Mystery & Suspense Archives | Page 114 of 119 | BookPage

by Jay MacDonald

International thriller writer Christopher Reich admits his new standalone nail-biter, Invasion of Privacy, lacks the globetrotting savoir faire of his bestsellers Numbered Account, The Patriot’s Club and The Prince of Risk. But what it so deliciously serves up instead is a visceral fear feast centered on a simple premise: What if your iPhone turned against you?

Forty miles west of Austin on the dusty doorstep of the Texas Hill Country, FBI special agent Joe Grant is gunned down along with an informant in a shootout with parties unknown. Minutes before his wife, Mary, becomes a widow, she receives a cryptic voicemail from Joe that will lead her to question the FBI’s version of his death. To vindicate her husband, she’ll ultimately be forced to confront Ian Prince, the ruthless telecom billionaire behind a terrifying top-secret surveillance system every bit as plausible in our hyper-connected age as George Orwell’s Big Brother was during his.

Reich hatched the premise for Invasion of Privacy while watching news coverage of British media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s celebrity phone-hacking scandal. The topic hit close to home for the father of two teenage girls whose hands are rarely free of a phone, tablet or laptop.

“It’s a completely different kind of book for me—more of a family-oriented, inside-the-home thriller,” Reich says. “I wanted to write this David and Goliath story to show that it’s still personal grit and family love that ends up overcoming sheer megalomania and greed.”

To dial up the domestic dynamics, Reich set his tale in Austin, where his daughters were born and where he earned his MBA at the University of Texas. However, his research into the lexicon and subtleties of computer surveillance and phone hacking, which included meeting with an electronic payments expert, friends in the FBI and a reporter for Wired, was specifically intended to spare his readers geek overload.

“Once a story starts getting all technical and cyber-geeky, I just shut the book,” Reich admits.

He didn’t have to search far for a prototype of mega-mogul Ian Prince, however.

“He’s an amalgam of the leading brains and business personalities in Silicon Valley and around the world,” he says. “Apple’s founder Steve Jobs was elevated to this position of something more than a man but less than a god, and we all worshipped this guy and absolutely forgave all of his failings because he was able to design an amazing iPod and iPhones. We worshiped him, but when you get down to nuts and bolts, he was not the nicest human being to his family. I think on any other scorecard, he would get very low marks.”

For an additional twist, Reich places Ian and the National Security Agency on the verge of a lucrative, game-changing partnership with chilling implications for privacy in America. The reader is left guessing as to whose side the FBI is on until the final pages.

“How much would our nation allow some of these leading tech companies to get away with in the interest of furthering our own national security?” he wonders. “We live in an era where we’re made to be so afraid of even the slightest risk that we allow the government to take extraordinary measures regarding our privacy in the name of national security.”

The more he learned about cutting-edge surveillance technology, the less convinced Reich became that lawmakers can effectively restrict its use.

“The NSA, with their computers, are just being spies, and the whole point of spying is to collect information. You don’t tell a spy, ‘Only get half of the information you can.’ You tell them, ‘Get everything you can!’ That’s the whole point of having a spy agency.”

Ultimately, Reich came to a very Orwellian conclusion about the intrusion of cyber-surveillance into the American home.

“I’m a big believer in what President Dwight Eisenhower said in his farewell speech: ‘Beware the military-industrial complex.’ This is a whole sector of society that needs adversaries, needs conflict, and really requires even armed conflict in wars to drive their bottom line and become successful,” he says. “I don’t really think that the issues they’re screaming about are as life-threatening or endangering to our national security as they say. The more I research the various government military and intelligence sectors, I feel we really don’t need to be so heavily involved in a lot of these areas.”

To inject a little levity, Reich borrowed one of his daughters’ favorite pastimes: watching pet videos on YouTube.

“My daughters were always looking at a video about this sloth trying to pull itself out of a cradle, so as I was writing the book, it worked into kind of a MacGuffin [plot twist] in the book,” he recalls.

Invasion of Privacy marks the start of a busy year ahead for Reich, a one-time Swiss banker and watch company CEO who launched his writing career with the million-selling 1998 debut Numbered Account (and an assist from James Patterson, an enthusiastic early reader of the manuscript).

Reich’s Rules of Deception series featuring mountaineering surgeon Dr. Jonathan Ransom has been optioned for three 12-episode seasons by Paramount Television and Skydance Productions (Terminator, Mission: Impossible); he’s halfway through writing a fourth book in that series. And next summer, he’ll launch a new series called The Amateur’s Hour, about a cynical government contractor whose predictions about upcoming world events prove a little too close for some people’s comfort.

“I’ll be doing the David Baldacci two-books-a-year thing,” quips Reich. “I’m a little bit scared, but I’m happy to have that problem!”

Does the author fear his own phone may be hacked in the near future?

“I don’t really feel so vulnerable, because I don’t think I’m interesting enough for someone to want to look into what I’m doing,” he chuckles.

But he does worry about consumers who share so freely on social media.

“Most Americans put more stuff about themselves on Facebook than they would probably tell anybody. They don’t realize that that information is so readily accessible. We’re already very open with our information in this society. It’s all right out there,” he says.

As for the reception of Invasion of Privacy, the author says he’s already won over two very important new readers.

“This is the first one of my books that both of my daughters have read, and they both just loved it; they just disappeared into it with the teenage characters and the mom,” he says proudly. “Having tried to give my kids my other books, they would go, ‘This is so boring!’ When I saw my daughter disappear and read my book for four hours straight, that was like, OK, I wrote a good book.”

This article was originally published in the July 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense, World Fiction

Mystery & Suspense World Fiction Mystery

Alex Zucker

Interview by Hilli Levin

by Hilli Levin

Czech writer Heda Margolius Kovály, best known for her memoir chronicling her time in Auschwitz (Under a Cruel Star), drew from her later harrowing experiences in 1950s Soviet Prague for her only work of fiction, Innocence. This espionage thriller follows the chilling and stifling atmosphere of political oppression during the post-WWII days of Communist Czechoslovakia. Friends and neighbors are suddenly not to be trusted as informants are hidden everywhere, and innocence begins to lose meaning to those in the government. Innocence is available in an English translation for the first time thanks to award-winning literary translator and co-chair of the PEN America Translation Committee, Alex Zucker. We asked Zucker a few questions about his translation process for Innnocence, the Czech language and more.

In past interviews, you have somewhat jokingly compared translators to dockworkers. Why do you think translators are so underappreciated in the literary world?
I think there are three types of reasons for it: psychological, cultural and legal. 1.) Psychological because many translators are the kind of people who don’t like to call attention to themselves. Some don’t even mind when their name doesn’t appear on the covers of the books they translate. Maybe this has to do with the fact that the ability to subsume your own personality—or, more accurately, your personal preferences—to that of the writer you’re translating is a requirement for a translator to be skillful. Humility is far from the only requirement, but it is fundamental. 2.) Cultural because the idea of authorship is so primary to our understanding of literature. Every work of translated literature has (at least) two authors, and the relationship between them can be hard to wrap your head around. It’s easier just to ignore. As Stephen King told the New York Times, “I actually avoid novels in translation when I can, because I always have the feeling that the author is being filtered through another mind.” (And as a translator friend of mine quipped in response, “Lucky all the other books don't get edited, then!”) 3.) Legal because for a long time literary translation contracts were written as work-for-hire agreements, meaning that translators gave away ownership (copyright) of their work to the publisher. As a result, translators’ names were erased from literary history. This still goes on today, though we don’t have the data to know whether it’s happening more or less than it used to.

Did you ever have a chance to meet Heda Margolius Kovály before her death in 2010?
No. I’m sorry to say I did not. I did meet her son, though, and we corresponded throughout my work on the translation.

When did you start studying Czech, and what drew you to the language?
I began studying Czech in 1988, following my first trip to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in 1987. After going there, I decided I wanted to work on human rights in Czechoslovakia, so my interest in the language was initially as a tool to that end. But then I went to get a degree in international affairs and studied Czech with Peter Kussi, one of Milan Kundera’s translators. I was already fluent in French, but had never thought to translate, so Peter gets the credit for inspiring me to go down that path.

