Talking Books with Thriller Fan Tom Dooley

RECOMMENDATION - fluorescent Neon tube Sign on brickwork

 

 

 

 

“So many BOOKS, so little TIME.” –Frank Zappa 

 

 

 

Need more time to read books? Yeah, me too. On that note here’s some more great book recommendations with a fellow book lover, Tom Dooley.

 

Name your favorite thriller writers.

Don Winslow, Matthew Betley, C.J. Box, Kyle Mills, Nick Petrie, Steve Hamilton, Meg Gardiner.

 

 

What are your favorite books so far this year?

 
Into The Black Nowhere, Closer Than You Know, Field Of Valor, The Disappeared, Hellbent, The Escape Artist.

 

 

Into the Black nowhere

 

Amazon | Goodreads

 

Inspired by real-life serial killer Ted Bundy, an exhilarating thriller in which FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix faces off against a charming, merciless serial killer

In southern Texas, on Saturday nights, women are disappearing. One vanishes from a movie theater. Another is ripped from her car at a stoplight. Another vanishes from her home while checking on her baby. Rookie FBI agent Caitlin Hendrix, newly assigned to the FBI’s elite Behavioral Analysis Unit, fears that a serial killer is roaming the dark roads outside Austin.

Caitlin and the FBI’s serial crime unit discover the first victim’s body in the woods. She’s laid out in a bloodstained, white baby-doll nightgown. A second victim in a white nightie lies deeper in the forest’s darkness. Both bodies are surrounded by Polaroid photos, stuck in the earth like headstones. Each photo pictures a woman in a white negligee, wrists slashed, suicide-style–posed like Snow White awaiting her prince’s kiss.

To track the UNSUB, Caitlin must get inside his mind. How is he selecting these women? Working with a legendary FBI profiler, Caitlin searches for a homology–that elusive point where character and action come together. She profiles a confident, meticulous killer who convinces his victims to lower their guard until he can overpower and take them in plain sight. He then reduces them to objects in a twisted fantasy–dolls for him to possess, control, and ultimately destroy. Caitlin’s profile leads the FBI to focus on one man: a charismatic, successful professional who easily gains people’s trust. But with only circumstantial evidence linking him to the murders, the police allow him to escape. As Saturday night approaches, Caitlin and the FBI enter a desperate game of cat and mouse, racing to capture the cunning predator before he claims more victims.

 

 

 

Closer than you Know Brad Parks

 

Amazon | Goodreads

 

Brad Parks delivers another riveting, emotionally powerful stand-alone domestic suspense thriller perfect for fans of The Couple Next Door and What She Knew.

Disaster, Melanie Barrick was once told, is always closer than you know.

It was a lesson she learned the hard way growing up in the constant upheaval of foster care. But now that she’s survived into adulthood–with a loving husband, a steady job, and a beautiful baby boy named Alex–she thought that turmoil was behind her.

Until one Monday evening when she goes to pick up Alex from childcare only to discover he’s been removed by Social Services. And no one will say why. It’s a terrifying scenario for any parent, but doubly so for Melanie, who knows the unintended horrors of what everyone coldly calls “the system.”

Her nightmare mushrooms when she arrives home to learn her house has been raided by sheriff’s deputies, who have found enough cocaine to send Melanie to prison for years. The evidence against her is overwhelming, and if Melanie can’t prove her innocence, she’ll lose Alex forever.

Meanwhile, assistant commonwealth’s attorney Amy Kaye–who has been assigned Melanie’s case–has her own troubles. She’s been dogged by a cold case no one wants her to pursue: a serial rapist who has avoided detection by wearing a mask and whispering his commands. Over the years, he has victimized dozens of women.

Including Melanie. Yet now her attacker might be the key to her salvation . . . or her undoing.

 

 

 

Field of Valor

 

Available May 22, 2018 Pre-order now

 

Oath of Honor and the discovery of a deadly global conspiracy, the president requests Logan West to form a covert task force with the mission to dismantle a nameless enemy.

