2008 ThrillerMaster Sandra Brown

Sandra Brown is the author of fifty-five New York Times bestsellers, including Richocet (starred review Publisher's Weekly), which was released in August 2006 by Simon & Schuster. Her other recent bestsellers include Chill Factor (2005), White Hot (2004), Hello, Darkness (2003), The Crush (2002), Envy (2001), The Switch (2000), The Alibi (1999), Unspeakable (1998) and Fat Tuesday (1997), all of which have jumped onto the Times bestseller list in the number one to five spot. Her newest book, Play Dirty, will be released August 14, 2007.

Brown began her writing career in 1981 and since then has published sixty-eight novels, most of which remain in print. As of 1990, when Mirror Image made The New York Times bestseller list, each subsequent novel, including reprints of earlier books, have become Times bestsellers. In 1992 her novel French Silk was made into an ABC-TV movie. Brown now has seventy million copies of her books in print worldwide, and her work has been translated into thirty-three languages.

A lifelong Texan, Sandra Brown was born in Waco, grew up in Fort Worth and attended Texas Christian University, majoring in English. Before embarking on her writing career, Sandra worked in television - including weathercasting and feature reporting on the nationally syndicated program "PM Magazine."

Awards and commendations include the 2007 Texas Medal of Arts Award for Literature, the American Business Women's Association's Distinguished Circle of Success, B'nai B'rith's Distinguished Literary Achievement Award, and the Romance Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award. She is also a member of Author's Guild, Mystery Writers of America, Novelists, Inc., Literacy Partners, and a founding member of International Thriller Writers.

Sandra and her husband Michael Brown live in Arlington, Texas. Visit her on the web at http://www.sandrabrown.com.

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2007 ThrillerMaster James Patterson

James Patterson's body of work has grossed 1.5 billion dollars in worldwide sales. In 2004, Patterson landed at #47 on Forbes magazine's "Ceellwty 100" list, outranking Hollywood superstars and powerful moguls sucha s Renne Zellweger, Bill Clinton, Jay Leno, Halle Beery, Donald Trump, John Grisham, Katie Couric, and Jack Welch. A master of storyteling, Patterson's success is unique in his ability to corss literary genres. His greates achievements have been in the intensely competitive mystery/thriller genre, where his Alex Cross series (eleven books, from Kiss the Girls to Mary, Mary) is the top selling US detective series in the last twenty years with over 25 million copies sold. The next best selling detective series over the last ten years also belongs to Patterson ... the Women's Murder Club (1st to Die to The 6th Target), with over 8 million copies sold. In 2005 alone, James Patterson had five consecutive #1 New York Times bestselling original hardcover books - a record broken by no other author to date. Hollywood began to recognize the power of his stories after Paramount's two Alex Cross movies ("Kiss the Girls" and "Along Came a Spider") starring Morgan Freeman, each grossed $70,000,000+. Beyond his marketing acumen, the key to all this success resides in Patterson's ability to create memorable characters and build a story around them. "A great story, vividly told, built on characters people can identify with will always be appealing regardless of medium," said James Patterson. "I have always found my greatest joy as a creator telling stories I know people will enjoy." Patterson was awared the 2004 Readers' Digest Reader's Choice Award and is the recent winner of the BCA Mystery Guild's Thriller of the Year Award (2003). He was also awarded the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery by the Mystery Writers of America and the 2007 ThrillerMaster Award by the International Thriller Writers. A major public advocate of literacy programs, James Patterson is passionate about spreading the joy of reading. He devotes more time to giving free public lectures at schools, bookstores, and for an array of organizations, than any other bestselling author. He has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for reading and education and has personally pledged millions to the cause. In June 2007, Patterson announced the latest of his charitable project - the third annual James Patterson PageTurner Awards. More information - including how to nominate a person or group for an award - can be found at http://www.pattersonpageturner.org. James Patterson, a native of Newburgh, New York, graduated summa cum laude from Manhattan College and summa cum laude from The Graduate School at Vanderbilt University. Not suprisingly, both degrees were in English. An avid golfer, he now resides in Palm Beach, Florida, with his wife and their young son. Visit. http://www.jamespatterson.com.