What do you love most about Czech literature?
As I said, my initial interest was not in literature, but in human rights, although it was a Milan Kundera novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (in Michael Henry Heim’s translation), that introduced me to the political reality of Czechoslovakia in particular and Communist Eastern Europe in general. So from a reader’s perspective, what got my attention was the difference (for lack of a better word) from the mostly U.S. and West European writing that I had read up to then: more black humor, more overt politics, more foregrounding of history. From a translator’s perspective, now, nearly 30 years later, I still appreciate those features of Czech literature, but what I enjoy about translating is more the experience of working with language. The decoding and recoding. And I love the end result of having a book I can touch and hold and share with other people—that matters a lot to me.

How long did you spend on this translation project?
Depends how you count, since I’m always working on multiple projects simultaneously. But, roughly, three months translating and another two months or so editing.

Do you read many mysteries in your off time?
No, none at all.

Was there a section or scene in the novel that was particularly difficult to translate?
Dialogue is always tricky. Readers (and critics) are more willing to suspend their disbelief that a character is Czech yet by some work of magic is “speaking” (or thinking) in English when reading a narrator’s voice. As soon as you put quotation marks around a character’s words, it sets off an alarm, raises a flag. “Wait. Is that how a Czech person in 1950s Prague would say that? In . . . Czech? English? Wait. How are they supposed to sound?” Suddenly the spell is broken, and readers can no longer ignore the fact that they’re reading a translation. They bridle. I think it’s a natural reaction, but it’s just that: a reaction, as opposed to a response involving thought about what options the translator has. If you as a translator ignore the fact that characters are speaking in colloquial language and using slang vocabulary, and portray them as using neutral language, you’re taking away part of what defines them. On the other hand, how far can you push it and still be convincing? I suppose it’s analogous to U.S. actors speaking with a German accent when they play Nazi Germans in Hollywood films about World War II. It would seem strange, wouldn’t it, if they sounded too “American”?

Is there a particular translator whose work you admire and are inspired by?
I already mentioned Peter Kussi. Paul Wilson was also instrumental in my formation as a translator. He was the first experienced translator to edit my work, and for decades now has served as an informal mentor to me. His 1989 translation of Bohumil Hrabal’s I Served the King of England was also the first translation I ever read side by side with the original, an invaluable learning experience that I would recommend to every translator. We probably all do it at some point.

Are you interested in writing a novel of your own some day?
I’ve had ideas for novels—like lots of people I know—but never any real drive to sit down and write one.

What projects are you working on next?
Next year my translation of Tomáš Zmeškal’s first novel, Love Letter in Cuneiform, is coming out with Yale University Press. At the end of June I’ll be turning in a novella from the mid-1950s, Midway Upon the Journey of Our Life, by Josef Jedlička, for Charles University Press. Incredibly, there has been only one Czech work from the ’50s published in English before (Josef Škvorecký’s The Cowards, translated by Jeanne Němcová), so that’s an exciting one. Then I have a novel by Magdaléna Platzová, The Anarchist, for Bellevue Literary Press, due at the end of August, and I’m hoping soon to sign a contract to publish Angel Station, the only work of Jáchym Topol’s that has yet to appear in English. Also, by the end of the year, I’ll be finishing Arnošt Lustig’s novel Colette, a job I’ve been hired to do by the author’s daughter, so there’s no publisher for it yet.

Czech writer Heda Margolius Kovály, best known for her memoir chronicling her time in Auschwitz (Under a Cruel Star), drew from her later harrowing experiences in 1950s Soviet Prague for her only work of fiction, Innocence. This espionage thriller follows the chilling and stifling atmosphere of political oppression during the post-WWII days of Communist Czechoslovakia. Neighbor and friends are suddenly not to be trusted, as govenrment informants are hidden everywhere, and innocence begins to lose meaning to those in the government. Innocence is available in an English translation for the first time due to award-winning literary translator and co-chair of the PEN America Translation Committee, Alex Zucker. We asked Zucker a few questions about his translation process for Innnocence, the Czech language and more.

Fiction, Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Mystery

Jeff Lindsay

Interview by Keith Ryan Cartwright

by Keith Ryan Cartwright

Unlike the star of the iconic television series for Showtime and later CBS, which was loosely based on the first two novels, the literary version of Dexter has far less redeeming qualities than the likable character portrayed by actor Michael C. Hall. In this suspenseful final installment, Dexter has lost everything and faces a murder charge—ironically, for a slaying he’s not responsible for.

Lindsay talks candidly about Dexter’s surprising success, his decade-long relationship with the iconic character and his uncertain future as a novelist and playwright.

It’s been more than a decade since you wrote Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Did you have any idea then that you were just beginning to explore a character and storylines that would still be here eight books later?
No, and it’s kind of weird. All my life I’d wanted to write a series. I’d started one (Tropical Depression and Red Tide, coming soon as eBooks from Diversion Books), and the publisher, Don Fine, promised me he was going to build it up and make it work. But he died, and nobody else jumped out to grab it. I started to wonder if it was going to happen for me, and in kind of a dark, angry place, I thought, “I’ll show them. . .” And I wrote Darkly Dreaming Dexter. I never in a million years thought it would be a series, nor intended it to be one. I mean, I told the story, it ended—how could it go on?

"I thought it would be easier. But when I was done, my wife pointed out to me that my behavior was showing all the classic signs of grieving."

After living with this ongoing series of stories for so long, how do you go about bringing it to a close?
Well, I hope I go about it the right way. It took a lot of thought and a lot of work, and you can never be sure, but I think I did it in a way that won’t let my readers down. You know, that’s what I live for—at heart, I’m an entertainer, and I want people to leave the theater satisfied.

Because it’s been eight books and more than a decade, is it easy to finally say, “I’m done with it”? Or does that investment make it harder to and, perhaps, scarier to close that chapter of your creative life?
You know, I thought it would be easier. But when I was done, my wife pointed out to me that my behavior was showing all the classic signs of grieving. I didn’t even know. So I guess I miss him. But I had always promised that, if I ever started phoning it in, I would quit. I wasn’t there yet, but I could feel it around the corner, so—is it scary? Hell, yes. I’m terrified. I secretly believe that nobody really likes me—they like him—and without him I’m scared that nobody will want to read me anymore.

The title Dexter Is Dead is fairly definitive, but there’s a previous interview where you noted there being a little ambiguity. Could you bring the series back? Would you want to?
I hope there’s always ambiguity. They taught me in college that ambiguity is good. It’s very powerful and moving—I saw Gone Girl recently, and the ambiguous ending was fantastic. It keeps you thinking about it; what’s going to happen? Who will do what to whom? I love that. I always try for that quality. But the series, the character Himself—I have no plans to bring it back.

What would it take to revisit this series?
It would take three things to bring the series, and the character, back. First, there would have to a groundswell of support for the idea. I would have to feel the love. Second, I would have to feel that I could do it justice—as I said before, I don’t ever want to phone it in. And third, it would have to be worth my while, and not just financially, although, you know, this is how I make my living.

You had incredible success with Dexter as a series. Will you look to create another series or look to write some stories that are independent of one another?
I think I would very happily launch another series—but I’d also like to try some one-shot stuff. I mean, Dexter was never intended as a series. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanted to read even ONE book about a lovable serial killer. But a new series would be fun, now that I practiced. And I want to get back to some theater, too—I’ve been working on a few new plays, dusting off some old ones. I have a little time right now, and there’s a giddy sense of freedom, of unlimited possibility. But it’s also like jumping off a cliff. On the one hand, it’s “Damn! I’m flying!” And on the other, I know the ground is coming up at me fast. But I think I’ll let people know pretty soon what happens next. I just hope they care.

Author photo credit Hilary Hemingway.

After 11 years, seven national best-selling books and a hit television series that became something of a pop culture phenomenon, author and Dexter series creator Jeff Lindsay closes out the series with his eighth and aptly titled final novel, Dexter Is Dead. Lindsay talks candidly about Dexter’s surprising success, ending his own decade-long relationship with the iconic character and his own uncertain future as a novelist and playwright.

