What I’ve learned from the Masters of Suspense

'Duns's terrific debut will draw inevitable comparisons to early John le Carré, though the lead character, turncoat British Secret Service agent Paul Dark, is a complete original... Seldom has a thriller plot taken more unseen turns as Paul searches for the truth about his past and the reality of his present. Readers will eagerly await the sequel.'
***- Publishers Weekly, starred review of FREE AGENT



HANK: Just back from the sensational (in a good way!) Thrillerfest, (photos to come) where we learned about suspense and villains and plotting and tension. Where I gave a seminar on the secret scoop on TV techniques, and Hallie's panel gave the inside scoop on bad guys. We all got too many new books--can there be such a thing? And met some wonderful people.


So it's perfect to have a master of the thriller genre visiting JRW today. His Free Agent is the first in a trilogy set in the Cold War.(How much fun would it be to be compared to John LeCarre?) Jeremy's here to give the scoop about the authors he sees as the masters. (The UK cover is below.) Afterward--we want to know your favorite thrillers!







JEREMY: For a lot of people, the phrase ‘master of suspense’ immediately brings to mind the film director Alfred Hitchcock. Perhaps more than anyone else, Hitchcock has brought suspense into the cultural and critical fold. Many people instantly grasp the idea that he was not simply in the business of creating entertaining films, but was exploring the human condition: that he used suspense to tap into our greatest fears, and to comment on societal taboos, questions of identity and so on.


However, as soon as this argument is applied to books, other rules – or perceptions – often seem to come into play. Many people who understand and appreciate Hitchcock’s use of suspense view suspense novels as incapable of saying anything interesting or significant about life, at best providing a quick thrill.

Is it simply that Hitchcock handled suspense better than any novelist? I don’t believe so. Don’t get me wrong – I love Hitch. But today I’d like to look at three writers who have inspired me, and who I think are just as worthy of the description ‘masters of suspense’.

The Austrian writer Johannes-Mario Simmel was hugely popular in his day – it is thought that 70 million copies of his books were sold worldwide. In the 1970s, several novels he had written in the ’50s and ’60s were published in English translation, with covers that usually featured a spool of barbed wire and a swastika, and titles that recalled the work of Robert Ludlum: The Caesar Code, The Berlin Connection, The Cain Conspiracy...

But ignore the unpromising packaging: these are gripping thrillers coupled with profound psychological insight. There are a few commonalities: there is often a public figure trying to protect a horrifying secret, and a character who commits a crime for love. Many are set in Fifties Vienna or Berlin, and the Cold War atmosphere is palpable: Double Agent-Triple Cross opens with an attempt to smuggle people out of East Berlin via a tunnel.

But above all, these are great suspense novels. My favourites are The Cain Conspiracy, which opens with a man overhearing his brother hiring someone to assassinate him, and The Berlin Connection, which starts with the line: ‘I can remember the moment even now when I died for the first time.’ The narrator of the latter novel is a former Hollywood child star in his mid-thirties making his comeback in a film called Comeback, which is of course about a former Hollywood child star in his mid-thirties making his comeback in a film called Comeback. He has to finish the film because he desperately needs the financial security to divorce his rich wife. And he has to divorce her soon, because she’s on the verge of discovering that he’s having an affair with her daughter, which is illegal in some states (and would ruin his film career). He’s also an alcoholic with a heart condition who can’t act, so the picture’s under threat. Oh, and he’s hiding a secret from the war. You won’t be able to sit still.

My second ‘master of suspense’ is someone whose name I’m not even sure about. The two novels of his I own are credited to ‘Julyan Semyonov’ and ‘Julian Semenov’, but it appears his real name was ‘Yulian Landres’ (or the equivalent in Cyrillic). Most Western readers have never heard of Landres, but he was a giant in the Soviet Union: his 1968 novel Seventeen Moments of Spring (also translated under the title The Himmler Ploy) was a massive best-seller. The TV adaptation was even more successful, making the protagonist an icon in the Soviet Union. Jokes are still told about him to this day, and repeat runs of the series reportedly see a significant drop in crime rates in Moscow, as everyone is indoors watching it.

Set in the final weeks of World War Two, our hero is Nazi officer Max Otto von Stirlitz – who is soon revealed to be a deep-cover Soviet agent, Colonel Maksim Maksimovich Isaev. Both the novel and TV series build the suspense very slowly, with Stirlitz/Isaev looking to uncover which leading Nazi is involved in trying to broker a separate peace deal with the United States while avoiding exposure from the same men. It’s one of the tautest spy thrillers I’ve read.