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Silver Bullet Award Winner David Baldacci

David Baldacci has been designated as the 2008 recipient of ITW's Silver Bullet Award. The award is given annually in recognition of outstanding achievement in the promotion and advancement of literacy.

The award was given for the first time in 2007 to Tom Doherty, the president and publisher of Tor/Forge Books. Tom accepted his award at the May 5, 2007 "Brunch & Bullets" luncheon at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. The event, sponsored by International Thriller Writers, raised money for the local Reading Is Fundamental chapter.

This year, David will accept his award at the Thriller Awards Banquet on Saturday, July 12th, and will also participate in a Saturday ThrillerFest panel.

David Baldacci was born in Virginia, in 1960, where he currently resides. He received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Virginia Commonwealth University and a law degree from the University of Virginia. Mr. Baldacci practiced law for nine years in Washington, D.C., as both a trial and corporate attorney.

David Baldacci has published sixteen novels: Absolute Power, Total Control, The Winner, The Simple Truth, Saving Faith, Wish You Well, Last Man Standing, The Christmas Train, Split Second, Hour Game, The Camel Club, The Collectors, Simple Genius, and Stone Cold; and in his young adult series, Freddy and the French Fries: Fries Alive! and Freddy and the French Fries: The Adventures of Silas Finklebean. He has also published a novella for the Dutch entitled Office Hours, written for Holland's Year 2000 "Month of the Thriller." Baldacci authored a short story, "The Mighty Johns," as part of a mystery anthology published in 2002.

His works have been in numerous worldwide magazines, newspapers, journals, and publications. Baldacci has authored seven original screenplays. His books have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold in more than 80 countries. All of his books have been national and international bestsellers. Over 50 million copies of Mr. Baldacci's books are in print worldwide.

David Baldacci's books have been publicly discussed and/or read by everyone from Howard Stern and Don Imus to Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, from George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton to Charlie Rose and Larry King. Baldacci has made many television and radio appearances and has been featured in numerous national and international publications.

David Baldacci serves as a national ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and participates in numerous charities, including the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, the American Cancer Society, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. He sits on the boards of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Virginia Commonwealth University. Baldacci also holds various honorary chairs.

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Nationally Acclaimed Forensics Expert Cyril H. Wecht

Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D., is a forensic pathologist, attorney and medical-legal consultant. He has performed approximately 14,000 autopsies and has supervised, reviewed or has been consulted on approximately 30,000 additional postmortem examinations.

Dr. Wecht received his medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and his law degree from the University of Maryland. Dr. Wecht is certified by the American Board of Pathology, in anatomic, clinical, and forensic Pathology, and is also a Fellow of the College of American Pathologists and the American Society of Clinical Pathologists.

Being an expert in Forensic Medicine, Dr. Wecht has frequently appeared on several nationally syndicated programs discussing various medicolegal and forensic scientific issues, including medical malpractice, drug abuse, the assassinations of both President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the death of Elvis Presley, the O.J. Simpson case, and the JonBenet Ramsey cases. His expertise has also been utilized in high profile cases involving Mary Jo Kopechne, Sunny von Bulow, Jean Harris, Dr. Jeffrey McDonald, the Waco Branch Davidian fire, and Vincent Foster. A comprehensive study of these cases are discussed from the perspective of Dr. Wecht's own professional involvement in his books, Cause of Death, Grave Secrets, and Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey? (All published by Dutton/Penguin).

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ThrillerFest 2008 Spotlight Guests

A spectacular array of Spotlight Guests will be featured during ThrillerFest 2008. Readers, you've enjoyed the thrillers written by these superstars - now come and listen to them talk about their books, the writing life, and their personal experiences!

