacobson: Have you ever written more than one novel at a time?



Patterson: I do nothing but work on more than one book at a time. Right now I'm finishing an Alex Cross; I'm outlining another Alex Cross; I'm finishing a Maximum Ride, my young adult series; I just outlined another Maximum Ride; I'm on the eighth draft of a love story I do once in a while; I just outlined another Women's Murder Club, number 8; and there are a couple other outlines I'm fooling around with. Since I work on a lot of projects at the same time, I can flit around. I never get stuck on a book because I tend to do a draft in a month/month-and-a-half. And I do seven or eight drafts. Because I'm working on a number of projects, I never got blocked.



Jacobson: How long are your outlines?



Patterson: Usually a paragraph a chapter, and I usually have 85% of the chapters in the outline. And it kind of fills in from there.



Jacobson: Do you ever change the outline as you go along?



Patterson: Always.



{mospagebreak}Jacobson: Do you usually know how each novel is going to end?



Patterson: I frequently don't know the ending. I know the pegs in the story, I know why I'm excited about the story, the emotions in the story. It's always something emotional for me, something that's like, "Oh, I can't wait to tell this story." That's how it'll always start. The whole thing for me is emotion, that's all it is. It's just a gut thing. That's why it's relatively easy for me to do what I do. It's a yea or nay. I feel it or I don't feel it.  



Jacobson: Earlier you mentioned emotion being a driving force. That's the case with your new novel, Cross, where Alex goes in search of his wife's killer. Was the time right to finally tell this story?



Patterson: It's something I wanted to do for a long time. And the reasons I didn't do it were, first, I didn't have a story that I liked, so I wasn't going to write the book—even though I wanted to solve that crime—I just didn't have anything I wanted to write about. Secondly, I'm just not going to go back there and spend 400 pages in the past. It's not my style. I need more things to mess around with. I need bells and whistles, fires and sirens. I like a lot of things to be going on at the same time. But also, for me, it's a very personal thing because I lost somebody in my thirties—a woman who I was living with developed a brain tumor—so that was another reason I was reluctant to get into it, because Cross's loss…comes out of my own loss. But I finally did it, and it was an emotional book for me to try to write.



Jacobson: You usually create complex villains. How do you view the antagonist in Cross?



Patterson: I remember giving a speech at a high school once and the English teacher said that good novelists have to have compassion. And I tend to agree with that. A lot of modernists would say that's a flaw in a novelist, but I happen to believe in it. I have compassion for a lot of different kinds of people. It's even necessary to draw good in bad guys. One of the things about the bad guy in Cross is that it's a conflicted thing because to a certain extent he's a good husband and father. I like bad guys that are complex. I think the best ones usually are. Alex is a pretty white-hatted kind of guy—but he's a complicated white-hatted kind of guy. He always seems to be a pretty moral, ethical guy almost all of the time, but I also think he's complicated. I think there really are people like that. He's not perfect, but his basic approach to life is pretty moral.



Jacobson: Your dialogue, particularly as it pertains to African Americans, is stellar. How did you develop an ear for this?



Patterson: I grew up in Newburgh, a tough little town in upstate New York…and we had a large black population. We had a real inner city that was tough, and in the outskirts there were a lot of farm kids. We also had an Air Force base where kids had been all around the world. A black woman that worked there came and lived in our house for four years, and I got very close to her family. And that's sort of where the Cross family, or at least the aura of the Cross family, came from. And the family was old school—wise, good cooking, nice music, funny—I enjoyed being with them. And I love basketball, and in that city if you really wanted to play serious ball, you had to go and play with the black kids—it was just better basketball. So I spent most of my eighth grade through the senior year in high school in the tough parts of Newburgh.



Jacobson: What's the most difficult part of the writing process for you?

Patterson: The first draft. It's just all a mess. My first drafts are a writing disaster. Sometimes you see certain artists and you look at their first go round on a painting and you go, "This'll never be anything." If I didn't know better, I'd read one of my first drafts and tell myself to pack it in and learn to play a musical instrument. The nice thing about having done it a lot is that you get the confidence to know that eventually it will get somewhere where you'll be relatively satisfied with it.