Suspense

Suspense

Leah Stewart

Interview by Lily McLemore

by Lily McLemore

An older woman's keen interest in a young mother who recently moved in across the lake slowly morphs into a dark, dangerous fascination that could destroy both of their lives in Leah Stewart's latest novel, The New Neighbor, set in the small college town of Sewanee, Tennessee. Stewart (The History of Us, The Myth of You and Me) deftly writes about the nuances of friendship and motherhood, as well as the past's unpleasant ability to take over the present.

As a recent graduate of Sewanee, I was eager to ask Stewart a few questions about her choice of setting, the complexities of isolation and her impressive ability to write honestly about aging.

Sewanee is a fairly isolated, little-known college town in Tennessee. How did you stumble across it and what inspired you to set your novel there?
I’ve been going up to the Mountain (they capitalize it there) since I was a kid. My grandmother was from Murfreesboro, which is about half an hour from Nashville and an hour from Sewanee, and she and my grandfather retired to a small community called Clifftops between Sewanee and Monteagle. But I don’t remember spending much time in Sewanee until I started working for the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference (as a dorm counselor) and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference (as staff) in 1995. I’d been a student at Vanderbilt in Nashville, and my professors there recommended me to the conference directors. I worked for the SWC for 10 years, making drinks and driving visiting writers to the Nashville airport, and I spent a year as a visiting writer at Sewanee and have been back many other times to visit. In the last couple of years I’ve been going to a relatively new writers’ colony there called Rivendell.

I set the novel in Sewanee because The New Neighbor is about isolation. All of my books are set in different places, and when I choose a setting, I’m looking for a place that resonates with the themes, the mood and the emotional states of the characters. Sewanee—in my mind—is both a magical, beautiful, out-of-time retreat and (because it’s so small and because when the fog rolls in you can’t see the road) a kind of confinement.

Both Jennifer and Margaret view Sewanee as a hideaway, but the small-town closeness and isolation of Sewanee is the very thing that threatens to unravel their lives. Do you think isolation is prone to breeding something sinister?
I think it can, but perhaps no more than too much closeness. We used to live in the country in North Carolina, and it felt very safe and pleasantly separate from the world—until I read In Cold Blood, which is about people murdered in an isolated house. For a week or two and on and off afterwards, I found our location unnerving. So I think isolation contains two extremes: the possibility of safety and security, and the possibility of being alone when danger comes. In the case of my novel, the danger is largely emotional, but Margaret is in her 90s and living alone, so there’s a physical danger for her as well.

The men in Jennifer and Margaret’s lives have largely been destructive, and both women seem to long for female companionship. Do you think female friendships are important lifelines?
Absolutely! Which is not to say I don’t think relationships between men and women, including platonic ones, are equally important. But there’s a longstanding tendency in stories to make friendships between women secondary to heterosexual coupling, and I enjoyed keeping the focus on the former.

Ninety-year-old Margaret is incredibly frustrated by the indignities and inconveniences of aging. You are able to capture these feelings so well, that it made me a little terrified of my approaching birthday. How were you able to so accurately write in the voice of a 90-year-old woman?
I’ve spent a great deal of time in the company of elderly people, especially elderly women. I visited the grandparents who lived outside of Sewanee often. My other grandmother lived an hour and a half from us in North Carolina, and she often had to go see a specialist at Duke, so I’d drive to her town, pick her up, take her to appointments and drive her back. My great-aunt, who was a professor of medieval literature at UCLA, retired to Murfreesboro. I stop to see her whenever I’m in the area, and she’s 92. I’ve stolen lines from all of them.

Looking at Milo, Jennifer’s 4-year-old son, Margaret says, "He looked like something that might ruin your life." Why do you think she feels that way?
She never had children, so she never got used to the amount of noise they generate, and now she’s elderly and hyperaware of her own fragility; Milo’s heedless kinetic energy alarms her. Also, as an older person who never raised children, it’s easy for her to judge contemporary parenting as lax: Where are the well-behaved, speak-only-when-spoken-to children of yesteryear? Plus, she wants Jennifer’s attention and can’t compete with Milo for it, and, deeper than that, it has something to do with the wounds of her past.

The well-loved, bubbly Megan—Jennifer’s only friend in Sewanee—is almost the opposite of the guarded, stoic Jennifer. Do you think women, especially mothers, are pressured into presenting a happy face to the world?
I do. Which is one reason I so enjoyed Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs, with its female narrator full of unapologetic rage.

In order to keep her identity a secret, Jennifer is cold and distant. Do you admire these qualities as strength, or do you think she should lighten up?
I think she wants to lighten up and is happier when she does, but her circumstances have made that challenging. She’s not cold and distant in the flashbacks to her teenage years, just quiet. I myself like to talk, as my students can attest, so sometimes I struggled with writing her. My husband really helped me with that. He did a line-by-line edit, pointing out where I’d had Jennifer behave in an out-of-character way—which often meant she’d said something I would say, when really, Jennifer would say nothing. I don’t admire coldness, but I do admire reserve. I think because I don’t have it, and so to me it looks like impressive self-control. Also, reserved people intrigue me because I wonder what’s behind the wall.

I thought it was interesting that Jennifer, who is so closed off, is a massage therapist. How did you settle on that career for her?
That was a choice I made instinctively. Looking at it now, I’d say it was because she’d been a dancer, so I wanted her to continue to do something that had to do with the body. She’s capable of offering love and comfort but has been hurt so often that she’s shut that capability down—except with Milo and in massage, which is a way of communicating without words. I’ve written a great many characters whose primary mode is mental (like mine), and I’m curious about people whose primary mode is physical. I had two ballet dancers in my last novel. I didn’t attempt their points of view, but they were in some ways a warm-up for Jennifer.

How did Margaret's time as a nurse in World War II shape her?
It gave her the most intense emotional connection she’s ever had—her friendship with her fellow nurse—but it also brought her up close to terror and horror and grief. It taught her that she’s tough, which is a quality she values and which served her well as a woman in the workplace throughout the rest of the 20th century. But it also taught her to survive by walling off sections of her memory and her personality, and what she’s wrestling with in the novel is what she lost in doing that.

Would you enjoy living in Sewanee? Why or why not?
I ask myself that question every time I’m there! Based on the year I spent there, I’d say yes and no. When I go there now, I love the beauty of the woods and the mountains, the quiet and the sense of isolation from the rest of the world. But when I lived there that quiet and isolation sometimes made me restless. If I had my wish, I might live there part of the year and in the city the rest.

Author photo by Jason Sheldon

Historical Fiction, Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery Historical Fiction

Elly Griffiths

Interview by Sheila M. Trask

by Sheila M. Trask

Writing a gripping mystery is a lot like performing a masterful magic trick—knowing when to grab the audience’s attention, when to provide distractions and how to wrap it all up with a dazzling finale.

British mystery master Elly Griffiths enters the world of illusionists with The Zig Zag Girl, the first in a new series that has us looking behind the curtain in a whole new way.



One of Griffiths' grandfather's playbills: Dennis Lawes "on laughter service."

Tell us a little about the World War II Magic Gang that inspired this new series—including your own family connection.
My granddad, Frederick Goodwin (stage name Dennis Lawes), was a music hall comedian, modestly famous between the wars. Granddad was often on the bill with a well-known magician called Jasper Maskelyne. During the Second World War, Maskelyne was a part of a group called the Magic Gang, recruited for their skills in camouflage and stage magic. The Magic Gang were based in North Africa where they created dummy tanks, ghostly platoons and a fake battleship called HMS Houdin. I’ve adapted some of these escapades for the Magic Men in The Zig Zag Girl.

The Magic Men are flamboyant showmen, very different from what fans might expect from the creator of Ruth Galloway, forensic archaeologist. What drew you to these characters?
I was passionate about acting at school and university and would have loved to pursue it as a career. But I was drawn to the world of music hall by my grandfather and—more specifically—by the playbills that he left me in his will. These bills are a treasure trove of long-forgotten acts: Lavanda’s Feats with the Feet, Lou Lenny and her Unrideable Mule, Raydini the Gay Deceiver. I knew that one day I would have to write about them.