With the full resources of the Justice Department, Intelligence Community, and the military (not to mention presidential pardons pre-signed), Logan must battle a secret organization with the connections and funding to rival many first-world nations. The goal of this organization is both singular and sinister—to pit the United States against China in a bid to dismantle the world’s security and economy. Back on US soil, Logan and his task force pursue the elusive foe from the woods of northern Virginia to the banks of the Chesapeake Bay, from suburban Maryland across the urban sprawl of Washington DC. The stakes have never been higher for Logan or America itself…

 

 

 

The Disappeared CJ Box

 

Amazon | Goodreads

 

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett has two cases to contend with, both of them lethal, in the electrifying new novel from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author.

Wyoming’s new governor isn’t sure what to make of Joe Pickett, but he has a job for him that is extremely delicate. Three British executives, all women, never came home from the high-end guest ranch they were visiting, and the British Embassy is pressing hard. Pickett knows that happens sometimes–these ranches are stocked with handsome young cowboys, and “ranch romances” aren’t uncommon. But three disappearances? That’s too many.

At the same time, with the help of his friend Nate Romanowski, he’s been called to investigate the killings of several bald and golden eagles–a serious federal crime. The more he investigates both cases, the more someone wants him to go away. Is it because of the missing woman or the dead eagles? Or are they somehow connected? The answers, when they come, will be even worse than he’d imagined.

 

 

 

Hellbent

 

Amazon | Goodreads

 

Evan Smoak—government assassin gone rogue—returns in Hellbent, an engrossing, unputdownable thriller from Gregg Hurwitz, the latest in his #1 international bestselling Orphan X series.

Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as an off-the-books government assassin: Orphan X. After he broke with the Orphan Program, Evan disappeared and reinvented himself as the Nowhere Man, a man spoken about only in whispers and dedicated to helping the truly desperate.

But this time, the voice on the other end is Jack Johns, the man who raised and trained him, the only father Evan has ever known. Secret government forces are busy trying to scrub the remaining assets and traces of the Orphan Program and they have finally tracked down Jack. With little time remaining, Jack gives Evan his last assignment: find and protect his last protégé and recruit for the program.

But Evan isn’t the only one after this last Orphan—the new head of the Orphan Program, Van Sciver, is mustering all the assets at his disposal to take out both Evan (Orphan X) and the target he is trying to protect.

 

 

 

The Escape Artist

 

Amazon | Goodreads

 

In #1 bestselling author Brad Meltzer’s new thriller, death is just another way to disappear.

Two hours outside of Washington, DC is the mortuary for the U.S. government’s most top-secret and high profile cases. America’s most important funeral home. To work there, mortician Jim “Zig” Zwicharowski has one rule: never let a case get personal. But when a new body arrives–of young female sergeant Nola Brown, who was a childhood friend of Zig’s daughter–Zig can’t help himself. Looking closely at Nola’s body, he realizes immediately: this isn’t Nola. Indeed, his daughter’s friend is still alive. And on the run. Zig’s discovery reveals a sleight of hand being played at the highest levels of power–and traces back through history to a man named Harry Houdini. “Nola, you were right. Keep running.”

 

 

 

Name up to three of your favorite series.

 

Joe Pickett Series 18 Books by C.J. Box 

Walt Longmire Series (14 books) by Craig Johnson 

 

 

Which books are you highly anticipating in 2018?

 

Red War, High White Sun, Field Of Valor (already read it), Warning Light, The Outsider, Dark Sacred Night.

 

 

Red War Vince Flynn

 

Available September 25, 2018 Pre-order now

 

 

High White Sun

 

Amazon | Goodreads

 

 

Field of Valor

 

Amazon | Goodreads

 

 

Warning Light

 

Amazon | Goodreads

 

 

The Outsider by Stephen King

 

Out May 22, 2018 Pre-order now!

 

 

Dark Sacred night

 

Release date October 30, 2018 Pre-order now

 

 

Name your top pet peeves as a reader

It drives me nuts when you pre-order an authors book, and then find out depending on retailer that there is multiple special editions. For instance Barnes and Noble will have one, Costco will have a different one and so on.