Jacobson: What books and genres do you like to read?



Patterson: I read a lot of nonfiction, like Michael Lewis's books, and a lot of political nonfiction. I read Bill Clinton's book, Hillary's book, Bush's book, Molly Ivins's, most of the Woodward books, and a lot of stuff about Iraq. In mysteries and thrillers, I think the best for me, in terms of pure talent, is George Pelicanos. I think he's just stunning. I like Nelson DeMille, Michael Connelly, early Patricia Cornwell, John Sandford. And a lot of others. First Blood is one of my favorite thrillers.



Jacobson: Do you think movies have helped or harmed the thriller genre?



Patterson: The movie business on the thriller/mystery side is terrible, just a total disaster. Just the worst. They have forgotten what a thriller is supposed to do, which is to thrill. And they condescend to it, and they make everything a message movie now. I thought in the past couple years the Borne movies did a good job being thrillers, Red Eye did a good job, too, but for the most part I don't go to the movies to be depressed. Derailed: nice book, awful movie. [The studios] don't get that it's Friday night, and a lot of people have this four hour window to catch a movie and catch a meal. Life is hard, the week is hard. They just don’t want to be lectured at. Then they wonder why people won't go [to the movies] anymore. They think people don't want to see thrillers. They do want to see thrillers—but [the studios] are not doing thrillers. They're doing lecture movies. There's nothing profound; the deepest they get is half as deep as a good book on the same subject. As long as they keep making awful thrillers, it will hurt the thriller [book] business. And it has.



Jacobson: The publishing industry is, and has been, ill for several years. What do you see as the future of publishing?



Patterson: All the entertainment businesses are ill to some extent, and they're going to stay ill because there are so many distractions, there are so many things to do, like the Internet—it takes up a lot of time. I think there needs to be a concerted effort to get the word out better about books that are coming out. A movie like Son of Chucky 6 comes out and every newspaper in the country covers it. Why? It's not an important movie, it's not a good movie, and it won't even do that much business. Why would they cover that versus covering books every week? There's nowhere you can get news out about books. And there are so many people in the business—critics—who are beating the shit out of books. When [the newspapers and magazines] deal with movies, they're mainstream, but when they deal with books, they get haughty. It doesn't have anything to do with their readership, it just has to do with the kind of people they're bringing in to be "critics." It should be entertainment editors who get out the word, but they don't touch it because it's the domain of the book people, and the book people don't want to talk about thrillers.



Jacobson: Is there a future for ePublishing?



Patterson: With the internet, you can put your books out there, you can get an audience, even if it's not necessarily a large one, you can communicate and get feedback. So I think that's great, great for the ego and for learning. [How well it's executed] depends on the site. On some of them nobody will edit the quality. Look at the videos [YouTube]. For some reason, people will go on there for hours and hours watching other people's home videos. So same thing: if people want to go on and leaf through a bunch of short stories or novellas or novels, so be it. There are always going to be sites that are a little better organized with a higher level of quality.

Reporting on unsavory practices of a construction company in Miami, things turn deadly for journalist Carson Lynch when her house burns down and kills her nine-year old daughter.

Excessive drinking, a broken marriage, “her life is heading into the dregs,” says novelist Carolyn Haines, whose newest thriller, Revenant, takes place in the delta region of MI, pre-Katrina.  

Lynch relocates for a reporting job in Biloxi, MI and is first on the scene where five murdered women are found in a mass grave decades old.  There, beneath a parking lot near an infamous Biloxi nightclub, each woman is discovered wearing a bridal veil. Each victim is missing a ring finger.

Within days, two more bodies appear in similar fashion.

Revenant, which means return of the spirit, chases the question: Are the new murders the result of a copycat killer or the return of the original, serial killer?

Haines grew up in small town, Lucedale, MI.  “It was like Mayberry,” says Haines.  “My mother had polio and didn’t have a childhood so we rode bikes at night and even water bombed the police department once." In return, Haines says her yard was mysteriously toilet-papered by what appeared to be men in uniform on Halloween Eve.

