While many Latina characters in mainstream fiction by non-Latina authors painted us as stereotypical in the past, I am pleased to see that the new wave of novels by non-Latinas but featuring Latina protagonists present us a whole, well-rounded, interesting and unique individual human beings who are American everywomen. This is a major step forward, and one we should all support!

Penny Rudolph says, I am very pleased (and honored) for Eye of the Mountain God to be selected by ELLA.

The publisher, Thomas Dunne Books, describes Eye of the Mountain God as:

An explosive combination...
A woman who finds five emerald arrowheads wrapped in her newspaper,
an autistic child who knows the unkowable,
a man determined to become the American Che Guevara

Advance praise for this thriller comes from 2-time Edgar Award-winner Warren Murphy, who calls it, "An exciting thriller with a Southwestern flavor...(that) combines elements of Rudolfo Anaya's and Tony Hillerman's novels."

Read an excerpt and learn more at pennyrudolph.com

Pat Mullan, who is Ireland Chair of International Thriller Writers, says "I am very pleased (and honored) to be included in this selection of fifty Irish writers.  My short thriller story, Tribunal, which was published in Dublin Noir by Akashic Books in the US and by Brandon in Ireland and the UK has been selected for inclusion.  Tribunal is the opening chapter of my novel, Last Days of the Tiger (available from my agent, Svetlana Pironko)."

The publisher, Oxygen Books, talks about city-pick Dublin:   A truly astonishing variety of writers evoke the myriad pleasures of this legendary writers' city, bringing Dubliners, famous, not so famous and famously fictional, to life.
city-pick Dublin is introduced by Orna Ross, well-known Dublin journalist and bestselling author of A Dance in Time, who offers her own fascinating perspective on the city and its writers as Dublin becomes a UNESCO World City of Literature in 2010.   'Okay, London might have its share of good writers ... but in a straight contest - great writers per head of population - isn't Dublin the clear winner? Haven't we four Nobel Prizewinners (Shaw, Yeats, Becket and Heaney) out of only a million or so inhabitants? As well as the world's best novelist (Joyce) who should have got one too?'

"Even though it's a series, each book is unique," Sellers says. "I use different POV characters, a variety of crimes and motives, and distinctive structures. I'm especially excited about THRILLED TO DEATH because it's Jackson's most twisted case yet."

In 2011, Echelon will release the fourth book in the series, PASSIONS OF THE DEAD, and a standalone thriller, THE BABY THIEF, which features Jackson the homicide cop, but not as the main character.

In addition to writing novels, L.J. Sellers is an award-winning journalist and occasional standup comic. Learn more about Sellers at her website: http://ljsellers.com

The new titles, originally published in Britain between 1962 and 1970, were selected by crime writer and critic Mike Ripley, who acts as Series Editor for TNT.

The Tale of the Lazy Dog by Alan Williams is a brilliant heist thriller set in the Laos-Cambodia-Vietnam triangle in 1969 as a mis-matched gang of rogues and pirates attempt to steal $1.5 billion in used US Treasury notes. Time Is An Ambush is a delicate, atmospheric study of suspicion and guilt set in Franco's Spain, by Francis Clifford, one of the most-admired stylists of the post-war generation of British thriller-writers. A Flock Of Ships, Brian Callison's bestselling wartime thriller of a small Allied convoy lured to its doom in the South Atlantic, was famous for its breathless, machine-gun prose and was described by Alistair Maclean as: "The best war story I have ever read". The Ninth Directive was the second assignment for super-spy Quiller (whose fans included Kingsley Amis and John Dickson Carr), created by Adam Hall (Elleston Trevor) and is a taught, tense thriller of political assassination which pre-dated Day of the Jackal by five years.

Announcing the latest batch of reissues, Mike Ripley said: 'Our new titles are absolutely in line with the Top Notch ethos of showing the range and variety of thrillers from what was something of a Golden Age for British thriller writing. They range in approach from slow-burning suspense to relentless wartime action and feature obsessive, super tough, super cool spies and some tremendous villains. Above all, they are characterised by the quality of their writing, albeit in very different styles.

'When first published, these titles were all best-sellers and their authors are among the most respected names in thriller fiction. Many readers will welcome these novels back almost as old friends and hopefully a new generation of readers will discover them for the first time.'