 

 

Time to get reading! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Steven James hosts special guest Mark Greaney on the Story Blender Podcast

Mixeur rouge

 

 

 

Author Steven James hosts special guest Mark Greaney on the Story Blender Podcast

 

Original air date Jan. 22, 2018 Length 50 min. Audio Link

 

 

Mark Greaney

 

Mark Greaney is the #1 NYT bestselling author of TOM CLANCY TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE. He has written or cowritten seven Tom Clancy novels, and is also the bestselling author of the Gray Man series, including GUNMETAL GRAY, BACK BLAST, DEAD EYE, BALLISTIC, ON TARGET, and THE GRAY MAN.

Mark lives in Memphis, Tennessee

 

The Gray Man is back in another nonstop international thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novel

 

Agent in Place Audiobook

 

Learn more at MARKGREANEYBOOKS.COM

 

 

 

Girl on headphones

 

Exclusive Interview with Author & Filmmaker Vivian Schilling

Quietus

 

 

 

 

MYSTERY THRILLER WEEK

QUIETUS
Vivian Schilling

 

*What traits or characteristics define you as a storyteller?

 
I am an existential thinker with a robust curiosity about life. Because of this, the material I create often varies greatly.

I can almost always see life from another person’s perspective, no matter how upsetting or different it may be from my own. If I open my mind to truly acknowledge that person’s circumstances, I can usually see their justification for their views, even when they are in direct conflict with my own. I think this ability has helped me tremendously when it comes to bringing my characters to life, especially my antagonists.

I am a strong believer in research and strive to build my writing, no matter how fantastical, on a solid foundation of accuracy. In Quietus, I create an entire mythology surrounding death, but it is drawn and pieced together by linking numerous sources, including ancient scriptures and apocrypha, Egyptian mythology and art from the Reformation. I feel the more support I can provide for as many of the story elements as possible, the more credibility it adds to the purely fictional ones.

 

 

 

Storytelling image typewriter

 

 

 

*Which medium resonates with you more, film or books?

 
As a creator and connoisseur of film and books with a deep love of both, it would be painful to lose either from my life. But if I had to make a choice, books would win the battle on both
accounts.

Filmmaking can be a tremendous amount of fun. But writing is introspective, going deeper and further and leaving a more profound impact on my creative spirit.

As a filmgoer, I enjoy movies immensely. I love that I can sit in a theatre and completely escape for a couple of hours. I love the community experience of a film, especially in L.A., where the
film business is such a part of the culture. I love the dialogue that takes place with my friends immediately following a film, usually about the production, but also about the underlying themes and philosophical and cultural aspects of it. Film has often been the centerpiece of some of the most interesting and enlightening conversations I’ve ever had.

Reading books, on the other hand, is a very personal experience, a deeply gratifying one. I enjoy attending book clubs as a guest author, but I make a terrible book club member. Unlike film, I usually don’t feel the need to discuss the book in great detail. I would rather think about and savor it on my own.

I can completely forget a film after a week, but I rarely forget books. Another telling factor is that I don’t collect movies, but my place is packed with books.

 

 

 

Creativity

 

 

 

*According to your experience as a writer define what the imagination is. 

 
What a beautiful question. Imagination goes to the very core and health of my spirit. With this said, I feel imagination and spirit are one in the same. If I open up my mind and allow my spirit to roam freely, I create. Sometimes these creations are dark and sometimes light. Most often, they embody both. When I am feeling caged in by the mundane demands of life, my imagination retreats and it is far more difficult for me to create.

 

 

 

Imagination Quietus

 

 

 

*How has writing affected your creativity as opposed to working in the film industry?

 
Writing has always been there for me. From the time I was a young girl, scratching out plays to perform or writing in a journal, writing has been my door to the world. I can write about anything I want. I can explore any thought I have and take it as far as I choose. Through writing, I am constantly discovering who I am and where I am headed. Its lack of limitations is very empowering to my creative spirit.

Film has its own positive attributes to offer, in an almost opposite way. It teaches restraint and discipline, as well as versatility. It is a collaborative process so you have to be able to adapt and to be open to the ideas of others and to give them space to create alongside you. It also can be very limiting if the project is restricted by budget, time or resources.