Today, Haines has eight horses, nine cats, five large dogs—all rescue animals.  Animals are in every book.  “They figure prominently in the characters’ lives,” says Haines. 

Carolyn Haines is the author of six Sarah Booth Delaney’s Bone series. Before writing fiction, she worked as a journalist.  She first visited the Mississippi Delta region on assignment, covering Parchman State Prison. As a child, she grew up listening to her grandmother’s ghost stories. If you’d like to win a free copy of REVENANT, please send a wedding story to: revenant123@mindspring.com . It can be funny or romantic or both. It can be your story or your grandmother’s or your mother’s.  No length restriction.

Deep in the forests of Kentucky a girl is chained to a tree.  In Oklahoma, a young pre-school teacher is murdered in front of her students.  In the panhandle of Florida, a college undergrad is kidnapped from a night club. 

These seemingly un-related crimes catch the eye of the Cellar, the agency that polices the covert world. Special ops veteran Jack Gant and profiler Susan Golden try to unravel the web of deceit and death before it's too late.

"Thelma & Louise go clandestine."  Kirkus for BODYGUARD OF LIES

Robert Doherty is a pen name for Bob Mayer. USA Today bestselling author Bob Mayer has written 32 books ranging from military techno-thriller to political thriller to non-fiction to science fiction to romantic suspense. He has over two million books in print.

She's a food writer and he's a hitman named Shane (just Shane) and they've got big bad troubles.  They've got their hands full with greed, florists, treachery, flamingos, mayhem, mothers of the bride, and -- most dangerous of all -- each other.

Crusie & Mayer's second collaboration after NY Times best-seller DON'T LOOK DOWN. "Crusie + Mayer = a great time.  Don't miss it."  BookPage.

USA Today bestselling author Bob Mayer has written 32 books ranging from military techno-thriller to political thriller to non-fiction to science fiction to romantic suspense. He has over two million books in print.

Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today and Publisher's Weekly bestselling author of sixteen novels, one book of literary criticism, miscellaneous articles, essays, and short stories, and the editor of two essay anthologies.

With each meaningless date and disappointing new boyfriend, Katie Porter is becoming more and more disillusioned. She can't seem to find a guy who really understands her. 

But somebody's already decided that she's "the one."....Combining his trademark razor-sharp dialogue, black humor and superb storytelling talent, THE FOLLOWER is Jason Starr's most suspenseful novel yet. 

"THE FOLLOWER is this generation's Looking for Mr. Goodbar and a crackling-hot beach read." -- The New York Post

"It's been years since a thriller grabbed me the way Jason Starr's THE FOLLOWER did. THE FOLLOWER puts Starr up there with some of the greats of psychological suspense--Patricia Highsmith, Ira Levin, Ruth Rendell, Peter Abrahams. I totally loved this book." -- Joseph Finder, author Paranoia and Power Play

Jason Starr is the Barry and Anthony Award winning author of eight novels published in ten languages. His latest thriller is THE FOLLOWER. 

From the first explosive chapter, you’re hooked on this near-future thriller and Kat Polinski, its new-style heroine. Kat breaks into an embassy in Washington DC to copy a highly-classified file, only to find five bloodied corpses and a gunman determined to make her number six.

Hours later, she learns her sister has been murdered as well. Nothing and no-one will stop Kat from hunting down the killer. But the closer she gets, the more she peels away layers of a post Nine Eleven world where fear is used to control and governments act above the law.

High-stakes, high-octane thriller...my kind of book -- Lee Child 



A complex, intelligent, skillfully-turned adventure story that will keep the reader spellbound.” -- Simon Winchester

Humphrey Hawksley is a foreign correspondent for the BBC. After leaving school at 17, he worked on cargo ships., railroads and charter sailboats before becoming a journalist and author.  

Cryptopedia is an occult & paranormal dictionary.  It has chapters on ESP, UFOs, Parapsychology, Cryptozoology, Wiccan, Angels and Demons, New Age and more.  A great resource for writers!