My final master of suspense is a British writer, Elleston Trevor. Perhaps best known for his novel Flight Of The Phoenix - filmed in 1965 with James Stewart - he also wrote 19 superb suspense thrillers under the name Adam Hall. Featuring a neurotic and battle-scarred British secret agent called Quiller (the first was filmed as The Quiller Memorandum in the Sixties), the series combined an esoteric knowledge of everything from sleep deprivation to martial arts with sweat-soaked action. Like Simmel and to a lesser degree Landres, Trevor was very fond of cliff-hangers, which he built up with successive chapters until it's almost unbearable. Told in the first person, we follow Quiller as he is chased by dogs, grips the underside of trains and enters darkened hotel rooms. But unlike in a film, here we are inside Quiller’s head, and so we experience every last moment of anxiety. My favourites in the series are The Ninth Directive, which revolves around an assassination plot in Bangkok, and The Tango Briefing, in which Quiller must reach a crashed cargo plane in the Sahara before anyone else.

All three of these writers understood the power of suspense, and used it to explore themes close to their hearts: Simmel the post-war environment of Austria and Germany; Landres duty and patriotism; and Trevor the survival instinct. Each of them had his work filmed, and often to great effect. I suspect if Hitchcock had tackled them the results might have been even more impressive – and that their work would be seen in a somewhat different light.


HANK: Thanks, Jeremy! Of course, now my TBR pile is destined to get even higher. So, JRWs, what's your favorite thriller? In books and even movies? Mine is absolutely Day of the Jackal. (And also the movie,the real one, with Edward Fox.)

Oh, and Eye of the Needle. (Book and movie!)


How about you?


*(Oh, PS, Congratulations to FO JRW Alexandra Sokoloff for winning the Thrillerfest award for best short story! And the incomparable Jeffrey Deaver and Tom Rob Smith for book honors.)


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Jeremy Duns lives in Stockholm, Sweden with his wife and children. His debut spy novel Free Agent is out now from Viking in the United States, and Simon and Schuster in the UK and Canada. See http://www.jeremyduns.com/ for more. (Photo credit Jose Figueroa)

ON SURPRISE ENDINGS

“Compton’s debut is a taut, tense cautionary tale complete with courtroom drama and a surprise ending.”

-Kirkus (starred review)

Her first book. A starred review. What one reviewer called a "searing" novel about an up and coming attorney--who makes one wrong decision--and it's a big one. He becomes obsessed with a colleague. And Jenny's not his wife. What should have been a one-time fling turns disastrous-- when Jenny is accused of the murder of one of her clients, and Jack is her only alibi. Now Jack’s in the painful and precarious position of being trapped between saving a friend and protecting his family.

(cue scary music)

Julie Compton was a huge hit at Thrillerfest..and now that she's back home, she's taking a moment from Mom duties to tell us about thinking in the shower and writing like a man.

HANK: You're a lawyer--have you always wanted to write mysteries? Do you remember when the idea for Tell No Lies came to you? If you can tell us your kind of eureka moment without giving away the ending--what was it?

JULIE:

When I first began to write the novel that eventually became Tell No Lies, I didn't intend to write a mystery or a legal thriller. At the time I wrote the first scene, I had no idea what the novel would be "about." I didn't even know whether I was starting a novel or a short story; I merely had a scene in my head of two characters arguing about the death penalty over lunch.

Those two characters eventually became Jack, my main character, and Jenny, the object of his obsession.

The idea for the larger story came only after I'd run across two news stories. One involved unethical behavior by a politician (imagine that!) and it got me to thinking, as so many of those stories do: Why would he do that? Why would he risk everything? I believe most people are good -- even those who do "bad" things -- and I wanted to explore how and why a good person ends up doing something so out of character.

The second news story involved a young man accused of a crime, and despite the mounting evidence against him, his mother continued to insist he was innocent. She was in complete denial. It was another aspect of human nature I found interesting and wanted to explore.

Interestingly enough, I heard the first news story on my shower radio while taking a shower! I started formulating an idea for the novel right then and there, and as soon as I dried off, I ran down to my office and wrote the idea in a stream of consciousness narrative so I wouldn't forget it. If you were to look at that "summary" today, however, it barely resembles the finished product.

HANK: Your main character is a man. Did you have to reset your brain to write from a male point of view? How?

JULIE: I didn't even realize my tendency to write from the male point of view until someone pointed it out to me! But it's absolutely true. Almost everything I've written and finished has been written from the male point of view. The few times I've tried to write something from the female point of view, I've run out of steam. For whatever reason, I hit a wall or became bored with my story, and I stopped in the middle.

The easy explanation,I think, is that I grew up with five older brothers. I spent a lot of time around boys! But in general, I just find it more fun to write about men. Men seem to keep a lot inside and that makes it much more interesting to write from the male point of view. What they say on the outside (their dialogue) may be completely different from what they're thinking on the inside (the narrative). It becomes more of a challenge to the writer, I think.