How was it different to write about 1950s Brighton than the Norfolk marshes featured in your Ruth Galloway series?
I’ve lived in Brighton since I was 5, so in some ways it was a lot easier. If I needed to research a location I’d just pop out and have a look. But in other ways it was more difficult. I think there is something to be said for writing about somewhere slightly alien to you. I spent a lot of time in Norfolk as a child, but it still seems huge and slightly frightening. I almost know Brighton too well, and it’s a safe and happy place for me. However, the 1950s setting helped make it seem more mysterious.

Some of the murders here are pretty gruesome, yet the book doesn’t have a dark tone. Do you consider it important to focus on the optimism of your investigators rather than the depravity of the villain?
The Zig Zag Girl definitely contains my more gruesome murders to date! However, I don’t like writing—or reading—about gratuitous violence. I haven’t described any of the crimes in too much detail, and I have tried to lighten things up with a bit of humor here and there. For me, it’s important to focus on the characters and not on the mechanics of murder.

Is the charismatic Max Mephisto based on a particular magician?
His career is based on Jasper Maskelyne’s. However, I think Max also owes a bit to my father and grandfather—both handsome, urbane, charming men. My grandfather had three wives—all dancers—and was still a debonair man-about-town in his 80s.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of The Zig Zag Girl.

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

British mystery master Elly Griffiths enters the world of illusionists with The Zig Zag Girl, the first in a new series that has us looking behind the curtain in a whole new way.

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

Louise Penny

Interview by Jay MacDonald

by Jay MacDonald

Woe be unto the free-range American reader who casually picks up any of Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache mysteries, set in the French-Canadian village of Three Pines, expecting a “Murder, She Wrote”-style cozy. The author erupts at the mere suggestion.

“To call them cozies is to completely misread!” she protests by phone from her home in Sutton, a French-speaking village in Québec, east of Montreal. “I get very annoyed at anyone who calls them cozies, or even traditional. I think it’s facile for people to think that anything set in a village must, per force, be superficial and simplistic.”

Far, far from either, Penny’s addictive series may be the quintessential anti-cozy, centered as it is on a village that bears more resemblance to Twin Peaks than Cabot Cove and an erudite chief inspector of the Sûreté du Québec whose demons are never far behind him.

Publisher Minotaur Books says more than three million copies of the Inspector Gamache books have been sold worldwide since the series debuted in 2006, with growing sales and buzz for each new release. Penny’s 11th Gamache mystery, The Nature of the Beast, marks her largest first printing ever.

As series devotees know, the brooding, wounded Armand Gamache left the Sûreté and retired to Three Pines after tearing the lid off of internal corruption in 2013’s How the Light Gets In, only to resurface last year, shaken but not deterred, in The Long Way Home. Penny focuses as much on whether Gamache will overcome his demons as on whether his next demon will be his last.

In The Nature of the Beast, 9-year-old Laurent Lepage goes missing after annoying the townspeople yet again with another of his signature far-fetched stories, this one about a monster and an enormous gun hidden deep in the surrounding woods. When the boy’s body is found, the search for his killer leads authorities to the unthinkable: an enormous rocket launcher, expertly concealed, provenance unknown.

Who built it? How? And most importantly, why? It’s just the knotty puzzler to lure Gamache and his ever-inquisitive wife, Reine-Marie, out of early retirement.

A similar unfathomable horror—the terrorist attacks of 9/11—proved to be a game-changer for Penny as well. Back in 1996, after jettisoning an 18-year on-air career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and winning a 14-year battle with alcoholism, she’d retreated with her physician husband Michael to the Eastern Townships to try her hand at historical fiction. But five years in, she was getting nowhere.

“I realized I was writing for the wrong reason; I was trying to impress my family, my former colleagues—trying to write the best book ever written. The judgment of others has played a terrible role in my life for much of my life, and I became frozen,” she recalls.

Shortly after 9/11, a desultory glance at her bedside table helped dispel her ennui.

“Like most people, I read catholically; I read just about anything. But among my pile of books were crime novels. I remember sitting on my bed looking at them and thinking, that’s it! I will simply write a book I would want to read,” she says.

Those tenuous, post-traumatic days even inspired where she would set her mysteries.

“I was feeling, like the rest of the world, fairly vulnerable and thinking that the world might be a dangerous place, and I wanted to create a place where there was a sense of belonging and community,” she recalls. “The books aren’t about murder; they’re about life and the choices that we make, and what happens to good people when such a harrowing event comes into their lives. It’s an exploration of human nature, I hope.”

Re-inspired by her new direction, Penny tripped out of the gate by shooting for a perfect first draft.

“The danger, at least for the first couple of books, was that I had to get it right the first time. As a result, it paralyzed me because it didn’t allow for creativity, for flights of fancy, for inspiration,” she says.

That’s when her years of journalism with the CBC crashed the party, lending offbeat spontaneity and quirky humor to the otherwise serious task at hand.

“My first drafts are piles of something very soft and smelly. They’re huge, almost double the size of the final book,” she chuckles. “I throw everything in—I have to—and then I edit, because I know I’m good at editing. That’s part of the beauty of having a big, messy first draft, because then I feel like I’m in a warehouse full of ideas and words and thoughts and stories. Then I can just pick and choose.”

Her unique creative process produces that rarest of wonders in fiction: verisimilitude. In Three Pines, clues to the mystery are often dropped casually over café au lait at the bistro, and so subtly that we talk ourselves to sleep wondering whether to trust them, and if they’ll ultimately form a whole. Only a writer with Penny’s instincts could wait until an author’s note at the end of The Nature of the Beast to reveal a walloping fact that’s as shocking as the book’s climax (don’t peek; it’s worth the wait!).

While it’s not a spoiler to note that a serial killer haunts this latest installment, Penny admits she’s not about the body count, and never will be.

“I’ve been on a number of writer panels where people say, ‘Well, when it gets slow or boring, I just throw in another body!’ And I think, that can’t be right,” she says. “I’m not interested in body counts or serial killers; I’m really interested in the why. What would make a real-life human being do something like that? The murder is just a conceit to allow me to look at all sorts of other issues.”

Which explains why the village setting not only appeals to Penny, but may well have been inevitable.

“What always amazes me is, there is a tendency to dismiss crime novels set in a village or rural setting rather than in a city. As someone who lived in cities all my life, murders in Montreal are in the briefs column of the newspaper. It’s always tragic but it’s not horrific; it’s not a shock, it doesn’t set the whole community on edge,” she says. “But a murder in a tight-knit community? How big of a violation is that? Not only has a person’s life been taken, but your whole sense of security has been taken. And knowing that someone you know was murdered and someone you know did it? How horrific is that?”

Although Penny had a brief brush with cinema, serving as a consultant and executive producer on the 2013 film version of her first Gamache novel, Still Life, she’s an admittedly poor candidate to go Hollywood anytime soon.

“I don’t know about films. I was involved, but I’m not anymore, by my own choice. While they did consult me, they did not take a great deal of what I said; there was no onus on them to take anything to heart, and I found that very difficult,” she recalls.

Nor should readers expect any non-Gamache standalones. Penny readily admits she has found the perfect cast and setting to accomplish her primary goal as a mystery writer.

“I want the reader to care, and if you don’t care, why bother? I want the books and characters to follow the reader for days or weeks after,” she says.

“I want to try to bring down the fourth wall, to where they feel they’re actually sitting in the bistro listening to the conversation; they can smell the wood smoke and taste the café au lait and feel what the characters are feeling. I think if someone just reads my book with their head, they’re missing probably two-thirds of the book. You have to absorb it through your heart.”

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

Dean Koontz

Interview by Jay MacDonald

by Jay MacDonald

The premise of Dean Koontz’s mesmerizing new psychological thriller, Ashley Bell, is compelling but not complex: When doctors inform 22-year-old Southern California surfer girl and budding novelist Bibi Blair that inoperable brain cancer will shorten her life to a matter of months, she replies, “We’ll see.”