Jonathan Maberry is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Ghost Road Blues, Dead Man's Song and Vampire Universe.  He is a Board Member of the Philadelphia Writers Conference, an active ITW and MWA member, a speaker for the National Writers Union, and a founding partner of The Writers Corner USA (www.writerscornerusa.com).



David F. Kramer is a writer, editor, and website designer.  He is the editor of Cryptopedia Magazine, vice-president of the NJ-PA Chapter of the Horror Writers Association, web editor for The Legal Intelligencer, and former editor/publisher of the horror magazine Reaper’s Harvest.

Carter Thompson, an unassuming yet clearly disturbed billionaire with a political vendetta, chooses weather manipulation as his weapon of revenge.  He creates Hurricane Simone, the biggest storm in recorded history.

When she hits New York City, skyscrapers will fall, subways and tunnels will flood , and most of the city will disappear under thirty feet of water. It’s up to meteorologist Kate Sherman and CIA weatherman Jake Baxter to try to stop Simone using a secret U.S. Navy weapon. The only catch is that it must be deployed inside the hurricane.

“Category 7 is a superb thriller of a disaster untold until now.  A rare insight to what might and could very well happen in the future.  Suspenseful and shocking.” -- Clive Cussler, author of Dragon



“…a scheme worthy of a cat-stroking James Bond villain. …Fast-paced storytelling … A satisfying … thriller about fooling with Mother Nature.” -- Kirkus Reviews

BILL EVANS is a nationally-known meteorologist based at WABC 7 in New York City, where he is Senior Meteorologist for Eyewitness News in the Morning and Eyewitness at Noon. As the senior on-air weather personality, Bill has written and produced numerous documentaries on hurricanes and severe weather. In the course of his research, he has flown in “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft during major storms.



MARIANNA JAMESON is the author of Big Trouble and My Hero. Her extensive experience writing for the aerospace, defense, and software industries allows her to bring an insider's edge to Category 7.

 

To err is human...and deadly. Forensic pathologist and physician, Dr Anya Crichton is on the trail of a violent serial rapist- who is becoming more brutal with each attack.

The latest victims have  been stabbed to death. As the community demands justice, Anya faces the greatest dilemma of her career. If the police\'s prime suspect is innocent, her forensic evidence will destroy a respected pathologist\'s reputation. If Anya is wrong, she has ensured not only that a seasoned killer goes free, but that he remains unstoppable. Only the killer knows a mistake has been made. One that is about to prove fatal...

"Kathryn Fox has created a forensic physician readers of Patricia Cornwell will adore." -- James Patterson

"A tour de force...Lock your doors and read this book." -- NY Times Bestseller Linda Fairstein

Kathryn Fox is a medical practitioner with a special interest in forensic medicine. Her best selling debut novel, MALICIOUS INTENT, received international accalim and was awarded the Davitt award for best adult fiction. Kathryn currently lives in Sydney, Australia.

When a band of backwoods hunters crash the opening-night dinner at Hammond Aerospace's remote executive retreat, the executives suddenly find themselves held hostage by armed men who will do anything, to anyone, to get their hands on the largest ransom in history. Now, terrified and desperate and cut off from the rest of the world, the captives are at the mercy of hard men with guns who may not be what they seem.

The only one who can save them is junior executive Jake Landry, who wasn't even supposed to be there...

Joseph Finder is the bestselling author of seven novels, including HIGH CRIMES, PARANOIA, COMPANY MAN and the Thriller-nominated KILLER INSTINCT. 

 

A new chapter begins in the bestselling Nightcreature series.  In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia a beautiful mayor and a mysterious stranger must join forces to save a sleepy little town and its people. As an eclipse approaches, the secrets of the hidden moon will come to light, and a deadly enemy will be revealed.

“Handeland knows how to keep her novels fresh and scary, while keeping the heroes some of the best...pretty much perfect.” -- Romance Reader at Heart



"No one delivers better thrills than Handeland." -- Romantic Times

Lori Handeland spent years waitressing, teaching and managing a photography studio before selling her first novel in 1993.  She is the recipient of many industry awards, most recently the RITA award from Romance Writers of America for her novel BLUE MOON, which was named Best Paranormal of 2004.



