After the soaring critical and commercial success of her first novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, it took Marisha Pessl quite a while to settle into the creation of her moody, boldly ambitious new novel Night Film.

No, it wasn’t anxiety about the so-called sophomore jinx, Pessl says during a call to her writing studio. On the phone, Pessl is friendly, even buoyant, laughing frequently, in contrast to the brooding atmosphere of her new novel. “I had taken time off because I was traveling a lot, and it took some time to get back into that limber, almost athletic, writer’s mentality,” she says. Pessl, who is 35, also got divorced and, after “a long 10 years downtown,” moved to a quiet, tree-lined street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

The disruption and delay, she now thinks, were essential to the psychological underpinnings of Night Film. “So much time had gone by since I had written Special Topics that in a sense I had no memory of how I had done it,” says Pessl, who grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, and wrote her first novel in 2004 while working as a financial consultant. Special Topics in Calamity Physics earned her a reported $500,000 deal with Viking, became a bestseller when it was published in 2006 and created a stir in literary circles.

“I had plotted Special Topics in a very detailed way, but with Night Film [I decided] to leave things to the subconscious rather than stage-manage everything,” she says. “Setting out on this really uncertain, dark journey, as terrifying as that was, helped me get to a total feeling of dislocation, which I hope parallels Scott’s experience.”

Scott McGrath is the novel’s central character. As the book opens, his life is in disarray. Once a prominent investigative journalist, his career has very publicly crashed and burned after he made outrageous accusations and a not-so-veiled threat against the elusive cult filmmaker Stanislas Cordova. As a result, his wife has left him in a bitter divorce, taking with her McGrath’s beloved daughter, Sam. Not long after, McGrath learns that Cordova’s 24-year-old daughter Ashley has been found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. McGrath sets out to solve the mystery of Ashley’s death, but ends up on a risky and very different sort of journey in pursuit of an entirely different magnitude of truth.

Pessl created a body of work for her fictional director, including the plots and casts of his 15 films.

“I love the conceit of a mystery,” Pessl says. “There’s something about that journey that we take when we try to get to the bottom of something that is so fulfilling. It’s that sense of being a truth seeker. I love being a seeker, an adventurer, always asking the question that no one wants to ask, looking behind the curtain when everyone tells me to stop. That’s just my nature. I have this instinctual curiosity about people and events and my environment. And for Night Film, working within that enigma, I wanted to create a dark journey that kept getting darker and darker, where the characters lost all sense of the real world.”

While Scott McGrath is the main seeker and central character of the novel, Stanislas Cordova is the reclusive, artistically driven, magnetizing mystery-figure of the book. He is a sort of black hole with great gravitational pull on each of the characters, but he never actually appears in the action of the story.

“I started conceiving Cordova after I watched a ‘60 Minutes’ interview with Mark Zuckerberg,” Pessl recalls. “He was talking about Facebook and the idea of total world transparency. I remember thinking to myself, why is that necessarily a good thing? There’s nothing wrong with hidden recesses. There’s nothing wrong with those sides of ourselves we will only reveal in a dark room. Total transparency is actually ridding human beings of the multifaceted nature of ourselves.

“I think of Cordova’s work as being compelling because his art gives people the opportunity to have the opposite of transparency—to be opaque, to be unknown, to be inexplicable, to be strange, quote-unquote, to be outside the norm. I liked the idea of creating a pop culture figure who was shadowy and who let people explore their darker selves.”

In one of the most riveting sections of the novel, McGrath and his compatriots—an aspiring actress named Nora and a slacker named Hopper, each with their own reasons for seeking the truth about Ashley’s death—sneak onto the grounds of The Peak, Cordova’s massive estate in the mountains north of New York. McGrath becomes separated from the others and is soon blundering around in the dark, terrified, among the sets of Cordova’s psychologically disturbing cult movies.

“I know the plots of all 15 of Cordova’s films,” Pessl says, “I know many of their scenes and I cast all the characters prior to actually writing Night Film.” She adds, laughing, that her mom (her “first, right-hand reader” and lifelong literary influence) “finally said, ‘I think Random House is waiting for you to write a novel, not direct 15 films and start a movement.’ I became somewhat obsessed with Cordova’s work and with making it real.”

