International bestselling author Tess Gerritsen knows suspense. Her popular thrillers include Life Support (1997), The Surgeon (2001), Body Double (2004), Vanish (2005), and The Mephisto Club (2006), and her most recent title, The Bone Garden (2007). Her books have been translated into 31 languages, and more than 15 million copies have been sold around the world.

Gerritsen maintains a popular blog where she talks about a range of issues from a writer's perspective. Recently, she wrote that "a lot of writers confuse suspense with action." I asked her to expand on that a bit.

"I've always felt that the threat of violence is far more gripping than violence itself," Gerritsen says.  "As an example, I think of the film Aliens, starring Sigourney Weaver.  The most unbearable tension for me during the film was before the monsters had even been located.  The Marines knew the creatures were somewhere in the complex, and they could spot signs of an earlier battle between the aliens and the colonists, but the confrontation was still to come.  As every nail-biting moment passed, as they advanced into the building, I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for the creatures to appear.  The suspense was exquisite."

Contributing Editor, CJ Lyons, discusses award winning suspense author Tina Wainscott's new release, What Lies in Shadow (SMP, 2008).  In What Lies in Shadow, Wainscott explores the controversial topic of infidelity.

CJ Lyons: What drew you to the topic of infidelity?

Tina Wainscott:  Even though roughly half of all married men and women cheat, infidelity still carries that air of taboo.  It is whispered about behind closed doors, speculated on among friends, and frowned upon by many.  It is the subject of gossip juicier than the ripest peach: who, what, where and why.  Whose fault is it?  What if she gets caught?  And there's always someone who says, "That cold-hearted biach."  Because of that, it's a tricky thing for an author to create a heroine who is, or is considering, cheating on her husband.  So leave it to me to come up with just such a situation, just such a heroine.  

It all started with the idea of a blog-an online diary-in which a lonely wife pours out her angst about her new husband and her suspicions about his fidelity.  And from that blog comes danger in the form of a relentless stalker.

Contributing editor, Keith Raffel, first met forensic scientist Elizabeth Becka at Sleuthfest in 2006.  Now he's caught up with her again to discuss her latest novel, Unknown Means, which Jeff Lindsay, author of the Dexter series, calls "an irresistible read."
 
Keith Raffel: Elizabeth, you said you spent the happiest five years of your life working in the Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office in Cleveland.  What's wrong with you?

Elizabeth Becka: I don't know. I've asked myself that over the years and never really gotten an answer, so I stopped asking.

KR: What have you taken from your job there and put into Unknown Means?

EB: The irritating, boring, tedious parts of having a civil service job. How nothing is as easy and fast as it looks on TV.  

Contributing editor, Mark Combes, chats with Laura Caldwell about the release of her latest thriller, The Good Liar.

With Burning the Map, we all knew back in 2002 that Laura Caldwell could really write - but we didn't know then that she could really write thrillers.  Sure, with Look Closely Caldwell show us her suspense chops, but with The Good Liar, Caldwell finds herself at the top of the thriller heap.  As Caldwell told the Chicago Sun Times, "I want to be the female James Patterson."  And Ken Bruen thinks she's well on her way.  "In the field of mystery, women are excelling in all branches of the genre, from forensics to private eyes to kick-ass heroines to police procedurals.  But we haven't had a top-notch female thriller writer.  Until now."  

Bill Cameron sits down to talk with prolific author Debra Webb about her new thriller, Nameless.

Debra has seen a thing or two. Not only has she lived around the world, she's held jobs that involved everything from scrubbing toilets to being driven around in a bulletproof Mercedes on official  government business. She's worked with NASA engineers and done classified work under a top secret security clearance. In Nameless, second in a three-book run for St. Martin's due February 5th, Debra  puts all that rich experience to work to produces a dark, edgy thriller with, she explains, "characters who are as real and as ordinary as you or me."

ITW Contributing editor Cathy Clamp spoke with Michael Palmer about his latest political thriller, The First Patient.

“Exciting . . . captures the intense atmosphere of the White House . . . I thoroughly enjoyed it.” It’s a cover quote that any author would love. But when the endorsement is written by a former United States President, it takes on a whole new dimension. Michael Palmer’s thirteenth novel,  The First Patient, was indeed offered glowing praise by former President Bill Clinton, and nobody was more surprised than the author. “President Clinton read my thriller The Fifth Vial and wrote me a kind, personal note saying how much he was looking forward to The First Patient. I sent that book to him through his former White House physician, and he surprised me with a wonderful endorsement.”

Andy Straka's private eye novels featuring Frank Pavlicek have won the Shamus Award and been nominated for the Anthony and Agatha awards. His newest novel is a standalone thriller called Record Of Wrongs.

In Record Of Wrongs, Quentin Price, an African-American, was convicted of the rape and murder of a white girl. DNA evidence released him after nine years in prison. Newly freed, he is approached by the girl's mother, asking him to help her find out the identity of the real killer.

Straka says, "It's basically a suspense thriller, but I like to think of it as being character driven. The genesis was I started reading about the DNA exoneration cases that were starting to crop up. I talked to a prosecutor I know about the perception that DNA is kind of a magic bullet. I had the genesis of this idea of a black guy who's coming out of prison because of DNA exoneration and being approached by the mother of his supposed victim to ask if he would help her discover who really did it. The idea being that there would be a suspenseful story and it would be a story that would really be about ultimate redemption and forgiveness on both the characters' parts. There would also be the ultimate revelation or whether he did actually commit the crimes."
 