Lori lives in Wisconsin with her contractor husband, two teenaged sons and a yellow lab named Elwood.  She can be reached through her web site www.lorihandeland.com  There you can join her Full Moon Club and receive a monthly e-newsletter with spooky werewolf lore, fun full moon facts, recipes, excerpts and more.

Crisscrossing Europe, Max and Emily piece together the shocking clues to an insidious international terrorism plot. With no turning back, and no one to trust but each other, they put their lives on the line and their true feelings to the test  . . . and get ready to take the heat.

Scorching passion, gritty danger, and testosterone-fueled action blend flawlessly together in the latest addition to Adair’s hot and suspenseful Men of T-FLAC series. -- John Charles, Booklist



There is no stop to the action in White Heat. It starts a couple pages into the book, and does not let up until the final scene, and neither did my interest wane. I was engrossed from the very beginning. -- Kathy Andrico, ReaderToReader.com



Ms. Adair skillfully weaves an exciting tale of explosive action sprinkled with twisty surprises around a sensual love story . . . -- Debbie Jett

New York Times author Cherry Adair took nearly ten years to become an overnight success.  Armed with a solid career plan and strategies to implement her dream, she’s become a bestselling author. Her innovative action-adventure novels have appeared on numerous bestsellers lists, won dozens of awards and garnered praise from reviewers and fans alike. With the creation of her kick butt anti-terrorist group, T-FLAC, years before action adventure romances were popular, Cherry carved a niche for herself with her sexy, sassy, fast-paced, action adventure novels.  She lives on the shores of a lake in Western Washington with a view of Mt. Rainier and her abundant gardens. There she dreams up ways to torture her characters into discovering that we all need love and the human connection. 

Forensics and Fiction: Clever, Intriguing, and Downright Odd Questions From Crime Writers is a fascinating of collection of medical and forensic story questions from crime writers with clear, concise, and often humorous answers by D. P. Lyle, MD.

“Fascinating...precise and clearly stated. Dr. Lyle has an unerring ability to diagnose what it is writers need to know.” -- Jan Burke. Edgar Award-winning author of the Irene Kelly series



“Every crime-fiction author’s best friend...as essential to my library as my Strunk and White.” -- Hallie Ephron, author of Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel



“Terrific...will jump start your imagination about all kinds of ingenious crimes, crime-solving techniques, and plot twists.” -- Matt Witten, Supervising Producer for Fox TV’s House

D. P. Lyle, MD is the Macavity Award winning and Edgar® Award nominated author of the non-fiction books, Murder and Mayhem and Forensics For Dummies, and the thrillers, Devil’s Playground and Double Blind. His next two books are: Forensics and Fiction, due August, 2007 from St. Martins/Thomas Dunne, and The Book of Forensics, a part of the Howdunnit series from Writers Digest Books, due May, 2008. He has worked with many novelists and with the writers of popular television shows such as Law & Order, CSI: Miami, Diagnosis Murder, Monk, Judging Amy, Peacemakers, Cold Case, House, Medium, and 1-800-Missing.

When two young women are murdered on the streets of New York, exactly one year apart, Detective Ellie Hatcher is called up for a special assignment on the homicide task force. The killer has left behind a clue connecting the two cases to First Date, a popular online dating service, and Flann McIlroy, an eccentric, publicity-seeking homicide detective, is convinced that only Ellie can help him pursue his terrifying theory: someone is using the lure of the Internet and the promise of love to launch a killing spree against the women of New York City. 

When the First Date killer begins to mimic a serial killer from Ellie\'s own haunted past, Ellie knows the game has become personal. Both hunter and prey, she must find the killer before he claims his next victim -- who could very well be her.