The boldest and most enthralling way that Pessl makes Cordova—and other aspects of the novel—real is her use of graphics. Night Film includes eerily real-looking screenshots from websites, news reports about the Cordovas, reproductions of police reports, postcards and period photographs.

Pessl conceived of the novel’s visualizations, then worked with Kennedy Monk, a design agency in London, to bring them to life. “They were so fun. We literally cast some of the characters and made sure each illustration was shadowy enough that it wasn’t intruding upon the reader’s imagination,” she explains. “Today we learn from so many different sources, we expect to draw from a multitude of voices to form our conclusions. I wanted to have a visual archive that was very tangible for readers. I wanted to have the feeling that even though Ashley wasn’t present and even though her father wasn’t present, what they’d left in terms of imagery was so vibrant, it was as if they were there.”

While the characters and images of Night Film emerged with seeming ease and power from Pessl’s subconscious, she says she struggled with the novel’s pacing. “For me it is really easy to write internal thoughts, but it’s more difficult for me to move characters in space.” She never used to like to show her writing to anyone, except perhaps her mother, until the writing was complete. For her second novel, however, she “wanted to have a lot of eyes reading it. Even though it’s a long book, I wanted it to be a fast read. I didn’t want anything to drag, and I didn’t want anything purposeless in there.”

Pessl says she has never written from her personal point of view, and, laughing, she assures the interviewer that she comes from a close and happy family. “We don’t have any of the dark secrets I write about. But for each character and each voice, I have located those places in myself where I am very much in alignment, and I just tap into that. It’s like slipping into someone’s shoes and their overcoat and feeling like them.

“Cordova is a much more extreme character than I am, but in the past I have grappled with how much to give my art, to what extreme I can take my writing. When I am in the process of writing a novel, I become very embroiled in that world. It’s such a captivating experience that it’s easy to get lost. So some of the things that Cordova grapples with in terms of his art and his family, I have experienced in some ways, too.”

Night Film opens with a quote, supposedly from Stanislas Cordova, which begins, “Mortal fear is as crucial a thing to our lives as love.”

Asked at the end of the conversation if she subscribes to that view, Pessl says, “I do. I think we find mortal fear in different ways. But if we’re not risking anything and we’re not putting ourselves on the line, then we are not living life as fully as we can. I think it’s an underlying human thing to stay safe and comfortable. But pushing myself and being bold, and making mistakes and walking to the edge of my talent and experience to see if I can be better is how I want to live—both as a writer and as a person. The process of coming to that realization is definitely reflected in Night Film. I think fear is healthy, and uncertainty is something we should welcome. Because when we figure out what’s beyond that, we have grown.”

In a way that many of her fans, new and old, will appreciate, Pessl has grown as a novelist in Night Film.

As a surgeon, Kelly Parsons has faced many dramatic life-and-death decisions. Probably none as chilling, however, as what chief resident Steve Mitchell must face in Parsons’ suspenseful debut novel, Doing Harm.

When Steve, the brilliant, young rising star of the surgical suite, becomes a pawn in a sociopathic killer’s master plan, he must make the unthinkable decision: save himself or save his patients.

Parsons gives Steve an engagingly flawed personality. He’s a whiz kid in medicine, but he's also prone to rash decisions and poor judgment. He’s a devoted husband and father of two but nonetheless spends days away from home: He sleeps, eats and works at the hospital around the clock. It’s this multidimensional treatment of Steve—and the rest of the cast—that keeps readers guessing. Nobody is perfect, but nobody seems truly capable of plotting to kill patients in their beds either. 

Someone is, though, and they are somewhere in the halls of Boston’s University Hospital. Parsons lets us in on the nitty-gritty, behind-the-scenes hospital culture that patients rarely see. Casual operating room banter during routine procedures contrasts with highly charged emergency surgery, which Parsons makes real with authentic medical terminology that supports, rather than overpowers, the emotional impact of each scene.

