From the January 21, 2010 edition of The New York Times:

In an act of collective creation, 22 thriller writers -- among them best sellers like Lee Child, Lisa Scottoline and Mr. Deaver -- collaborated to create the pair of "serial thrillers" in this book. In both tales Mr. Deaver sets things in motion and then, in a variation on "exquisite corpse," the other writers take up the story. Their shared main character is Harold Middleton, a retired Army colonel turned war-crimes investigator. The book began life in 2007 as an audiobook serial to publicize International Thriller Writers, an industry group (if people who sit at keyboards creating mayhem can be called an industry).

WATCHLIST
Based on an idea by Jeffery Deaver
404 pages. Vanguard Press. $25.95.

ITW mystery novelist and criminologist R. Barri Flowers has signed with Urban Books to write three mainstream suspense novels under the pseudonym Devon Vaughn Archer. The first suspense novel, THE SECRETS OF PARADISE BAY, is about two brothers and the woman that comes between them while a vengeful minded man plots the murder of all three. It will be released as a trade paperback in July 2010, while the second novel, THE HITMAN'S WOMAN, will come out a year later.

Urban Books are distributed by Kensington Publishing. As a criminologist, Flowers has also signed with Praeger to write a hardcover nonfiction book, PROSTITUTION IN THE DIGITAL AGE. It is scheduled for release in 2011.

"I enjoy moving back and forth between writing mystery fiction and crime nonfiction," said Flowers, who recently edited the American Crime Writers League anthology, MURDER PAST, MURDER PRESENT. "It allows me to tap into my creative juices and imagination on the one side, while using my criminology background to bring credibility to my novels and nonfiction projects."

See more about R. Barri Flowers on his website and at CrimeSpace: http://crimespace.ning.com/profile/RBarri