HANK: Are you still working as a lawyer? How do you juggle your lawyer/mom/writing time?

JULIE: No, I no longer actively practice, though I volunteer as a guardian ad litem for abused and neglected children. I'm not a lawyer in those cases, but it keeps me in the courtroom and I feel like I'm able to make a positive difference in the world, however small.Juggling my roles as a mom and a writer is a bit easier now because my girls are older. When I wrote Tell No Lies, my older daughter was in elementary school and the younger was in preschool, so I wrote when they were at school.

I do remember days, though, when they'd come home and I'd be in the middle of a scene and not want to stop writing. I'd encourage them to invite friends over, because although the house would then be crowded and loud, they would keep themselves busy playing and didn't care that I was still writing. I could see right into their playroom from my office, so I was able to keep an eye on them even as I wrote.

I returned to the practice of law for a few years after I had the first draft completed, and it took me a long time to edit because I simply didn't have the same amount of time to devote to my writing. I'm one of those people who require eight hours of sleep a night. I admire writers who hold another full-time job and still have the energy to spend their evenings writing. They must have incredible stamina! When we moved to Florida and I had the opportunity to stay home with my girls again, I jumped. I enjoyed being there when they returned from school, and I missed the long days of writing.

HANK: There's a lot of chat about the "surprise ending"--comparing your book with Presumed Innocent. (Nice!) Do you wish people would stop talking about the ending?

JULIE: Not at all! I love that they talk about it! The only downside is that now I feel compelled to have another surprise at the end of my next novel. My editor laughed when I told her this and said that I'll drive myself crazy if I put that kind of pressure on myself.

HANK: So you're working on a new book now? How does it end? (Kidding.)

JULIE: I finished my second novel and recently received the feedback from my editors, so I'm gearing up to work on the revisions. It's the story of a biker guy (there's that male point of view again!) whose girlfriend is mysteriously taken from him without so much as a goodbye. In his quest to find her and literally save her life, he ends up figuratively saving his own.

HANK: And finally, the Jungle Red Quiz!

Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot?
Poirot. It's the French accent. (Though I guess he was actually Belgian, right?)

Sex or violence?
Sex, without a doubt. I'm one of those parents who don't quite get the other parents who have no trouble with their kids seeing whatever level of violence, blood and gore -- whether in games, on the screen, books, etc. -- yet cover their child's eyes if they happen to see a picture of a naked woman. What's that all about??

Pizza or chocolate?
Hmm, that's a tough one. Pizza, but only if it's Imo's Pizza in St. Louis.

Daniel Craig or Pierce Brosnan? (We won't even include Sean Connery because we know the answer. Don't we?)
You're killing me here, Hank! Can I take Pierce's face and Daniel's body?

Katherine Hepburn or Audrey Hepburn?
Katherine, hands down.

First person or Third Person?
Third.

Prologue or no prologue?Depends on the type of book one is writing, but if I have to choose, I'd say no prologue.

Your favorite non-mystery book?
I don't know that I can name just one, but the book I'm telling everyone about right now is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Simply amazing.

Making dinner or making reservations?Making reservations. I'm a huge foodie, as long as someone else is the chef.

And now, of course, for your readers: The Jungle Red Quiz:

Tell us four things about you that no one knows. Only three can be true. We'll guess

1. My house was once demolished by a tornado.
2. I'm a pilot.
3. I can play the saxophone.
4. Our family's menagerie of animals includes a dog, three cats, two turtles, two rats, a bird and an alligator who sits on our driveway.

Thanks Julie! I'm guessing: saxophone.

(HANK: Here's what I wonder, though, shouldn't every mystery have a "surprise" ending? I mean, if it doesn't, hasn't the author failed? I guess some are just more surprise-y than others, right? I mean--Presumed Innocent, yeah. That was a surprise. Roger Ackroyd, of course. And the movie the Sixth Sense. What makes them good? Is it--they they're fair? A surprise ending that's stupid is certainly a surprise--but not one you'd want.)

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Though Julie Compton was born, raised, and educated in St. Louis, MO (the setting for Tell No Lies), she's had the pleasure of bouncing around the country for more than a decade with her husband Rick and daughters Jessie and Sally. After leaving St. Louis, she spent a few years in Boston and even more in Philly before her family settled finally in Florida. She's practiced law along the way, including a stint with the U.S. Trustee's Office in Wilmington, Delaware (part of the U.S. Department of Justice), but now she gets to pop out of bed in the morning to do something much more fun: write.

Visit Julie at http://www.julie-compton.com