 

 

Creativity painting Quietus

 

 

 

*How long did it take to write Quietus?

 

The concept of Quietus was with me for many years before I wrote the novel. I had explored it in two other works, including a screenplay entitled Dark Angel that circulated Hollywood for some time. At one point, the film was set to start shooting in Canada, but the money fell through. That’s when I decided to turn it into a novel where I could embark on a more serious exploration into the concept. Once I finally began the novel it took me seven years. During that time I often found myself split off to do film or other writing projects. If it weren’t for my cabin escape in Big Bear, it would have taken a lot longer to complete.

 

 

 

Pen writing Quietus

 

 

 

*From Los Angeles to the Ozark mountains. Do you need complete solitude to write?

 

Most often times, yes, especially if I am deep into a novel. My most productive time as a writer is in seclusion, surrounded by nature. Even if I work long days and nights for weeks without a
break, I always leave feeling rested and light.

 

 

 

Ozark Mountains

 

 

 

 

*Did the cabin there have anything to do with the cabin in Quietus? 

 

I had already written Quietus before I had a cabin in the Ozarks. But I did stay thirteen months alone in a different cabin in Big Bear, California while writing the novel. It had a large loft that I turned into a writing den. That one completely inspired the layout of the one in the novel, along with some other moments and scenes later in the book.

 

 

 

Cabin Quietus

 
*Quietus has a very elegant writing style. What’s your editing process like?

 

What a nice thing to say. Thank you. I find my most inspiring times to write are first thing in the morning or late at night when I simply let my mind roam and fingers dictate. I return to these pages the next day and start tightening the scene structure. I usually go back to the same scene several times until I can read it aloud and like what I hear. I always edit as I go, which I know is not how most writers prefer to write. But my mind works linearly when it comes to prose. I have to hear the flow from the beginning.

 

 

 

Beauty writing

 

 

 

 

*Does your book employ a certain theme?

 

Quietus is a psychological thriller that follows a woman’s survival after a terrifying plane crash. It explores a myriad of cultural, philosophical and spiritual beliefs that question the very meaning of death and asks whether modern medicine is tampering with its balance.
*What are you working on next? Can you give us a bit of a teaser?

 

At this point in my journey as a writer, I am heavily drawn to Celtic culture and mythology. My story is set in the past and is close to the earth. I’m having an incredible time with my location research—opening my spirit and letting my imagination go where it takes me. It’s been a lot of fun!

 

 

 

 

Schilling headshot

 

 

VIVIAN SCHILLING is the award-winning author of the novels QUIETUS and SACRED PREY, as well as a screenwriter, producer and director of independent films. She recently completed work as co-writer and producer of the documentary “Bonobos: Back to the Wild” and is currently at work on her third novel.

 

 

Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon

 

 

Book Review: The Escape Artist by Brad Meltzer

Book Review  - colorful Neon Sign on brickwall

 

 

 

“The Book is not an escape from life but a shortcut to a better one.”

 

 

 

The Escape Artist

 

Amazon

 

 

In #1 bestselling author Brad Meltzer’s new thriller, death is just another way to disappear.

Two hours outside of Washington, DC is the mortuary for the U.S. government’s most top-secret and high profile cases. America’s most important funeral home. To work there, mortician Jim “Zig” Zwicharowski has one rule: never let a case get personal. But when a new body arrives–of young female sergeant Nola Brown, who was a childhood friend of Zig’s daughter–Zig can’t help himself. Looking closely at Nola’s body, he realizes immediately: this isn’t Nola. Indeed, his daughter’s friend is still alive. And on the run. Zig’s discovery reveals a sleight of hand being played at the highest levels of power–and traces back through history to a man named Harry Houdini. “Nola, you were right. Keep running.”