Top Notch Thrillers are published as trade paperbacks with a RRP of £10.99

www.ostarapublishing.co.uk

Harper joins the resistance driven by memories of a daughter lost, a daughter whose very name was erased by the Red List. Guided by the fabled Book of Noah, this underground army is determined to shake the people from their apathy and ignorance, and start a war in the name of freedom.

In the tradition of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Laura Bynum has written an astonishing debut novel about a chilling, all-too-plausible future in which speech is a weapon and security comes at the highest price of all.

"Ms. Bynum has a beautiful, distinctly poetic style that makes Veracity a lush, eminently readable book...The narrative style, reminiscent of Margaret Atwood as mentioned above, is stunningly effective... There's a sense of intimacy and empathy with Harper as she struggles to save her daughter. In fact, the most touching, believable, human thing about Harper was her emotional devotion to her child; the fact that all of this, the danger she faces each day is for her little girl - a girl whose very name the government took away..." --The Book Smugglers

"Bynum deftly paints the drab, fear-filled existence led by Confederation citizens. Harper is a compelling protagonist...as doubtful as anyone that she has the strength to succeed at her self-appointed task, and this tension propels the narrative....this bleak vision of the future feels real and truly chilling." --Kirkus Review

Laura Bynum was born in Springfield, Illinois in 1968. She completed her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Communications at the University of Illinois at Springfield and Eastern Illinois University respectively. In 2006, Laura won the Rupert Hughes Literary Writing Award at the Maui Writer's Conference. As a result, Laura's first novel, Veracity, was published in January of 2010. The day Laura signed the contract with Simon and Schuster, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and has since been successfully treated. She lives in the Piedmont area of Virginia with her husband and three daughters.

In Kayla Perrin's newest thriller, Spring Break, these are the last words Chanetelle hears from her friend Ashley, in a static-filled phone call that soon goes dead. Their trip to the island paradise of Artula started the way any trip should, and soon Chanetelle and her friends find themselves in sun-drenched days and party-hopping nights. The vacation is not without its conflicts, however, and old rivalries and new jealousies come to light as the week passes. But no one expects things to turn as ugly as they do. No one expects that they won't all return. And no one expects that murder might be the ultimate souvenir.

"Perrin succeeds in building a mood of nail-biting suspense..." --Publisher's Weekly

"This is a superb romantic suspense that looks deeply into human sexual trafficking..." --Harriet Klausner, Genre Go Round Reviews

Kayla Perrin is a multi-published USA Today and Essence ® bestselling author with thirty-six books in print. She is published in a variety of genres, including mystery/suspense, romance and mainstream fiction. She has been featured on television shows such as Entertainment Tonight Canada, Who's Afraid of Happy Endings (Bravo documentary about the romance genre), and A.M. Buffalo (among others). She has been featured in Ebony magazine, Romantic Times magazine, The South Florida Business Journal, The Toronto Star and other Canadian and U.S. publications. Her works have been translated into Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese. Please visit her website at www.kaylaperrin.com.

This month I have the pleasure of featuring Jon Land.  He's not only a terrific author, he's a good friend.  I first met Jon at the 2008 ThrillerFest.  He was personable and attentive, and took an immediate interest in my career.  You won't find a kinder pro in the business.  Both in and out of workshops, I routinely heard Jon offer words of encouragement to his students and fellow authors.

The publishing industry is tough, especially commercial fiction, and breaking in isn't easy.  Jon goes out his way to help aspiring authors.  He gives hope to those still struggling, and often, a glimmer of hope is all they need to keep going. 

Jon not only writes mainstream thriller fiction, he's expanding his talents to focus on  screenwriting as well.  His first film credit, a teen caper-comedy called DIRTY DEEDS, was released theatrically in the summer of 2005 and in DVD in January of 2006.  His other current film projects include the psychological-thriller PARANOIA and CHALK (Handpicked Films, Michel Shane) and LUCKY DOG (Gravity Entertainment).  And he is currently adapting STONG ENOUGH TO DIE for the screen.