Readers ride this rollercoaster of life-and-death moments along with Steve Mitchell, waiting to see what he will do to stop the killer in their midst. What would you do?

As a doctor writing about doctors, how much of your fiction do you draw from real life?

I’ve been in the medical field for over 20 years now, and much of what I’ve experienced informs specific elements of the book. The descriptions of the diseases, surgeries and complications are about as real I could make them. I also wove some of the internal politics of large, traditional teaching hospitals into the story.

Was there a particular incident that sparked the idea for Doing Harm?

No. But a central focus of Doing Harm is patient safety, a topic I’ve been interested in for many years.

"Not a day goes by without at least one of my patients teaching me something profound about illness and the human condition."

You reveal an emotionally detached, ruthlessly achievement-oriented side of medical training in Doing Harm that isn’t that far off from the psychopathic killer’s mindset. Was the parallel intentional?

A very interesting question! Yes. That’s exactly the dilemma with which the protagonist, Steve, grapples. It’s part of his moral journey. Learning how to be a doctor can be tough. Trainees must often walk a thin line between emotionally detached arrogance and the self confidence necessary to do their jobs well.   

Steve Mitchell is a flawed character—he’s brilliant yet arrogant, talented but inexperienced, and not above covering his tracks to save his own skin. Why should readers like him? Should they trust him?

Readers shouldn’t necessarily trust Steve. They certainly don’t have to like him. But what I hope they do, on some level, is relate to his dilemma. I want readers to understand why he makes the choices he makes, however flawed those choices may be. The story is essentially about Steve’s moral journey. With some help along the way, Steve finishes the book a much different individual than when he began it.

Is Doing Harm intended purely as entertainment, or is it also a commentary on modern medicine?

I mostly conceived Doing Harm as entertainment. I want readers to enjoy the ride. But while the specific circumstances of the story are pure fiction, patient safety is an important issue facing modern medicine. Bad things happen to patients every day that have nothing to do with being sick. I think the medical community has made substantial progress in recognizing and fixing these problems, but we still have a long way to go.   

How did your medical school experience prepare you for writing your first novel?

For me, medical school fostered two traits essential to writing: persistence and discipline.

Do you read medical thrillers yourself?

Not regularly. Although there are many fine medical thrillers, my tastes are very eclectic. I enjoy all types of genres and divide my time among them: contemporary fiction, literary fiction, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy and nonfiction.  

Are there any patients who have particularly touched you in your medical practice?

Not a day goes by without at least one of my patients teaching me something profound about illness and the human condition. 

What do patients do that drives you crazy?

Oftentimes, I’m frustrated not with my patients but with my inability to spend as much time with them as I would like. It’s an increasingly common complaint among doctors these days: being asked to see more patients in shorter periods of time. 

With two careers and a family, you must not have a lot of free time. What do you like to do when you do get a moment?

I love spending time with my family and friends, watching movies, exercising, and—of course—reading.

On March 8, 2011, shortly before his life took an unexpected turn, Mississippi novelist Greg Iles was stopped at an intersection, lost in creative thought as he debated what to do with his new thriller about unsolved civil rights murders—a subject that was too big for one book, or maybe even two. Most writers would consider that a great problem to have. But for Iles, being forced to choose between art and commerce always sends him into a desultory funk. In such moments, he readily admits, he should not be driving.

“I pulled onto Highway 61, and a 19-year-old girl in a pickup hit my driver’s door going 70,” Iles says. “I have no memory whatsoever. I woke up nine days later with no right leg, a torn aorta, as close to dying as you can come.”

Natchez Burning, the first installment of his incendiary new trilogy featuring former prosecutor turned Natchez Mayor Penn Cage, is the book that almost killed him. It is also, not coincidentally, the book that helped save his life.

“When you don’t know if you’re ever going to get up, you’ve got to find some way back,” Iles recalls. “There’s nothing better than realizing that you’re shepherding this narrative along, and that if you don’t do it, it’s never going to exist.”