Bibi’s fate seems sealed until a mystery man with a golden retriever (Koontz and his beloved Trixie?) appears at her hospital bedside in the middle of the night and quotes a snippet of Henry David Thoreau in passing: “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

The incident sparks a miraculous recovery. Bibi’s subsequent meeting with a fortune-telling masseuse convinces her that she’s been spared specifically to save the life of someone else, someone named Ashley Bell. Strap in and hold on as this determined surfer “walks the board” to suss out the whos, hows and whys of her improbable reprieve.

Readers will savor the most stunning experience yet from a writer who specializes in surprises.

So far, all that sounds like classic Koontz, right? But through an equally unlikely turn of events in the crafting of Ashley Bell, what readers can now savor is arguably the most stunning, flat-out crazy reading experience yet from a writer who specializes in surprises.

If you’ve ever wondered how much fun it would be to feel a book unfold in real time along with its characters, you need to read Ashley Bell right now.

Koontz’s wild ride began with a friend who had been diagnosed with gliomatosis cerebri, a rare, fatal brain cancer. After reading a letter from his pal, who had already outlived his doctor’s one-year prediction by a year, Koontz wondered, “Wouldn’t it be nice to write a story in which somebody is doomed to this but isn’t doomed to it after all?” To take his personal feelings out of play, he cast a surfer girl in the lead, while setting the story in his hometown of Newport Beach.

“The moment I heard her character say, ‘We’ll see’ in my head, Bibi became nearly complete to me,” Koontz recalls. “I realized she would be somebody who almost likes the sharp edges of life and leans into them.”

Koontz was initially stumped by the tougher task of figuring out how Bibi might escape the medically inevitable until the answer absolutely “hammered and prosecuted” him, to use surfer speak.

“The big reveal in the book came to me, and I was like a child; I was basically jumping up and down in my chair!” Koontz says. “And I thought, this is going to be a wonderful thing for people to get to, but how do you make it real? I couldn’t wait to start it.”

It’s no big reveal that there will be no big reveal here. When a writer has managed to catch this kind of lightning in a bottle, every reader should experience the full jolt.

Chapter by chapter, Koontz watched as Ashley Bell coalesced around an existential, philosophical difference between Bibi and her hippie parents, Murph and Nancy.

“It’s the idea of free will versus fate; Bibi believes she will make her own life, and her parents believe that fate determines what happens. Then it becomes perfectly natural for her to use her free will to find her way through this,” he says. “But I also realized that it was going to be about deception, self-deception and imagination.”

Especially imagination. Along the way, Koontz salts Bibi’s journey with a sweeping assortment of characters, some of whom threaten to shoplift the narrative and take it home. They include Bibi’s fiancé, Pax, a Navy SEAL on his last covert mission; her childhood bestie Pogo, who’s something of a surfer Yoda; hospital security guard Chubb Coy, a stalking Mr. Toad menace who quotes Jack London and Thornton Wilder; and a parade of horrific Wrong People who threaten to end her journey at every turn.

Koontz takes particular delight in skewering literary academia with the character of Solange St. Croix, a spiteful doyenne whose utter disdain for Bibi’s writing gifts makes her the meanest witch in the faculty lounge. For Koontz, who wrote his own way out of a career as a Pennsylvania English teacher decades ago, it’s not academia per se that’s troubling; it’s the limiting perspective.

“I’m not sure it’s a good thing that so many writers are going to school to become writers. When I became a writer, people like John D. MacDonald and a lot of writers I admired never went to school to be writers; it was just something they wanted to do because they loved books. I’ve often wondered if, over time, the writing programs will lead to a homogenous kind of fiction that isn’t very healthy,” he explains.

His own love of wordplay is apparent in Koontz’s clever twist on the fortune-teller trope. His muddled medium, a loopy New Age masseuse named Calida Butterfly, uses a divination technique called Scrabblemancy, in which Bibi draws Scrabble tiles from a silver bowl. Naturally, one of the phrases they spell out is “Ashley Bell.”

“I didn’t want Calida to have a Ouija board or a crystal ball or anything we’ve seen before. Then it occurred to me that all magic and all forms of belief are based on words—the idea that words have power and were at the root of everything that came to be,” he recalls. “Scrabblemancy makes more sense than having a little pointer on a board full of letters.”

To ground firmly in the here-and-now what might otherwise seem an ethereal journey, Koontz conjured one Birkenau Terezin, a neo-Nazi cult leader whose corporate minions terrorize Bibi.

“In my lifetime, I’m watching anti-Semitism return to the world stage in a major, very spooky way. I think it’s a bigger issue now in many places in the world than it was in the 1930s or ’40s,” Koontz says. “So it seemed logical, if you were going to reach for a villain in a book like this, Terezin would be the guy who is very suitable to our time. And the book wants to be very contemporary. I made every effort to keep everything in it very much of this period we’re living through without beating a lot of drums about it.”

Once Koontz caught a whiff of the uncharted magical reality he was creating in Ashley Bell, the question of the big twist began to weigh on him. Was he concerned that some readers wouldn’t make the leap to the third act?

“In any story where there are big surprises, I always feel the reader has to be able to go back and say, my God, it was right in front of me all the time! But in this case, I realized that’s not going to be enough.”

“In any story where there are big surprises, I always feel the reader has to be able to go back and say, my God, it was right in front of me all the time! That makes it fair. But in this case, I realized that’s not going to be enough,” he says. “With this book, the reveal is not just an intellectual thing; it’s an emotional thing. That way, when the reader starts reading it and is trying to get their head around it, they have a feeling that it makes sense. The two together make this thing go down in a way I don’t know that it would have otherwise.”

For once, Koontz, as the author, is sharing a surprise usually reserved for his readers.

“This book is about imagination; I think that’s what allows it to feel like it’s almost unfolding in real time as you’re reading it,” he says. “Bringing those many threads together gradually came easier than I would have ever imagined. The characters allowed me to do it. They showed me the way and it was exhilarating.”

This article was originally published in the December 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Suspense

Lisa Jackson

Interview by Carla Jean Whitley

by Carla Jean Whitley

When rising star Allie Kramer goes missing and her stunt double is shot on the set of her latest film, Allie’s sister, struggling actress Cassie Kramer, is considered a person of interest. The sisters have already been through more than their share of drama after a killer stalked them and their once-famous mother, and Cassie has never been the same. But she’s determined to find Allie, despite their strained relationship.

Combining the hot genre of dark, female-driven suspense (think The Girl on the Train) with the evergreen topic of sibling rivalry, Lisa Jackson’s After She’s Gone takes readers along for the chase as Cassie tries to solve the mystery of her sister’s disappearance.

Jackson’s new thriller is a long-awaited follow-up to two of her most popular books: The West Coast Series’ Deep Freeze (2005) and Fatal Burn (2006), which are being reissued in new mass-market editions to coincide with the release of the latest book in the series.

Jackson, who has published 37 books with Kensington and has almost 20 million copies of her books in print, knows something about sisters—she periodically collaborates with her real-life sister, fellow bestseller Nancy Bush. Jackson talked to us about the role of sisters in After She’s Gone, as well as the source for her energetic writing.

A pair of sisters is at the heart of this story, and you have a close relationship with your sister—one I assume does not parallel the story of Cassie and Allie! How does your relationship with your sister influence your writing?
When we were growing up, there was some sibling rivalry, but we were always pretty close. There were a couple of years between us, and in high school I would say, oh, do I have to hang out with Nancy? [Now] we only have each other. I’ve talked to her four times today and been over to her house once, and it’s only 11 o’clock.

My sister and I think a lot alike, although we play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, I’m the worst with typos. She notices those. She balances her checkbook to the penny. If my checkbook is kind of close, it’s good enough.

Conversely, I’ve always said I’m a big picture person. I am very much, and Nancy is a detail person.