Eric Van Lustbader's 1980 novel The Ninja spent over 24 weeks on The New York Times Bestseller List and became a worldwide sensation, introducing Nicholas Linnear, one of modern fiction's most beloved and enduring heroes. The Ninja was sold to 20th CenturyFox to be made into a major motion picture. His novels have been translated into over twenty languages; his books are bestsellers worldwide and are so popular whole sections of bookstores from Bangkok to Dublin are devoted to them. He is the author of more than twenty-five best-selling novels. In 2004, he was asked by the estate of the late Robert Ludlum to continue the Jason Bourne character. The result was the 2005 bestseller, The Bourne Legacy and the June 2007 bestseller, The Bourne Betrayal. He is also the author of two successful and highly regarded series of fantasy novels, The Sunset Warrior Cycle and The Pearl Saga. Besides "The Other Side of the Mirror" in ITW's Thriller anthology, he has written a number of short stories, screenplays and novellas.

His current novel, The Testament, has received rave reviews from Nelson DeMille, Steve Berry and Joseph Finder, among others.

Since he first burst onto the bestseller scene with The Ninja, and again with blockbuster novels such as The Bourne Legacy, Eric Van Lustbader has been fascinated with the idea of outsiders - the people and groups that act outside the general consciousness but who pull the strings that affect world events. In The Testament, Lustbader again explores groups that work on the sidelines but are actually responsible for the major political decisions throughout history - groups that are based on the very real secret societies that have always worked behind the scenes. The characters in The Testament have their own motivations of greed and power, but they are mere pawns in an overarching religious war that has been raging for centuries.

The power of belief has always played a primary role in the shaping of politics, war, and society. With The Testament, Eric Van Lustbader sets out to explore the reasons religious groups have hidden their secrets from the rest of the world, and the desperate lengths individuals will go to in order to protect their convictions. The result is an exciting and fascinating book that deftly weaves historical fact and religious doctrine into a thriller that readers will not be able to put down.

Eric Van Lustbader (he dropped his middle name Van for several years due to a confusion about his last name) was born and raised in Greenwich Village. He and his wife Victoria have been residents of the South Fork of Long Island for more than fifteen years.He tends his prized collection of Japanese maples and beech trees (which have been written up in The New York Times and Martha Stewart's Living). He is a Second-Level Reiki master. Visit http://www.ericvanlustbader.com.

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Kathy Reichs likes to stay busy. She's a bestselling novelist and a leading practicing forensic anthropologist who also happens to be a producer of a primetime TV hit (Bones, based on her books, and in its third season on Fox). Her thriller Deja Dead brought her fame when it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First novel. Death du Jour, Deadly Decisions, Fatal Voyage, Grave Secrets, Bare Bones, Monday Mourning, Cross Bones and Break No Bones also became international and New York Times bestsellers. Bones to Ashes is her tenth novel featuring Temperance Brennan.

Evangeline. She hailed from Acadia, a remote, French-speaking corner of Canada; she was named after the Longfellow poem and dreamed of being a poet. For the eight-year-old Tempe, Evangeline was the most beautiful and exotic person she'd ever met. They instantly became best friends.

But then Evangeline disappeared, along with her mother Laurette and her sister Obeline. Evangeline was fourteen. Tempe, two years younger, was told that her friend was "dangerous." Don't look for her. Tempe looked anyway, for the next few years. No trace. The unsolved case marked her beginning as a sleuth. She would go on to devote her life to finding the missing, bringing justice for the dead.

Thirty years later, a skeleton finds its way to Tempe's crime lab: a young girl, unearthed in Acadia. The chances are slim, but her lost friend's memory still calls out to Tempe. Could it be Evangeline? And what are the mysterious lesions marking the young girl's bones?

Meanwhile, it's spring in Quebec, which means high season for the province's crime labs. Tempe's partner, Detective-Lieutenant Andrew Ryan, is tracking a series of cold cases: two unidentified corpses and three missing persons-all of them teenage girls. Ryan connects at least two of the missing girls to a photographer named Stanislas Cormier, who may or may not have been involved in pornography.