The Natchez native credits a journalist friend with sharing the real-life cold cases that inspired Natchez Burning, in which Cage’s physician father, Dr. Tom Cage, is accused of murdering an African-​American nurse who worked beside him during the racial unrest of the 1960s. Penn Cage’s search for the truth leads him into a dark chapter in Natchez history involving a murderous offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan under the direction of some of Mississippi’s most wealthy and powerful men.

“I’m not pulling a single punch when I write this book. Life’s too short; I’m not going to play that game.”

For Iles, whose flagrant genre-hopping has embraced Gothic World War II thrillers (Spandau Phoenix), supernatural ghost stories (Sleep No More) and even apocalyptic sci-fi (The Footprints of God), this was clearly a story only the Cages could tell, even if it meant temporarily bending his own rule: no series. In each previous Penn Cage outing—The Quiet Game (2000), Turning Angel (2005) and The Devil’s Punchbowl (2009)—Iles had thought one-and-done.

But events, including his accident and the 2010 death of his father, a physician who inspired the Dr. Tom character, conspired to send the author into new territory: the “thrillogy.”

“This really came in the wake of my father dying, and then, as I got going, me being in that car wreck, which was the biggest transformative experience in my life,” he recalls. “That’s what made me say, you know what? I’m not pulling a single punch when I write this book. Life’s too short; I’m not going to play that game. I’m just going to put it down.”

He broke another longstanding vow by placing a real-life KKK offshoot called the Silver Dollar group (which he renames the Double Eagles) at the center of Natchez Burning.

“Despite being considered a Southern novelist, I have always fought off any temptation to use the Ku Klux Klan as antagonists, because in real life, by 1967-68, they were pretty much irrelevant, and had long been totally penetrated by the FBI,” he says. “But in this case, when I found out about the real-life Silver Dollar group and how that worked and how none of those murders had been solved, I realized, OK, this is the story; this really is scary stuff.”

That Iles manages to sustain the suspense in Natchez Burning for 800 pages bodes well for the trilogy’s future installments, The Bone Tree and Unwritten Laws, to be published in spring 2015 and 2016.

Simply put, this is Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County for the “Breaking Bad” generation: life’s rich pageant, delivered unharnessed and uncensored by a writer at the peak of his powers who is mad as hell, and just as heartbroken.

“I think what makes people accept this book is that so much of it is meticulously based on things that really happened, so when you get to things that might strain credulity, you think, wow, did that actually happen or is he making that up?” Iles says.

The author admits the timing of a certain popular HBO TV series may work in his favor.

“I think I’m fortunate that ‘True Detective’ came along when it did,” he says. “It’s like all of a sudden, Southern noir has gotten to where I’ve always been, which is pretty dark and pretty violent.”

Helping Iles through his long rehabilitation were his band mates in the Rock Bottom Remainders, the legendary literary rock band that includes Dave Barry, Stephen King, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow and Amy Tan. For Iles, who years ago left his post as front man for the ’80s rock band Frankly Scarlett to try his hand at prose, the Remainders are his equivalent of literary Paris in the 1920s.

“You can’t help but absorb from the people you’re around,” Iles says. “To have Scott Turow and Steve [King] in the band, guys who I had read along the way before I started writing and was so profoundly influenced by, to be able to sit on the bus or in the hotel and just talk to those guys is just unbelievable.”

Iles, now 53, shares a special bond with King, who survived his own near-death experience at a similar age in 1999 when he was struck by a van while walking near his home in Maine.

“Steve and I talked about it during our gig last fall in Miami,” he recalls. “I told him about wondering, what am I going to do with one leg? And how I realized, man, I’m the luckiest SOB in the world because I don’t dig ditches anymore; I write books, and I don’t need my leg! I know Steve wrote at least one book out of his own agony. But I’m good now. I’m walking erect. And as Steve said in The Shawshank Redemption: ‘Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’, man.’”

This article was originally published in the May 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In Susan Crawford’s debut psychological thriller, a woman with bipolar disorder spirals in a manic episode as she struggles to determine whether or not she murdered her neighbor.