How do you and Nancy determine which projects to collaborate on?
The first book we ever wrote was a collaboration with another gal and it never went anywhere, and that was 35 years ago. About 10 years ago, we were on a road trip and we said, let’s do something together a little different than what we would usually write. [The Wicked series] had a paranormal aspect—all these sisters who have been sequestered away. Let’s give them all a gift and play with that. We had so much fun.

Sometimes it’s a grind, but we try to keep having fun and mix it up a little bit to keep it fresh. We’ve been at this for 37 years. When we had children it was easier because we were more hip, the kids were more hip. Now I have grandchildren, and they’re a little too young to be hip. They’re 5 and under, and they’re not cool yet.

With After She’s Gone, you’ve returned to your West Coast Series. Why did you go back to this story almost 10 years after the publication of the first two books?
I love the characters. I loved writing Deep Freeze and Fatal Burn. The series was very popular, my editor [John Scognamiglio] loved it, and he wanted to see where the girls were today. . . . I ended Deep Freeze with a cliffhanger that I wanted to go into the next book. Then John brought it up again and said, ‘What if we have a stalker and he really likes Hollywood.’ I said, ‘John, that’s Deep Freeze. We can’t do that again!’

I wanted to flip it. I wanted it to be about the sisters and the rivalry. I read Deep Freeze and Fatal Burn again and thought, what am I going to do to these sisters to make them hate each other? It was a switch. It was a challenge. But I also had a lot of fun with it.

Jackson celebrates 20 years at Kensington with her editor, John Scognamiglio.

It sure seems like you enjoyed writing After She’s Gone.
I felt like this book had a lot of energy. . . . If I have high energy in my life, it translates in the book I’m writing.

How do you pursue that invigoration in your life?
My life is never dull. That’s not by choice. I have lots and lots of interests. I have a big interest in my family and my grandchildren and the generation above me, which is falling left and right now. I have business interests and I have charitable interests. I have friends that I don’t get to see enough of. I have a very, very busy life. I think that energy translates.

I don’t get in my chair—which I used to, but I can’t do it anymore—and just sit down and let the day unroll. Now I feel like I have to exercise three times a week because you can’t put it off. You can put it off in your 30s and 40s, but you can’t in your 50s and 60s because [stuff] falls apart.

I read a lot, I watch TV, I read the newspapers. I have more story ideas filed away than I have years in my life left.

This article was originally published in the January 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Mystery Cozy Mystery

Debut mystery from the queen of the mix CD, Libby Cudmore

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

Digging into an old box of mixed tapes leads one direction—toward nostalgia, and most likely into the tricky land of exes. Libby Cudmore’s debut, The Big Rewind, is much like that box of mixtapes, with its mystery buried beneath affairs of the heart, wry jokes about hipster Brooklyn and a steady stream of The Smiths, Warren Zevon and Talking Heads.

Jett Bennett had originally moved to New York City to become a music journalist but is currently working as a temp proofreader who makes a little extra on the side by buying women’s lingerie for her male boss. Whatever pays the bills, right? But Jett accidentally receives a mixed tape intended for her neighbor KitKat, and upon trying to deliver it to its rightful owner, finds KitKat dead on the kitchen floor. Jett has a feeling that this mixed tape just might lead her to the killer, but as she digs deeper, her own heartbroken past comes to the surface—while she’s confronting new feelings for a close friend.

The Big Rewind is a classic cozy, with as much emphasis on romance and music as on the murder. We contacted Cudmore to chat about mysteries, nostalgia, journals, mixed tapes and rediscovering all our favorite “terribly dumb late-’90s radio garbage.”

Jett shows great promise as an amateur sleuth, but her real talent is finding the perfect music to fit a moment, the just-right song to sum up an emotion. Is this a gift you share with Jett?
Yes. I am the undisputed QUEEN of the mix CD. As soon as I realize I’m going to be friends with someone, I start compiling a playlist for them, songs I love that I want to share, songs that remind me of something we did together.

There a real art to it—it’s not just about putting a bunch of songs together. You think of a concept, a title, a theme and build on that. You put in little sound clips from movies and TV shows. You design the cover and put it all together and deliver it and hopefully the person loves it. I’ve never had anyone say, “This is garbage,” although after three CDs, my friend Jason finally said, “Darling, I love you, but one more Smiths song and I will murder you.” So you go from there and adapt.

You’ve certainly sampled details from your own life, with references to anime, music you love and even naming a character after one of your journals, Catch. Do you often sample so openly from your life? Do you think Jett’s search represents anything for you?
The music is because I have an enormous record/CD collection, so I was able to draw from that to find music that was recognizable but also unique, with the hope that the reader might discover something new (The Vapors, Warren Zevon). I had fun with it.

Is this book personal? Yes, but it’s a universal sort of personal. Everyone has had their heart broken. Everyone has relationship regrets. It’s not about sampling from my life—it’s about reaching into the universal experience and sampling from that.

Speaking of, why did you name Jett’s former love after your journal?
You did your homework! But it’s actually the other way around. When I started naming my journals, I went back and named that one for Catch, because I had started The Big Rewind in that one. But the name itself comes from Ewan McGregor’s character in Down with Love, which was the nickname of the friend who gave me the journal.

What was the greatest challenge in writing this book?
Honestly, I can’t remember. That’s how books go—you’re in the trenches, you feel like it’s never going to get finished and that it’s terrible and you want to quit, and then it’s done and you look back and it all seemed like it was so easy.

Loneliness is a hallmark of classic mysteries. Did you initially set out to write a murder mystery that explores loneliness in this way?
I did. I know my mid-20s were an intensely lonely period for me and I could observe that they were similarly lonely for my friends. Your friends from college start to drop off and your friends from high school have mostly all gone their own ways, you’re struggling to get a career and a life going and it’s rarely easy. I wanted to explore that, but I also wanted Jett to find her place in the world, to open her heart and stop resisting just because her world no longer looked exactly like the one she knew.

Mixed tapes, vinyl, Boyfriend Boxes—nostalgia is the name of the game here. In your opinion, what’s good nostalgia vs. bad?
Bad nostalgia is anything that keeps you from growing and moving forward. “Oh, I can’t listen to that band because my ex liked that band.” That’s dumb. Get out and enjoy your life and don’t let the past drag you down. Good nostalgia is being able to appreciate what you loved, even if it doesn’t suit you now. I found a bunch of mix CDs I burned in college and was live-Tweeting the horrors to amuse my followers—I’m talking Hootie and the Blowfish, “Sex and Candy,” all sorts of really terribly dumb late-’90s radio garbage. I could admit that I still like “Only Wanna Be With You” and I could laugh at the fact that for whatever reason, I thought I would want to listen to OMC’s “How Bizarre” for the rest of my life. That’s good nostalgia.

Is there anything close to making a mixed tape in the current climate of dating and love?
No, so I still make mix CDs for people I have great affection for. Spotify playlists just won’t do the job. Because it’s not just about the CD—it’s the cover art, the physical arrival of the object, whether you pull it from a purse or a jacket pocket or they come home from work and find it in the mail. Nothing is ever going to replace that thrill.

Will we see more of Jett? What are you working on now?
I’m working on a standalone and some short stories right now, but I hope to bring her out to play again. I loved writing for her, I love her neighborhood and her friends and most of all, Jett herself.

Is there a song to sum up this interview?
“Private Life” by Oingo Boingo.

“Is this book personal? Yes, but it’s a universal sort of personal. Everyone has had their heart broken. Everyone has relationship regrets. It’s not about sampling from my life—it’s about reaching into the universal experience and sampling from that.”

Fiction, Suspense

Fiction Suspense

Roy Neel

Interview by Lynn Green

by Lynn Green

As a longtime political advisor, Roy Neel has had an excellent vantage point for observing the personalties, fallacies and weak spots in our election process. Neel grew up near Nashville, and after a stint as a sportswriter, joined the congressional staff of then-U.S. Rep Al Gore. He served as Gore’s vice presidential chief of staff and later as deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. Neel also directed Gore’s presidential transition team in 2000 and managed Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004.