 

 

 

Escape Ticket Out Getaway Leaving Exiting Breaking Away

 

 

The highly anticipated new book by Brad Meltzer has been out since March 6, 2018, and I haven’t forgetten it since. There have been a plethora of good books come out of the woodwork this year, but in my opinion, The Escape Artist has the strongest story. You need to meet young sergeant Nola Brown. Brad has created some very unique characters in this one. Who else can make a mortician fascinating? It’s not just one of these characters that make this a blockbuster, but how their lives are connected and intertwine throughout the book. Nola Brown. Jim “Zig” Zwicharowski,  a top mortician of the U.S. government. There’s more but I can’t give you any spoilers!  Can’t wait to see what happens in the next book of the series.

 

 

 

 

Awesome Word Rubber Stamp 3D Rating Review Feedback

 

 

 

 

Brad Melter author pic

 

 

Brad Meltzer is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Inner Circle, The Book of Fate, and nine other bestselling thrillers. In addition to his fiction, Brad is one of the only authors to ever have books on the bestseller list for nonfiction (History Decoded), advice (Heroes for My Son and Heroes for My Daughter), children’s books (I Am Amelia Earhart and I Am Abraham Lincoln) and even graphic books (Justice League of America). He is also the host of Brad Meltzer’s Decoded on the History Channel, and Brad Meltzer’s Lost History on H2. He currently lives in Florida. You can find much more about him at BradMeltzer.com. You can also see what he’s doing right now at Facebook.com/BradMeltzer and on Twitter @bradmeltzer

 

Breaking News: On Becoming Jessica Fletcher by Jon Land

Breaking News Screen over red background

 

 

 

ON BECOMING JESSICA FLETCHER

 

I got the call from my agent on a Sunday afternoon last May.

“Don Bain isn’t well,” he said, referring to another client who’d penned all 46 titles in the Murder, She Wrote series. “He’s not going to be able to write the MURDER SHE WROTE books anymore. Would you be interested in taking the series over?”

It took me all of two seconds to respond. “Absolutely,” I said.

Of course, at that point I had no idea what I was in for because I’d never read a single book in the series, although I was a huge fan of the spectacularly successful television show on which they were based. I’d also never written in first person, much less from the viewpoint of a woman in her 60s. As a thriller author, I’d also never written a mystery, never mind a cozy.

 

 

 

Detective man and dangerous woman with a gun

 

 

 

Go figure, right?

But this isn’t a market to look a gift horse in the mouth. The opportunity was too great to pass up and I proceeded to craft a compelling argument to Don Bain, who I knew and greatly respected as a writer, that I was the right author to replace him, even though I couldn’t be sure at that point I was.

Fast forward almost a year . . . My first effort, A Date with Murder, will be published May 1 and response so far has been astoundingly positive. And I just turned in my second book writing as Jessica Fletcher, Manuscript for Murder, which is slated for publication in November. What’s happened in between has been among the best, and most fortuitous, experiences of my entire career.

How exactly, though, does a long-time, hardcore thriller author transition to softer mysteries with a far lower body count and when the country or even the world are not at stake?

 

 

 

 

Plot - Gold text on black background - 3D rendered stock picture.

 

 

 

Glad you asked! Fortunately, Don had worked with his grandson Zach, who’d become a crucial collaborator for me, on the first 60 or so pages of A Date with Murder. Enough to give me a notion as to the story and, more importantly, a direct link to Jessica’s voice. Finding that voice myself, in my own head, became the first challenge. But it was one that came to me with surprising ease and in true organic fashion. Getting into Jessica’s head became as simple as channeling Angela Lansbury from the classic TV show. I pictured her behind every page, speaking every line.

My mother was also a fan of the show and she plays a big part in all this too, thanks to her subscribing to the Mystery Guild, a book club that provided front list titles in special editions. So our bookshelves were full of classic titles by Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Earl Stanley Gardner, Ed McBain and many more, and in my early teens I devoured more of them than I can count. I can still remember some of those tales and I decided in writing the MURDER, SHE WROTE series that I’d try to recapture the same feeling I got in reading them.

No easy task, given the fact that Jessica Fletcher is almost without question America’s most famous (amateur) detective. More well-known than Hercule Poirot, Perry Mason and maybe even Sherlock Holmes, never mind the slew of wonderful modern-day sorts from Robert Parker’s Spenser to Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone to Patricia Cornwall’s Kay Scarpetta. That’s a huge challenge for any writer, much less one used to penning only thrillers.