It's a tall order adapting your book to screen.  How do you convert (edit down) a four hundred page novel onto a 110 page screenplay?  Just thinking about it gives me a headache.  It's one of the things I plan to ask Jon at ThrillerFest 2010.

In the following interview, I asked Jon some questions that will give you a better feel for who Jon Land really is and why he's so passionate about writing.

So, three years back when local crime novels were thin on the ground, some of us pulled Brown into the ranks.  He came reluctantly it has to be said and I understand why.  Coldsleep Lullaby used thriller techniques but it wasn't crime fiction, not in the conventional sense anyhow.

Now he's published another novel, Refuge, which involves crime and the underworld and a subject which has crept into dinkum crime fiction - the refugee in our cities.  After all didn't Ian Rankin devote a whole book to the subject - Fleshmarket Close?

Happy reading from your friends at the International Thriller Writers.

Hot off the press:
Click on a book title to read the feature story

• Hell Gate by Linda Fairstein
• Once A Spy by Keith Thompson
• Live to Tell by Wendy Corsi Staub
• Dead Reckoning by Ronie Kendig
• The Cold Room by J.T. Ellison
• The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry
• Hush by Kate White
• Drink the Tea by Thomas Kaufman
• City of War by Neil Russell
• Freeze Frame by Peter May
• Scandal On Rincon Hill by Shirley Tallman
• Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay
• The Secret Of Excalibur by Andy McDermott
• A Covert War by Michael Parker
• Miles To Go by Amy Dawson Robertson
• Veracity by Laura Bynum
• Plaster and Poison by Jennie Bentley
• Wild Laws by Jim Michael Hansen
• Werewolf Smackdown by Mario Acevedo
• Blood Vines by Erica Spindler
• The Cost of Love by Drue Allen
• Forget Me Not by Vicki Hinze
• Frame Up by John F. Dobbyn
• No Chance by Christy Reece
• False Mermaid by Erin Hart
• Touch of Evil by Colleen Thompson
• The Gray Man by Mark Greaney
• The Savannah Project by Chuck Barrett
• Legion by B.J. Kibble
• Silver Guilt by Judith Cutler
• Spring Break by Kayla Perrin
• The Twain Maxim by Clem Chambers
• Rum Point: A Baseball Novel by Rick Wilber
• The 24th Letter by Tom Lowe
• Grey Matters by Clea Simon
• A Between The Lines interview with Jon Land
• International News from Mike Nicol

Coming next month: a Between The Lines interview with R.L. Stine, and the latest thrillers from Gayle Lynds, D. P. Lyle, Dianna Love and Sherrilyn Kenyon, Alan Orloff, Richard L. Mabry, MD, Lisa Jackson, Glenn Cooper, Mark Terry, Jeremy Robinson, Kay Thomas, Robin Caroll, Gary Phillips, Penny Rudolph, Douglas Corleone, David Corbett, Jim Daher, Heather Graham, Shiloh Walker, William Dietrich, Dan Wells, Christy Reece, Laurie R. King, Daniel Kalla, and more. It's gonna be a thriller!

WATCHLIST: Two Serial Thrillers in One Killer Book!

Imagine a literary jam session with 22 of your favorite masters of pulse-pounding fiction and you have WATCHLIST: Two Serial Thrillers in One Killer Book. Jeffery Deaver conceived of the characters and put the plot into motion and Jim Fusilli leant a sharp editorial eye, finely orchestrating this chorus of suspense that includes such top writers as Lee Child, Joseph Finder, Lisa Scottoline, Gayle Lynds, P.J. Parrish and many others. Dramatic tension ties the novellas together as each thriller titan leads the reader down dark alleys and around blind corners, saving the fireworks for the climactic endings, also crafted by Jeffery Deaver.

This two-fisted tome has the chills, breakneck pacing, and diabolical switchbacks that thriller lovers have come to expect. Reading into the wee, small hours is practically guaranteed.

Give us a brief overview the second Dulcie Schwartz mystery- Grey Matters

This series centers around Dulcie Schwartz, a literature grad student at Harvard University, who is trying to write her thesis on an overlooked Gothic novel from the 1790s... only murder keeps getting in the way. In this second outing, Grey Matters, everybody has got something to hide. Dulcie's office mate is acting furtive, her roommate is avoiding her, and even her boyfriend seems to have gone AWOL. And when our grad student heroine literally stumbles over a dead body on the stoop of her professor's Tory Row home, she knows she's going to need some help. Pity her professor seems more concerned with his departmental politics - and even the loyal specter of her late, great cat, Mr. Grey seems to have gone silent.