Though he contemplated turning his observations into a nonfiction account of the political process, Neel instead turned to fiction to craft a gripping look at what might happen if nefarious forces tried to subvert a presidential election. In his political thriller, The Electors, the weak spot in the system is the electoral college, a little understood body that wields decisive power in a close election.

Neel’s novel is packed with realistic (and sometimes hilarious) characters, from a profane, Spanx-wearing president to harried political staffers, pushy reporters and clueless congressmen. His timely and frightening portrayal of the “ticking time bomb” in our democracy will be an absorbing read for political watchers, news junkies—and readers of all stripes who appreciate fast-paced suspense.

We contacted Neel to ask him about The Electors, his favorite political novels and his views on the current campaign season.

You’ve had a long and eventful career in politics. Why did you decide to try your hand at fiction? Was writing a suspense novel a longtime dream for you?
This book was a long time coming. I grew up around writers and educators and book people and journalists and thought about writing fiction for many years. But you've got to have a compelling story to tell. The 2000 presidential election triggered that story for me.

Your novel offers a chilling look at a presidential election process gone horribly wrong. How realistic is the scenario in the book? Could it really happen?
The Electors began as a nonfiction book about presidential transitions, but it became clear to me that the real fun would be in telling a story that was sensationally possible, in fact could happen, under the right circumstances. This election season has brought that possibility much closer to reality.

The growing threat of domestic terrorism, the grotesque amount of undocumented money flowing into elections, combined with extreme partisanship and a willingness to break the rules—all lead me to believe that the time is right for a massive electoral scandal.

The book’s description of a nuclear blast in Washington, D.C., and its radioactive aftermath seem frighteningly real. How did you research the details?
I came across a disturbing New Yorker article from 2007 by Steve Coll, who wrote of the alarming amount of unguarded, highly radioactive material floating around the world, and the ease with which it could be made into a dirty bomb. That lead me toward a lot of equally frightening information that suggests it's only a matter of when, not if, we experience a deadly radioactive explosion. There are certainly a lot of dangerous people willing to make it happen.

Which character was the most fun to write?
I love all these characters. They jumped onto the page for me and grew into real people with motives good and bad. I'm especially drawn to Virginia Sullivan, an aging, unwell elector who has given much of her life to getting people elected, with little gratitude and respect in return. Politics is full of these decent, unappreciated folks.

We have to ask: Have you known any real-life male politicians who wear Spanx?
Maybe not Spanx, but girdles to hide those middle-age rolls? Yes, definitely.

Are the electors the villains of this story? Or the pawns?
They each have different motives for their actions. But it's the bizarre way our Constitution dictates how our presidents are elected that creates the possibility for electoral scandal. You create an opening for cataclysmic political mischief and someone is going to drive through it. In The Electors, a brutally effective White House Chief of Staff seizes that opportunity.

What’s the most valuable advice you’ve gotten about writing fiction?
Keep the story moving. Avoid indulgent side stories. Write characters and dialogue that is authentic. Don't try to be funny when you're not. Avoid writing about sex—it almost never works. I hope I've succeeded on three of the five tips.

What are your favorite political novels?
All the Kings Men, of course. Catch-22, Advice and Consent, Animal House. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. And, by the way, the BBC trilogy of "House of Cards.” Ian Richardson's portrayal of a ruthless, ambitious MP clawing his way up to Prime Minister is priceless.

You’ve been described by the New York Times as “the ultimate Washington insider.” What’s the biggest misconception that outsiders (members of the general public) have about the political process?
I think that characterization is badly dated. I now consider myself an "informed" outsider.

One voter's political misconceptions become a candidate's opportunity. And voters have a right to be disappointed in their elected leaders—just look at this Congress and its refusal to deal with any important issue. There is so little statesmanship, so much cowardice.

We want to believe that a president can fix our problems. But even a president elected with a mandate has very limited tools to deal with big national challenges. Especially when, as we've seen with Obama, the opposition is hell bent to destroy you no matter how reasonable your efforts.

What has surprised and/or scared you the most about this year’s raucous presidential race?
The idea held by millions of primary voters that a stupendously unqualified demagogue, the leading Republican presidential candidate, can "make America great again." The fact is, the country is pretty great as it is.

Do you personally favor abolishing the electoral college?
Absolutely. The result of the 2000 election is evidence enough that the Electoral College can produce disastrous outcomes. The Electoral College is fundamentally anti-democratic and represents a ticking time bomb that may in fact be detonated this November.

This timely and frightening fictional portrayal of the “ticking time bomb” in our democracy from a former political staffer is an absorbing read for readers of all stripes who appreciate fast-paced suspense.

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

Laura Lippman: Read what you love, with heightened awareness

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

You’ve cited To Kill a Mockingbird as inspiration for this novel, but you began writing it before Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman came out. How did Lee’s “found” manuscript affect how you felt about this book? How do you think it will affect future Harper Lee-inspired novels?
My book was well under way when the discovery of Watchman was announced, so I shrugged and said to myself, “Keep going.” I don’t think Watchman is a game-changer for anyone who wants to revisit Mockingbird. In fact, I think it gives people more license to rethink the book.

What was the process of writing this novel and building the contrast between attitudes in past and present? Did the 1980s narrative come first, or did you initially place yourself in present-day Lu’s world?
When I’m playing with time, I usually dabble in both the past and present to get a feel for what’s going on, then opt for a straight-forward chronological approach. So the sections about the past were written first, then I followed the events of 2015. But I had a pretty clear idea of what was going on in 2015.

What do you admire most about Lu?
Her loyalty to her family.

What was most personal about this novel for you? What was the furthest away from yourself?
Lu’s decision to follow her father, professionally, and her desire to protect him and his reputation—that was very personal for me. Her extracurricular life, if you will, is not something I would do.

What mysteries and thrillers do you think everyone must read?
People should read what they love. That said, I wish people would read with a heightened awareness of sexism and racism.

What do you love most about writing thrillers?
I love being engaged in a form of writing that can work on so many levels. The best, best thrillers—bear in mind, I’m not saying I write them—should be able to entertain the person just trying to survive a plane ride, but also engage a person looking for something more serious. They are layered, capable of being many things to many readers.

What’s next?
A novel set in the pre-internet year of 1995, when disappearing was a little bit easier.

Author photo credit Lesley Unruh.

It’s Private Eye July at BookPage! All month long, we’re celebrating the sinister side of fiction with the year’s best mysteries and thrillers. Look for the Private Eye July magnifying glass for a daily dose of murder, espionage and all those creepy neighbors with even creepier secrets.

We spoke with former reporter (and ever-humble) Laura Lippman about her latest crime novel, Wilde Lake, a profound and beautifully written tale of guilty legacies and family loyalties.

Mystery & Suspense, Thriller

Mystery & Suspense Thriller

Gina Wohlsdorf

Interview by Jay MacDonald

by Jay MacDonald

Debut thrillers tend to fall into two categories: the perfectly plotted handshake that introduces us to the promise of a series to follow and, very rarely, the unexpected high dive that turns convention on its head, dazzling us with its sheer audacity.

Count Gina Wohlsdorf’s Security among the high-board thrillers, both for its narrative daring and successful weaving of horror, humor and Fifty Shades of Grey hotness into one unforgettable reading experience.

We enter the luxurious 20-story Manderley Resort in Santa Barbara less than 24 hours before its grand opening. Tessa, the general manager, rides roughshod over housekeeping, front desk and food & bev on the lower 19. The 20th floor remains off-limits to all but the resort’s elite security team, which monitors a state-of-the-art security system specifically designed to protect the world’s one-percenters.

But behind this behind-the-scenes, pre-grand opening frenzy lurks a masked killer who is systematically retiring the help, one by one, in gruesome ways.

Why the carnage? And who’s narrating this grim tale? Wohlsdorf offers clues in the chapter headings, which simply consist of security camera numbers. Then, less than 20 pages in, she doubles the intrigue by splitting the descriptive narrative briefly into two columns. Then three. Then four.

Wohlsdorf breaks into laughter when I admit my first reaction was, “Oh God, no!”