 

 

 

Don't Limit Your Challenges - Challenge Your Limits - Workout Motivation - Fitness Center - Motivational Quote - Sport Illustration - Inspirational - Card Calligraphy Art - Typography

 

 

 

Meanwhile, finding Jessica’s voice might’ve been my first challenge, but the next one was blending it with my own. My style makes great use of hooks, cliff-hangars, and plot twists—often so many of them you have to stop to catch your breath. Almost overnight, A Date with Murder transformed into a hybrid mystery-thriller. A mystery because Jessica is trying to solve the murder of a trusted friend; thriller because she ends up risking her own life to expose a nefarious plot connected to a sinister Internet dating service. I wasn’t going too far out on a limb because Don Bain’s books had often cast her in the role of crusader, solving a murder that hits close to home.

I went into the series knowing that first and foremost I needed to capture the series’ core audience that loves the bucolic setting of Cabot Cove and the regular, established cast of characters Jessica interacts with and plays off of. For the dialogue, I relied on the quick, tart and witty exchanges between Angela Lansbury and the late, great Jerry Orbach as Harry McGraw or Ron Masak as Sheriff Mort Metzger. I wasn’t out to reinvent the wheel, you see, just make it churn a little faster. I’m not sure what was more amazing: How swiftly I took to the process or how naturally Jessica’s words and thoughts started to flow for me.

I wanted to make the series mine, put my stamp on it. But MURDER, SHE WROTE doesn’t belong to me and never will. It belongs to the tens of millions of readers and viewers who’ve come to cherish the stories, watching or reading them over and over again while trying to keep up with Jessica Fletcher. Like all great fictional heroes, she’s timeless, ageless, eternal. After me, someone else no doubt will take the reins of this series. While they’re in my hands, though, I’m grateful for the opportunity enjoy the ride at the same time I give you and all readers the best one I can.

So is A Date with Murder a cozy, a mystery, a thriller? You know, I’m not sure. I do know that I had a blast writing it and here’s hoping you have a blast reading it.

 

 

 

 

Jon Land Author pic

 

 

 

Since his first book was published in 1983, Jon Land has written twenty-eight novels, seventeen of which have appeared on national bestseller lists. He began writing technothrillers before Tom Clancy put them in vogue, and his strong prose, easy characterization, and commitment to technical accuracy have made him a pillar of the genre.

Land spent his college years at Brown University, where he convinced the faculty to let him attempt writing a thriller as his senior honors thesis. Four years later, his first novel, The Doomsday Spiral, appeared in print. In the last years of the Cold War, he found a place writing chilling portrayals of threats to the United States, and of the men and women who operated undercover and outside the law to maintain U.S. security. His most successful of those novels were the nine starring Blaine McCracken, a rogue CIA agent and former Green Beret with the skills of James Bond but none of the Englishman’s tact.

In 1998 Land published the first novel in his Ben and Danielle series, comprised of fast-paced thrillers whose heroes, a Detroit cop and an Israeli detective, work together to protect the Holy Land, falling in love in the process. He has written seven of these so far. The most recent, The Last Prophecy, was released in 2004.

Recently, RT Book Reviews gave Jon a special prize for pioneering genre fiction, and his short story “Killing Time” was shortlisted for the 2010 Dagger Award for best short fiction and included in 2010’s The Best American Mystery Stories. Land is currently writing Blood Strong, his fourth novel to feature Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong—a female hero in a genre which, Land has said, has too few of them. The second book in the series, Strong Justice (2010), was named a Top Thriller of the Year by Library Journal and runner-up for Best Novel of the Year by the New England Book Festival. The third, Strong at the Break, will be released this year, and the fourth, Blood Strong, will follow in 2012. His first nonfiction book, Betrayal, written with Robert Fitzpatrick, tells the behind-the-scenes story of a deputy FBI chief attempting to bring down Boston crime lord Whitey Bulger, and will also be released in 2011.

 

Amazon | Goodreads | Website | Facebook | Twitter