"Burke ... is a terrific web spinner. She knows when and how to drop clues to keep readers at her mercy." -- Entertainment Weekly (a "Must List" pick)



".. intricately-plotted, fast-paced ... Holds the reader's attention from first word to last, and begs for a sequel." -- Kirkus Reviews

A former deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon, Alafair Burke is a professor at Hofstra Law School, where she teaches criminal law and procedure.  The daughter of acclaimed crime writer James Lee Burke, she graduated with distinction from Stanford Law School, completed a judicial clerkship with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and serves as a legal and trial commentator for various radio and television programs. She lives in New York City with her husband and their french bulldog Duffer. 

When television producer David Zetrakis is found dead with a gunshot wound to the head, L.A. greeting card artist Wollie Shelley is sad. When Wollie’s best friend Joey—who once, like Wollie, dated the guy—is tried in the press for the murder and found guilty, Wollie is mad. And when Joey inherits a two-million dollar Klimt painting, making her the prime suspect in the eyes of the LAPD as well, Wollie does what anyone would do for her best friend: takes on killers, cops, and paparazzi, despite a lack of credentials, physical courage, or automatic weapons.

“A Greek mythology twist and crackling insider insight into the fascinating soap opera world enhance this clever whodunit.” -- Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)



“DEAD EX is a wicked-smart, scalpel-sharp jewel of a book. Harley Jane Kozak brings an insider\'s eye to the denizens lurking in Hollywood, and skewers them with laugh-out-loud results. I loved it!” -- Robert Crais

Harley Jane Kozak is a former actor whose screen credits include Parenthood, The Favor, and Arachnophobia. She is the Agatha, Anthony, and MaCavity award-winning author of DATING DEAD MEN and DATING IS MURDER. She lives with her family in Topanga Canyon, California. Most importantly, she sings with the Killer Thriller Band. 

When a John Doe with a bayonet wound in his chest is discovered in a Washington, D.C. alley, Dr. Alexandra Blake of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology uses cutting edge genetic technologies to link him to a high stakes international business transaction.  But her homicide investigation is interrupted when a political firestorm erupts over the AFIP’s possession of human skulls brought back from Vietnam thirty years earlier by American servicemen.  When the John Doe case and a decades-old war crime intersect, Alex suddenly finds that she’s a target and the White House itself is under fire.

"Outstanding." -- Publishers Weekly starred review.

"Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs, watch out!" -- Library Journal

"Blending elements of forensic-powered mystery, psychological suspense and a Ludlumesque espionage thriller, Andrews' newest is a page-turner…. It's highly recommended."  -- Chicago Tribune

Lori Andrews is the author of THE SILENT ASSASSIN and SEQUENCE, thrillers involving Dr. Alexandra (“Alex”) Blake, a geneticist at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.  A frequent guest on Nightline, 60 Minutes, CBS Morning News, and Oprah, Lori is a law professor and expert on genetics, called in by groups ranging from the emirate of Dubai to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.  She’s taught at Princeton, written for a television legal drama, and published 10 nonfiction books.  The National Law Journal listed her as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America.

Tensions are high and the dangers multiply, as New York City bartender and man-about-the-mean streets Brian McNulty, always a sucker for the plight of the little guy, joins forces with a motley crew of workers from the old Savoy Hotel to tackle a cheating union bureaucrat and a corrupt, tyrannical hotel boss.

Keeping the goons off his back and away from his son Kevin is more than enough motivation for McNulty to put his not especially well-honed detective skills to work in the service of justice. Not surprisingly, neither justice nor McNulty himself fare very well in the endeavor, but as in past escapades, his dogged determination and willingness to see life without illusion bring the case to closure and McNulty face to face once more with unyielding and unpleasant truth.

Con Lehane’s mysteries about a genial Irish-American bartender named Brian McNulty are as cruelly charming as those Irish saloon storytellers who make sure you’re laughing before they flatten you with the sad stories of their lives. Running true to form, DEATH AT THE OLD HOTEL (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Minotaur, $24.95) opens in the still-carefree days of the early 1990s at a hotel bar on Midtown Manhattan’s far west side.



