Meg Gardiner brings The HEAT--Heat 2!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Let me just say this. If we are picking teams for the apocalypse, I wanna be on Meg Gardiner’s team. NOT only is she the multi-super-bestselling author of however many terrific thrillers, but she was discovered by Stephen King. But wait there’s more. Past President of Mystery Writers of America. AND a multiple JEOPARDY winner. (Jeopardy!) (Read her whole bio, below. Really, do. There’s more.)

Anyway, and all that would be lovely for the apocalypse team. (Especially if there are games and time to read.)

But the reason I want Meg as my fearless leader is that she is not afraid of anything. Not anything! As is proven by her new book. Let’s just say YOU were asked to undertake the task she was offered. Would you not be terrified?

Not our Meg.

HEAT 2
    By Meg Gardiner

I’m going to tell you a secret. I’ve always wanted to write a heist novel.

I’ve written psychological thrillers. Revenge stories. Innocent-woman-on-the-run novels. Ticking clock thrillers. My UNSUB FBI profiler series.

And I have long hungered to write a big, meaty stick-up story.

Boy, did I ever get my chance.

Heat 2 is the new novel I co-wrote with legendary director Michael Mann. It’s both prequel and sequel to his epic film Heat, which starred Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, and Natalie Portman. Heat is about bank robber Neil McCauley (DeNiro) and the relentless cop who pursues him, Vincent Hanna (Pacino). It’s a cat-and-mouse story that explodes into bone-rattling action, with two protagonists on opposite sides of the law: master thief and LAPD Robbery-Homicide detective. Predator and predator. Hunter and hunter. It’s about their intense conflict but also their rapport, and—after a bank robbery turns downtown Los Angeles into a warzone—their deadly showdown.

It’s my favorite heist movie by a hundred miles.

I knew that Michael had long planned to write further stories from the Heat universe. I knew he was a brilliant and accomplished writer—he wrote the screenplays for Heat, The Insider, Manhunter, Last of the Mohicans, and Ali. He was the executive producer of Miami Vice and Crime Story. A four-time Academy Award nominee. Two-time Emmy award winner.

When he asked me to co-write Heat 2 as a novel, I threw myself at the project like a paratrooper plunging out the open door of an airplane.

Heat 2 opens one day after the end of the film, with a wounded Chris Shiherlis (Kilmer) holed up in Koreatown, half delirious and desperate to escape LA. Vincent Hanna is hunting him. Hours earlier, Hanna killed Neil McCauley—Chris’s brother in arms—under strobing lights at the foot of an LAX runway. Now Hanna is determined to capture or kill Chris, the last survivor of Neil’s crew, before he ghosts out of the city…

The action then shifts back seven years to 1988. Neil, Chris, and their highline crew are taking scores on the West Coast, the US-Mexican border, and Chicago. Hanna, a Chicago homicide detective, is hunting a gang of home invaders run by a magnetic and ruthless leader.

The fallout from McCauley’s scores and Hanna’s pursuit cause unexpected repercussions that drive through the years following Heat. In a parallel narrative, the story moves from the streets of LA to the inner sanctums of rival South American crime syndicates and international criminal enterprises in Southeast Asia.

Heat 2 introduces new characters and new worlds of high-end professional crime, and explores the dangerous workings of international criminal organizations and the risk-drenched lives of the men and women who run them.

It dives into Hanna’s life in Chicago, where, unreconciled with his history—including the loss of a marriage and the effects of his Marine Corps service in Vietnam—he’s following his calling, the pursuit of armed and dangerous men into the dark and wild places. It reveals a younger, dangerous Neil McCauley, who’s very much bonded with other people—not yet the Neil of Heat, who says, “If you’re making moves on the street, have no attachments, allow nothing to be in your life that you cannot walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner.”

It explores how Chris Shiherlis found a brother in Neil, and how he goes on without him.

And it introduces new characters who are aspiring and driven to make their way—and to remake their worlds—by embracing or rejecting the criminal life.

On film and television projects, Michael Mann famously immerses himself into the culture of his subject and gathers detailed first-hand impressions and information. He says he wants to know and feel that culture and the lives of the people in it. He thinks there’s an authenticity discoverable that resonates with audiences as real and true. For Heat, his prep included three months of training for the actors, including firearms on the LA County Sheriff’s shooting ranges with former SAS operators including Andy McNab.

Believe me, his dedication to authenticity persists and imbues this book. I’ve written more than a dozen novels, but have never done more research in my life.

We rode along with two LAPD sergeants late one night, through some of LA’s tougher streets. And we had an illuminating discussion with a retired bank robber who had plenty of wisdom to impart to a novelist who has never done more inside a bank than endorse a check.