In between handling the forensic analysis for Ryan's cases, Tempe picks up a paper trail that leads to Evangeline's sister. Obeline, it turns out, is alive and still resides in Acadia. She also claims that Evangeline was murdered 30 years ago, but that she doesn't know who is responsible. Some of the clues point to David Bastarache, an Acadian gangster whose family has a long history of peddling smut and prostitutes. He also happens to be Obeline's husband.

Cormier and Bastarache are surely scum, but is either man a killer? Is the Acadian skeleton part of a larger pattern that includes Ryan's cold cases? Will any of these threads lead back to Evangeline?

The Temperance Brennan series excels at weaving the fascinating details of criminal science into a suspenseful narrative, and Bones to Ashes is no exception. From the minutiae of bone dissections to linguistic analysis to computer code decryption, Reichs proves once again why her books are some of the smartest entertainments to be found on the shelves.

Kathy Reichs, like her fictional creation, Temperance Brennan, is forensic anthropologist for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Medecine Legale for the province of Quebec. She was vice president of the American Academy of Forensic Science, serves on the Canadian National Police Services Advisory Board, and is one of only seventy-five forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. A professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Dr. Reichs is a native of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. at Northwestern. She now divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal. Her website is www.kathyreichs.com. To watch the story behind the story on Kathy Reichs, please visit: KathyReichs.bookvideos.tv.

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Brad Thor has served as a member of the Department of Homeland Security's once top-secret Analytic Red Cell Program and is the New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Lucerne, Path of the Assassin, The State of the Union, Blowback, Takedown, and now The First Commandment.

He has appeared on FOX News Channel, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS as a national security expert to discuss terrorism, as well as how closely his novels of international intrigue parallel the real threats facing the world today.Thor is renowned for his depth of expertise regarding the ongoing war on terror, and his thrillers continually reflect the very real threats facing the world today. His uncanny ability to weave his plotlines with stories three steps ahead of the headlines make his thrillers both terrifying and utterly entertaining.

Countless numbers of readers and reviewers blame New York Times bestselling author Brad Thor for keeping them up all night. His fast-paced, tautly written international thrillers, starring Counterterrorism Operative Scot Harvath, hurtle readers through a whirlwind of action, suspense, and betrayal that keeps them enthralled until the very last page.His latest, The First Commandment, is no exception.

"Thou shalt not negotiate with terrorists..." In Thor's latest thriller, the president of the United States has broken the nation's #1 commandment in the war on terror, and by doing so has put himself in the crosshairs of America's #1 counterterrorism operative... Scot Harvath.

Six months ago: In the dead of night, five of the most dangerous detainees in the war on terror are pulled from their isolation cells in Guantanamo Bay, held at gunpoint, and told to strip off their orange jumpsuits. Issued civilian clothes and driven to the base airfield, they are loaded aboard a Boeing 727 and set free.

Present day: Covert counterterrorism agent Scot Harvath awakens to discover that his world has changed violently - and forever. A sadistic assassin with a personal vendetta is wreaking havoc of Biblical proportions. Unleashing nightmarish horrors on those closest to Harvath, the attacker thrusts everything Harvath holds dear - including his life - into absolute peril.

Ordered by the president to stay out of the investigation, Harvath is forced to mount his own operation to uncover the conspiracy and to exact revenge. When he discovers a connection between the attacks and a group of prisoners secretly released from Guantanamo, Harvath must ask himself previously unthinkable questions about the organizations and the nation he has spent his life serving.

A renegade from his own government, Harvath will place his life on the line as his search for the truth draws him into a showdown with one of the most dangerous men on the face of the earth.

Up-to-the-minute and absolutely riveting, The FIrst Commandment once again marks Brad Thor as one of today's hottest international thriller writers.

Thor and his wife-a physician to the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago White Sox-divide their time with their children between Chicago and the Greek island of AntiParos. To learn more about Brad Thor and his work, visit his website at www.BradThor.com.