It’s December, and everyone’s in a Christmas mood. But holiday spirits take a dive when the nasty manager unfairly fires a waitress and Brian, proud son of an old Commie organizer and a devoted union man, finds himself leading a strike. Goaded by his friend and fellow bartender, Barney Saunders, “a wild, young Irishman” of irresistible appeal, this big-hearted hero tries to prove a connection between the manager and a crooked union boss, and before you know it, two people are shot dead — and everyone on the picket line is a suspect.



For all the sentimental trimmings he hangs on this tale, Lehane has an honest feel for the working-class life of New York. And he’s clear-eyed about those crimes of the heart that have nothing to do with class.“ -- Marilyn Stasio, NYT



A fierce novel in the Irish sense...it may well prove to be the definitive Irish American saga. A dark emerald, lit by old glory...a true masterpiece of slow burn.” -- Ken Bruen, author of The Priest



"Forget the glitterati, the Eurotrash and the robber barons. Brian McNulty is my kind of New Yorker, and Con Lehane writes about the New York I love." -- SJ Rozan, author of In This Rain

Con Lehane’s third bartender Brian McNulty mystery, Death at the Old Hotel, in which he puts his background as a former bartender and a one-time union organizerto good use, was published in June. The first in the series, Beware the Solitary Drinker, was a 2002 Publisher’s Weekly Best Mystery Novel. The second, What Goes Around Comes Around, was likened to Lawrence Block’s early Matt Scudder mysteries by George Pelecanos and others.

Ever wonder what your favorite authors authors sound like in person? Now you can find out. The Big Thrill's roving reporter Jeff Ayers (right) has been out and about with his microphone and digital recorder at the world's biggest thriller festival ambushing his author targets in the corridors of the New York Grand Hyatt.

What kind of a bag did he get? How about Lee Child, Lisa Gardner, Joe Finder and Jim Rollins for a starters...

One of Jeff's first targets was Lee Child... 

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Here's Lisa Gardner talking about her work...

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James Rollins just hit the New York Times bestseller list at number four with The Judas Strain. So how, Jeff wondered, did that feel?

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Joseph Finder, one of the shortlisted authors for the Thriller of the Year award, was also in front of the mike.

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Our persistent reporter with the microphone also managed to track down...

Vince Flynn

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Brett Battles

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Bill Cameron

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Shane Gericke

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Jack Du Brul

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Justin Scott

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Kyle Mills

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Rick Mofina

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PJ Parrish 

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Kyle Mills

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Jason Pinter

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Tom Grace

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Thanks for all your hard work, Jeff!

Dan Reles has a new house, a beautiful wife, a son, and a  great career as head of Austin Homicide. That is, until Dan’s ex-con father—a Mafia legbreaker who’s spent the last twenty years on the run—shows up on Dan’s doorstep with an escaped prostitute and a stolen car, and Dan gets caught on the wrong end of a mob vendetta.

Sam Zelig is the last of the Jewish mob bosses, a giant of a man with boundless rage and a passion for pain—other people’s pain. Zelig chases the old man  to Austin to retrieve his stolen girl and extract his pound of flesh. But when Dan’s father won’t hand over the girl,  Sam Z takes the city itself hostage, forcing Dan to run the gauntlet: a trial by fire and water, a hail of bullets, a bridge embankment, and one very angry woodchipper.

Dan has to choose between his new family, his father, and the town he’s sworn to protect.



Part Damon Runyon, part James Ellroy, Michael Simon paints “an authentic noir landscape and peoples it with equally authentic characters—tarnished cops and haunted hookers,” writing with a rhythm and a soulfulness that raise the bar on  crime fiction. The fiery result is what Thomas Kelly, author of Empire Rising, called “a great rollicking yarn about good guys and bad guys in many splendid shades of gray.” Kevin Baker, author of Dreamland  and Paradise Alley called it “a terrific detective story, smart, dark, and acidly funny.” And Stuart Kaminsky says, “Michael Simon is a masterful teller of tales.”

Fast paced and suspenseful, THE LAST JEW STANDING thrills to the very last minute.



Michael Simon is a former actor and Texas probation officer. He has taught at Brooklyn College and New York University. He lives in New York City.