The research was all in the service of giving power to the story. It was about immersing readers in what feels like real, lived drama. Though if you want to know about bank tunnel jobs, hit me up.

Heat 2 will of course grab the interest of the film’s fans. It is also a stand-alone thriller. A brand new story. Readers will turn to page one and find themselves immersed in a pulse-pounding novel of escape, survival, pursuit, discovery, revenge, loss, and redemption, across a vivid landscape that spans decades and continents. 

You can pick it up cold. I hope you won’t put it down.


HANK: I loved Heat. I loved it. Such a master class in character and storytelling! And wow, the acting. But to write the prequel/sequel to an icon? SO fantastic. And HEAT 2 comes out August 9!

Two things: Meg will be in THE BACK ROOM this Sunday, so you can hear more about it, and ask her questions yourself in the special Zoom breakout rooms! Register here: www.The-Back-Room.org

(And ohh.. Also on the panel are Shanora WIlliams, Rochelle Weinstein and Megan Miranda! Pretty fabulous.)

But as Meg says: did you see HEAT? Do you have a favorite heist movie? Besides HEAT, I’d pick The Thomas Crown Affair, both versions. And The Usual Suspects. And Point Break. And…let’s see, is Charade the one about the stamp?

How about you, Reds and Readers?  (And YAY Meg, right?)

ABOUT MEG GARDINER

Edgar-winning novelist Meg Gardiner writes thrillers. Fast-paced and full of twists, her books have been called “Hitchcockian” (USA Today) and “nailbiting and moving” (Guardian). They have been bestsellers in the U.S. and internationally and have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Her latest title is Heat 2, co-authored with Michael Mann. The novel is both prequel and sequel to Mann’s 1995 film Heat, with a new story that unfolds before and after the iconic movie. Booklist, in a starred review, calls the novel “Riveting . . . . The best thing about this innovative tale is the way the fully fleshed human stories support and even transcend the often-breathtaking action.”

Gardiner’s UNSUB series features FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix. UNSUB won the 2018 Barry Award for Best Thriller. The Dark Corners of the Night was bought by Amazon Studios for development as a television series.

The Evan Delaney novels feature a journalist from Santa Barbara, California. Stephen King calls them “simply put, the finest crime-suspense series I’ve come across in the last twenty years.”

China Lake won the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original. Later it was a finalist for NPR’s 100 Best Thrillers Ever.

The Jo Beckett series features a San Francisco forensic psychiatrist. The Dirty Secrets Club was chosen one of the Top Ten thrillers of 2008 by Amazon. The Nightmare Thief, featuring both Jo Beckett and Evan Delaney, won the 2012 Audie Award for Thriller/Suspense audiobook of the year.

Meg’s stand-alone novel The Shadow Tracer was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2013. Phantom Instinct was chosen one of “The Best Books of Summer” by O, the Oprah magazine.

Meg was born in Oklahoma City and raised in Santa Barbara, California. She graduated from Stanford University and Stanford Law School.

She practiced law in Los Angeles and taught in the Writing Program at the University of California Santa Barbara.

In addition to her novels, Meg has published short stories in American and British magazines and the anthologies Echoes of Sherlock Holmes and Deadly Anniversaries. She has contributed essays to the Agatha Award winning How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America and the Anthony Award winning Books to Die For.

She served as the 2019 and 2020 president of Mystery Writers of America.

Beyond writing, Meg is a three-time Jeopardy! champion and a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Thrills and Chills! Meg Gardiner and UNSUB

INGRID THOFT

When the planets align, and you find a fantastic book written by a wonderful author and person, that is a day worth celebrating.  That's what we're doing today, on the release day of Meg Gardiner's heart pounding page-turner, UNSUB.

Meg is an Edgar Award-winning author of international bestselling thrillers that have been translated into twenty languages.  She's a graduate of Stanford Law, a three-time Jeopardy champion, and her books have been lauded by USA Today, O, the Oprah Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, and the Guardian to name just a few.  Stephen King said about Meg's Evan Delaney series “simply put, the finest crime-suspense series I’ve come across in the last twenty years.”  And if that weren't enough, she is hilarious, gracious, and generous.

Meg was kind enough to send me an advance copy of UNSUB, and it's a nail biter.  I couldn't put it down!  I'm so thrilled she's stopping by JRW today.

INGRID THOFT: Tell us about UNSUB, the first installment in your new series.

MEG GARDINER: UNSUB is a psychological thriller about a young cop hunting a legendary killer. The UNSUB—an unknown subject in a criminal investigation—begins killing again after a twenty-year break, and Detective Caitlin Hendrix must decipher his coded plan before he wreaks more havoc. 