How did the idea for this book come to you?

Within the parameters of a cozy with paranormal aspects (that ghost cat!), I wanted to play with a classic mystery paradigm - the case where lots of people seem to be reasonable suspects. I was thinking a lot about motive when I planned this book. I was thinking that most of us have secrets and things that we are desperate to keep out of the public eye, but with that in mind, which of us could be pushed over the edge? It is very important to me to have my characters be real, to feel real, despite the paranormal aspects, and that means coming up with a villain who has an emotionally believable motive.

"Lowe's heated follow-up to 2009's A False Dawn catapults former Miami homicide detective Sean O'Brien into a desperate race to save the life of a man he helped send to death row. The near-death confession of prison inmate Sam Spelling comes just 84 hours before Charlie Williams is scheduled to die for the murder of his girlfriend, Alexandria Cole" - Publishers Weekly

Tom Lowe is an award-winning documentary writer/director whose films air nationwide on PBS. As he writes his novels, Tom draws from his travels around the world and his background as a print and broadcast journalist. He worked fifteen years in television news and did freelance stories for CNN. Tom is a sailor and SCUBA diver. He lives in Florida.

"As the camera captures an image, so a skilled writer can bring a scene to life. B. J. Kibble's unique style breathes instant life into his characters while his stories explode with emotion and action." -- Dick Ross, Writing Well

"Kibble's latest book is an excellent read from start to final page. The book was hard to put down as it is rare for a story to be so satisfying. Highly recommended to those who enjoy a great crime thriller." -- J. F. Ward, Amazon Review

From a family background steeped in law enforcement and military history, Barrie Kibble followed the tradition and served as a British soldier and police officer. During the course of his duty, he survived three near death experiences--the last occasion was prior to leaving the Police Force when he walked unscathed from a devastating IRA bomb. Joining the business sector, he became a marketing manager for a well-known computer firm, and then a buyer for American, Swiss and British companies.  

Her plight attracts the attention of Piers, a handsome fellow dealer, who falls in love with her and presents her with a wonderful ring. But are he - and the ring - genuine? Can she trust the kindly policeman who comes into her life? When violence threatens the only person she can really trust, Griff, Lina has to make a difficult decision...

"A very readable story" - Bernard Knight

"In Cutler... we are undoubtedly dealing with the creme de la creme" - The Times

Cotswolds-based Judith Cutler began her working life as a lecturer, first at a tough inner-city college and later at Birmingham University. A former CWA Secretary, she has won and been shortlisted for a number of short story awards. Primarily known for her contemporary crime novels usually featuring feisty females, Judith recently embarked on an acclaimed historical series featuring a Regency clergyman. Now she has returned to the adventures of the young antiques dealer, Lina Townend, who originally appeared in Drawing the Line.

Judith is married to fellow mystery-writer, Edward Marston.

"I didn't necessarily start to write a thriller, but as the story progressed I realized that it very much was one and I enjoyed that little bit of self-discovery. The various conflicts in the novel really keep things moving, I hope, and the reader comes to realize there are both internal and external struggles for all the characters in the story. I wanted a daughter in peril and a father who must change his own life in order to save hers. But I wanted her to be very strong, and throughout the novel she thinks (quite rightly) that she's saving him. I had a lot of fun playing with that mix of perspectives.

Amy Dawson Robertson's

Rennie has devoted her life and body to training as an FBI counterterrorism operative. The brutal pace has slowly stripped away her private life. When her ambition of being the first woman ever considered to join CT3 is finally realized, she pushes herself to the limit to earn the position.

When one disaster after another befalls her, Rennie finds herself alone. Only then does she begin to unravel the misdirection and deceit that surrounds their first assignment, and to wonder if her failure, not her success, was part of the plan. Ultimately, with miles through an inhospitable landscape and an ambiguous enemy between her and safety, Rennie must decide if she can trust the one thing she never has before: another woman.