This past spring, ITW author Patry Francis came out with her debut: The Liar’s Diary. It was the culmination of years of love and labor: writing without pay, working for decades as a waitress on Cape Cod, and raising four children.

Three months later she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, which you can read about on her blog: Simply Wait.  With two surgeries behind her and a third upcoming, Patry is home recuperating. That’s when thriller writer Laura Benedict came up with an inspiring idea. Why not round up fellow writers to help Patry promote the paperback release of The Liar’s Diary on January 29^th  ?  I joined thriller writer Karen Dionne, novelist Susan Henderson at Litpark and novelist Tish Cohen to lend our support. Within days, more than forty thriller writers and 300 bloggers signed up to rally and blog for Patry and Liar’s Diary.

ITW contributing editor James Scott Bell sat down with ITW co-founder and NYT bestselling author David Morrell for a Between The Lines in-depth chat.

What does it take to make a bestseller these days? In addition to a ripping good read, there's a market reality to consider.

"Publishing changed so much in the past decade," says bestselling author David Morrell (Long Lost, Creepers, Scavenger). "The only certainty about bestsellers seems to be that if you're a brand name, you'll probably continue to have bestsellers because your publisher sees an economic benefit in paying chain stores to feature your books in prominent displays."

These displays are rented space, so "aggressive support from the publisher is essential. Without it, you won't get on the list."

Independent bookstores also factor into the bestseller lists, and those stores don't get paid for displays. But it still takes a major push from publishers to make an impact here, Morrell says.

"One hundred or two hundred ARCs aren't going to do it. You need thousands, and that goes back to how much money your publisher is willing to spend to attract attention to you. This is not good news. But knowledge is power. Authors need to learn how to promote themselves and do what their publishers should be doing."

Prior to the disastrous CIA-led invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs in 1961, the U.S. made many unsuccessful attempts to assassinate or discredit Fidel Castro. David L. Robbins, in his new “alternate history” thriller, THE BETRAYAL GAME, throws his hero, Dr. Mikhal Lammeck, into the midst of this potent period in world history.

Robbins says, “The CIA thought if they killed Castro the Cuban people would rise up against the socialist government. That’s why I think the book might seem timely—you know, back to the future.”

He also notes that it wasn’t just that the CIA attempted to kill Castro that caught his attention, but “the quality of the attempts. They were kind of like the Keystone Kops—right out of 007. They had exploding seashells and poison ink pens and they put chemical salts in Castro’s shoes to make his hair fall out because they thought his beard was the key to his charismatic power. The remarkable depth and breadth of these plots against Fidel, when you look back at them, seem almost comical. I portray some of that in the book.”

Contributing editor Mark Combes chats with Linda Richards about her new novel Death Was The Other Woman.

Meet Kitty Panghorn: “…it’s the Depression. Times are tough. Strong-backed men in breadlines, trying to get enough to just keep their families together. With things that tough, what’s a girl gonna do, faced with a sad sack boss who still can’t get over his part in the War – the Great One – enough to lift his snoot out of his Bourbon long enough to solve a case? I’ll tell you what: if she’s smart and pays attention and wants to make sure her pay gets to her on time, she’s gonna make sure her good-fer-nuthin’ boss takes the few cases he does get and makes good on them.”

That is how Linda Richards describes the protagonist of her new novel Death Was the Other Woman. And I suspect there is more than a little Linda Richards in Kitty Panghorn. Death Was the Other Woman is Richard’s fourth novel and follows on the high heels of her wildly popular Madeline Carter novels. The Madeline Carter novels centered around a stock market wiz turned amateur sleuth, but Richards is trying her talented hand at noir this time.

ITW contributing editor, Keith Raffel, spoke with Douglas Preston about his latest novel Blasphemy. Publisher’s Weekly called the thriller “thought-provoking” and promised readers that “this baby roars.”

Keith Raffel: You’re probably best known for the many bestsellers you’ve written with Lincoln Child. Why are you flying solo with Blasphemy?

Douglas Preston: There’s an ineffable satisfaction in authoring your own book. For better or worse, it is all yours. I actually offered the central idea of Blasphemy to our partnership first, but Linc shrank back in horror at the idea of putting words in God’s mouth. When I gave Linc the book to read a few months ago, in hopes of getting a blurb from him, he wrote back: “With Blasphemy, Douglas Preston has finally gone too far. One way or another, I'm afraid he may burn for this book.” Best blurb I’ve ever gotten.

KR: So give us a peek into what Blasphemy is about.

DP: A powerful particle accelerator has been constructed in the remote Arizona desert, the most expensive machine ever built by science. A team of scientists under the direction of a charismatic Nobel Laureate have gone out there to “turn it on,” so to speak. But something goes wrong, and the scientists seem to be covering it up. Wyman Ford is tapped to go to Arizona in an undercover role and find out what’s really going on. He discovers the scientists have made a discovery that is so outrageous, so dangerous, so earth-shaking that it must be kept from the world at all costs…