In a quiet New Jersey suburb, Dana Catrell is a “Pocket Wife,” whose condescending husband has a tendency to brush her aside, such as by slipping his phone into his pocket when she calls to tell him about the murder of her neighbor, Celia Steinhauser. The problem is, Dana can only remember bits and pieces of the events leading up to Celia’s death, and as this mystery unfolds, readers discover that she has a history of struggling with mental illness. Naturally this makes things all the more difficult when she decides to solve Celia’s murder. Her investigation crosses with that of Detective Jack Moss, a troubled cop with some serious family problems of his own.

The Pocket Wife is perfect for readers who prefer crafty characterization over cheap thrills. The more Dana loses her sense of reality, the more fascinating (and witty) she becomes. Secondary characters range from unlikable to seemingly omniscient, but all will have readers begging for their secrets.

As the book opens, the concept of the “Pocket Wife” makes us pity the wife. But as the story goes on, it’s not exactly clear whether or not she qualifies as a victim. In your opinion, what exactly is a “Pocket Wife” as it applies to her?
Dana is a pocket wife on a couple of levels. Granted, her husband is the sort who sticks his cell phone in his pocket when she calls to tell him horrifying news about their neighbor, so in the literal sense this label suits her. And here Dana is not alone. Wives often feel trivialized or overlooked. Extra. On a far deeper level, though, Dana is marginalized by society. Because she is bipolar she sometimes lives outside the lines, is too blunt, sees the world through a unique lens, and her odd and unpredictable behavior marginalizes her further. Still, she does what she can to vindicate herself, to connect with people who accept her, to ferret out the truth. If Dana is a victim, she is a victim of circumstance.

What is the appeal of the unreliable narrator, for you as the writer? For the reader?
Writing from the point of view of a woman on the edge appealed to me because there were fewer boundaries. As a character losing control, Dana at times has brilliant clarity, but at other times her instability derails her thinking, so what we see through Dana’s eyes might or might not be true. Because there was less restriction on Dana, there was less restriction on me as I wrote about her, but really, I think nearly all characters are unreliable narrators. Their truths are limited by their own experiences or filters, unique or not. The difference is that Dana is very clearly not reliable, so readers will have to decide what threads are valid, which I hope will appeal to them.

Almost every single character in this book is suspicious—or at least unstable. Which is your favorite character, and why?
Dana is my favorite character, of course, because even though her life is falling apart, her mind is splintering and her freedom is dubious, she perseveres. She is brave, humorous, and she struggles to get her life on track because of the son she adores. I’m also very fond of Jack. I don’t think he’s unstable, really—just attractively flawed. And honest.

“Mental illness is so often demonized, I wanted to try to write about it from the inside out—Dana’s changing view of herself and everything around her—instead of from the outside in.”

What research did you do into bipolar disorder for this book?
I have always had an interest in psychology. I studied it extensively in college, and I try to keep up with current theories. More importantly, I have had close friends throughout my life who had bipolar disorder. I’ve seen the seductive nature of this illness—its boundless energy and highs—and I have seen its dark side, the destruction it can leave in its wake. Mental illness is so often demonized, I wanted to try to write about it from the inside out—Dana’s changing view of herself and everything around her—instead of from the outside in.

Would you make a good detective?
I think so, because detective work has a lot to do with understanding human behavior and with reading what’s below the surface, finding the truth beneath the words. Raising three daughters has also helped hone my skills in this area! I’m not especially organized, though. I’d probably need a very structured partner.

What are you working on next?
My next book takes place in Boston. A fatal late-night car crash sets lives on a collision course when the circumstances of the accident are called into question by a zealous insurance investigator. Was the crash an accident, a suicide or a murder? Told in first person by the dead man’s widow and his girlfriend, the story exposes lies, deceit and misdirection as the two women struggle with lives upended by the death of a man who loved them both.

In Where They Found Her, former lawyer Kimberly McCreight tells the story of a small town that’s rocked by an unthinkable crime. We asked McCreight, who hit the bestseller list with her debut, Reconstructing Amelia, a few questions about this shocking and suspenseful second novel.

Describe Where They Found Her in one word.
Harrowing.