“Yeah, this could go so wrong!” she admits during a call to her home in Denver. “I was aware that it was a really, really sensitive device, and I didn’t want it to come across like a device. Whenever the head of security was seeing two or three things at once, I split the page. But I was aware of it as an instrument to sometimes get something across thematically, like splitting the page between a very graphic sex scene and also a staff member’s flight—this duality of sex and death, which is classic to the slasher genre.”

And she would know. Growing up in Bismarck, North Dakota, Wohlsdorf dealt with her own preadolescent anxiety by immersing herself in the big-screen mayhem of such cinema slashers as Halloween’s Michael Myers, Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees and Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger. Little did she realize that life would soon nudge her into exploring horror from a whole new perspective: her own.

“When I was 13, I got hit by a car going a good 30 miles per hour; it whacked me into the gutter and broke my upper arm clean in half. I looked up from the gutter and just started screaming, and people came to help,” she recalls. “As I was lying there, I suddenly realized: This is what you’ve been afraid of your whole life. You might die here, but you’re OK; it’s a beautiful day, the sun is out, birds are singing and that’s awesome. Lying in the gutter, I realized, you know, it’s really ridiculous how much time you’ve wasted being scared when this is it—you’re here and you’re fine.”

Several years later, she took her first stab at writing a slasher novel.

“I loved Stephen King, read everything by Stephen King and loved reading horror, but there was no ‘slasher’ novel,” she says. “So I sat down and tried to write one, and I was like, ‘Well, that’s why; that’s awful!’ It didn’t work at all. It just read wretchedly, and I kind of gave up.”

“As a kid, I was always wondering what Michael Myers was doing when he wasn’t on screen. Does he snack? Does he make phone calls or do laundry?”

To her surprise, her page and screen influences—including the Daphne du Maurier classic Rebecca (set in part in the Cornish estate of Manderley) and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (with its creepy deserted hotel)—combined to inspire a new horror novel idea. But where to set it?

“I’m notoriously spatially challenged; you turn me in a circle and I get lost, even in places that I’m very, very familiar with,” Wohlsdorf admits. “So when I had the initial idea for Security, I sat down and drew a very simple schematic of the hotel. I knew there were 20 floors and an external pool and a glass cover. So I had a really good grasp of the grounds.”

She knew from experience that her killer would have to be three-dimensional to carry off such a locked-room mystery. She fashioned hers after one of her screen favorites.

“As a kid, I was always wondering what Michael Myers was doing when he wasn’t on screen. Does he snack? Does he make phone calls or do laundry?” she says. “So in my book, the killer is kind of the most human character, because you see him do all of those things. He’s human; he makes mistakes and he’s funny. He drags a liver along the floor like a tin can. Come on, that’s funny! You almost like him. You almost want to hang out.”

Recent public concerns over privacy and security, including Fox Sports reporter Erin Andrews’ hotel stalking lawsuit, provide the powerful subtext that drives Security. And once again, Wohlsdorf’s personal experience helped bring the security fears to life.

“I had this boss I once worked for who was bugging her breakroom. And we tested it, as workers will, and it was very strange to know that she could be listening at any time to our conversations, which she did quite often,” Wohlsdorf recalls. “Why would she need that? I’m sure that her rationalization was, that’s when you’re safe, when you just know everything that goes on. But that’s also when you’re so vulnerable, because that’s when your megalomania can really hobble your relationships. You see that in Security as well.”

For Wohlsdorf, whose works-in-progress include a father-daughter thriller and a “zombie romance,” facing some of life’s darkest fears has opened up more than just literary possibilities. “It’s life possibilities, too,” she says. “Writing’s scary, and trying to make a living is akin to suicide! Being fearless helps a lot.”

This article was originally published in the July 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

Gregg Hurwitz strikes a delicate balance between intimacy and perfection

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

What was your inspiration for the Orphan Program?
I have a great Roladex filled with guys who have operated in all sorts of fields under all sorts of cover. I’ve built up enough trust for them to talk to me on and off the record. I never know where the germ of an idea will come from—sometimes while talking to them over a beer, sometimes from an article I might stumble over. A lot of times they’ve discussed different black operations or programs they’ve been involved in. When I struck on the idea of the Orphan Program—a deep-black government program that pulls kids from foster homes and trains them up to be assassins—I used my contacts to make sure that the training, infrastructure and process felt genuine.

“I didn’t want anything to feel like bullshit Hollywood training, where Evan was running around catching flies with chopsticks.”

Smoak has some good reasons to be paranoid. Does researching for a character like this up your own paranoia? (Are you building a panic room?)
Yeah, sometimes you stumble into some creepy stuff on the web that you can’t unsee. I went down a black hole researching ISIS at one point and it got pretty sketchy. But there’s a lot of cool stuff, too. The idea for ingested GPS nanochips in Orphan X came from an article I read about a medical product that doctors use to track insulin levels in diabetic patients. I thought: Wouldn’t that be cool if Evan used it instead as a secret GPS transmitter?

My favorite research though is out in the field. I didn’t want anything to feel like bullshit Hollywood training, where Evan was running around catching flies with chopsticks. So once I had a handle on who he was, I spent months doing research. I went to Vegas to visit one of my consultants, a world-renowed sniper and armorer, who got me onto every gun I write about, from Benelli combat shotguns to custom 1911 pistols. I trained—badly—in mixed martial arts, familiarizing my face with the training mat. I talked to guys who led operations that you’ve seen on CNN, who have gone into hostile territory, under deep cover, or played offense in some of the most dangerous theaters in the world. I’d say that now and then, depending on who I’m talking to and how deep the conversation goes, topics come up that pull back the veil on what we view as ordinary life, and that can have me looking over my shoulder a bit.

Talk of an Orphan X movie began almost immediately, with plans for Bradley Cooper to produce and possibly play the character of Smoak. Does this affect your vision of the character in any way?
It sounds odd to say, but it really doesn’t. I chose to submit the manuscript exclusively to Bradley Cooper because I thought he was the perfect actor to play Evan Smoak. But until the moment I pow-wowed with my film agents about how we were going to approach the film rights, I didn’t put an actor’s face to Evan. I saw him as I do in my head. Even after working on the adaptation, that’s still the only way I see him.

What was most personal about this novel for you? What was the furthest away from yourself?
The key line in the book for me is when Jack (Evan’s handler) tells him, “The hard part isn’t making you a killer. The hard part is keeping you human.” And I think what hits closest to home for me is Evan’s struggle between intimacy and perfection. It’s very difficult to have both. But even in the face of being a perfectionist, Evan strives for human contact. That’s the heart of what I connected with when I found this character—the conflict deep within Evan. Because everybody, no matter how tough, no matter what training they’ve received, has a need for human relationships in the real world. And one thing we never get to see? Is James Bond going home. Or Jason Bourne having an awkward moment with a single mom in the elevator of his condo. What would that really be like? What’s personal about that for me is that I struggle sometimes coming out of my work life and the fictional world that I’m creating (and can control) into the real world with all its messy and wonderful complications.

The furthest away from me is probably 1. That I’m not a top-tier assassin (sad-face emoticon). And 2. That Evan’s drink of drinks is vodka. And for me? Bourbon wins every time.

What mysteries and thrillers do you think everyone must read?
So many. Red Dragon, Mystic River, Motherless Brooklyn, Demolition Angel, Trust Me, The End of Everything, Blood Work, Manhattan Nocturne, Laguna Heat, The Genius, Case Histories. . . . I could keep going forever.

What do you love most about writing thrillers?
I love when I’m all the way inside an exciting sequence and the world and time cease to exist.

What’s next?
The next Evan Smoak book, The Nowhere Man, comes out in January. And The Book of Henry, from an original screenplay I wrote, comes out this year from Focus/Universal.

Author photo credit Nancy Rose.

The latest thriller from critically acclaimed author and screenwriter Gregg Hurwitz introduces Evan Smoak, the “Nowhere Man” who was trained as an assassin from an early age in the secretive Orphan Program. We spoke with Hurwitz about Orphan X, the first in a new series.