How did you approach writing the follow-up to an acclaimed bestseller like Reconstructing Amelia?
Each book comes with its own unique challenges and rewards, even (I can attest from experience) the ones that never see the light of day. All you can do is focus on the job at hand: telling the story in front of you to the best of your ability and hopefully in a way that incorporates a little of what you learned the last time around.

You went to law school and worked for some time as an attorney. How terrifying was it to make the switch to writer?
I was so unhappy working as an attorney that when I finally decided to quit the carpe diem thrill of it sustained me for a long time. Whatever difficulties lay ahead were offset by the comfort of being true to myself and getting the opportunity to devote my life to the work I loved.

That bliss probably lasted a whole 24 hours. Okay, maybe a little longer. But it wasn’t long before the oh-God-what-have-I-done set in. After all, I had just thrown away a successful career that I’d worked years establishing—all to chase a dream. There were real consequences, too, like our income being sliced in half with hundreds of thousands of my law school debt yet to be paid.

It wasn’t until after my third book was rejected that I began to realize just how long and bumpy the road to publication could be. That it might, in fact, never end. And after my fourth book was rejected, I did start to panic. By then, nearly a decade had elapsed and the economy was faltering. Any hope I had of dusting off my legal career had pretty much evaporated.

In the end, that probably worked in my favor. Ready to throw in the towel, but with no viable job prospects, I kept on writing the book that was to become Reconstructing Amelia. I finally did get a job offer—as head writer in the communications department of my former law school—a mere 24 hours before the book finally sold.

There were some dark years in there. To say that I feel incredibly lucky it worked out the way it did would be the understatement of the century. 

"To say that I feel incredibly lucky it worked out the way it did would be the understatement of the century."

This book is written from a couple of points of view: A grieving mom and a 17-year-old girl in crisis. What’s it like writing in multiple voices?
Extremely liberating and occasionally very tricky. My favorite part of writing is being able to live in someone else’s skin. Multiple points of view mean becoming several different “selves,” which is all the better. It also gives me the freedom to explore the narrative from several perspectives, making the process of discovery that is so integral to my writing process that much more exciting.

That said, it does take effort to keep the voices distinct while ensuring that each character’s story has a well-formed arc, internally consistent and effectively knit into the broader whole. I do most of that work in early revision, pulling each character out and developing their story separately before revising them as a unit.

Molly has had so much happen, and she still carries on—I was rooting for her! What do you like about her?
There’s so much I love about Molly, but I most admire her ability to recognize her own limitations, while simultaneously having the courage to throw herself headlong past them. She really has a core of brute strength that at the beginning of the book even she doesn’t fully realize. Plus, I think she’s an incredibly kind person.

"My favorite part of writing is being able to live in someone else’s skin."

Molly's husband, Justin, an English professor, leaves notes for his wife with quotes from writers like ee cummings and Emily Dickinson. How did you choose the quotes?
Some of the quotes were ones I was familiar with before the book and some came about as the result of research. The quotes all work on multiple levels, which I quite like.

You called Jodi Picoult your idol in a recent blog post. Which other authors are among your favorites and why?
Gillian Flynn because she’s a Jedi-master of character driven, miss-your subway-stop suspense (and yes, I twice missed F-train stops reading Gone Girl). Sue Miller because While I Was Gone’s combination of character driven story and mystery was such an inspiration, likewise for Laura Lippman’s What the Dead Know. Michael Cunningham’s The Hours and Anita Shreve’s The Weight of Water amazed me with their seamless shifting of POVs and timeframes, as did William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.

Also, I’ve been listening recently to Dan Harris’ 10% Happier on audio. I’m not done, but I’m pretty sure it already has me at least 9.5% of the way there. 

What are you working on next?
I just finished a draft of the first book in my YA trilogy The Outliers, due out from Harper Teen in Summer 2016. The books are speculative fiction set in the present, each unfolding around the tight arc of a single mystery, but centered on a much broader central question. What if women’s greater emotionality—so often deemed a sign of weakness—was, in fact, our greatest strength?  

RELATED CONTENT: Read our review of Where They Found Her.

Author photo by Beowulf Sheehan.