The novel was sparked by the Zodiac killings. That unsolved case has haunted California for decades, and me since childhood. The Zodiac killed and injured seven people in the San Francisco Bay Area, and taunted the police and press with dozens of messages, including cryptograms that have never been broken. The killer has never been caught.

In UNSUB, Caitlin Hendrix is drawn into the chilling world of the Prophet, who marked his victims’ bodies with the ancient sign for Mercury. The Prophet is Caitlin’s living nightmare. Her father, Mack, was the lead detective on the original case. The investigation shattered Mack emotionally and tore his family apart.

The Prophet is a master of mind games. To stop him, Caitlin must do what her father couldn’t. She must decipher both the Prophet’s old, taunting messages and his strange new rhymes. What does the Mercury sign mean? What’s the Prophet’s end game?


IPT: The main character, Caitlin Hendrix, is cop, as was her dad, and their relationship is pivotal to the story.  What made you tackle a father/daughter relationship?

MG: The action in the novel unfolds over ten days. But the case spans twenty-five years, and affects two generations. I wanted to tell it from the perspective of the cops working the case—who thread the line between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession. The most affecting way to do that was to make those cops father and daughter.

Mack knows the case better than anyone, but is a broken man. Caitlin desperately needs his help, but knows that drawing him back into the world of the Prophet could endanger them all.
I’m a sucker for family stories. What can I say?

 IPT: UNSUB is so suspenseful that, at one point, I was curled on the couch practically in the fetal position while reading it.  How do you get the rhythm and pacing right?

I plan. I rewrite. Then I add a countdown clock. I want my novels to be fast-paced. Action and accelerating momentum help put the thrill in thriller. But the action can’t be unrelenting.

In UNSUB, Caitlin runs 5K with friends, plays My Little Pony with a four-year-old, and gets a night of romance. I love it when readers tell me they find my books suspenseful. That’s not just because the pace is quick, or because the action is nonstop. The books can seem relentless because, even when the action stops, unanswered questions lurk in the background. The pace might let up, but the suspense never does.  

Each of the novel’s lighter scenes feed into the main plot. While Caitlin runs 5K, she talks about psychopathology. The My Little Pony playdate is interrupted when the Prophet delivers a video to a TV station. Caitlin’s night of romance starts out with a discussion of bomb making techniques. (Caitlin’s boyfriend, Sean, is an ATF Certified Explosives Specialist.) These scenes let the characters enjoy a moment of Zen, or ecstasy, or tequila. But unsettled issues continue to churn. Mysteries remain unsolved. Clocks tick down. The bad guy schemes, and sharpens his knives.


 IPT; Anyone who knows you, knows that you are a kind, thoughtful, funny (you have to follow Meg on twitter at @meggardiner1) person, but UNSUB has some dark, disturbing images in it.  How do you keep that stuff from seeping into your otherwise sunny personality?  Or is the sunny personality a ruse?!

MG: Aww, thanks. It’s a balancing act. I write about what scares me, because I figure it will also scare readers. But I keep emotional distance from what’s happening on the page. At some point, I have to throw myself fully into the scene—to feel what the characters are feeling, so I can express that—but I do compartmentalize. As a writer, I take what frightens me and turn it into gripping fiction. I put my demons on the page, and turn them loose for readers to experience in the most exciting and suspenseful ways I can create.

And we all have a shadow side. I follow Stephen King’s advice: “Go down to the basement.” Haul everything up. How else are you going to find depth?

IPT: You clearly know your stuff when it comes to law enforcement.  Whether it’s tactical strategy, explosives, or how various agencies interact with one another, it all rings true.  Do you do a lot of research? 

MG: I do. I love research. To write UNSUB, I delved into the digitized files from the Zodiac case. I read books by former FBI agents on criminal profiling. I rode along on patrol with the Austin Police Department. If I couldn’t learn something first hand, I watched videos. (Want to breach a building with a tactical team? Find training videos online.) Whenever possible, I talk to the people who do the job I’m writing about. There’s no better way to get things right, and—as important—to get a feel for what their lives are like.


IPT: CBS is developing UNSUB into a TV series, and you’re going to be a producer.  Can you tell us about that process?

MG: I’ll be involved behind the scenes. CBS and the production company, Timberman-Beverly (which also produced "Justified," and produces "Elementary") are putting things together. More details to come!

So readers, what really scares you?  Do serial killers make the list?  Meg is giving away a copy of UNSUB.  Just comment to enter!

UNSUB
Caitlin Hendrix has been a Narcotics detective for six months when the killer at the heart of all her childhood nightmares reemerges: the Prophet. An UNSUB—what the FBI calls an unknown subject—the Prophet terrorized the Bay Area in the 1990s and nearly destroyed her father, the lead investigator on the case.

The Prophet’s cryptic messages and mind games drove Detective Mack Hendrix to the brink of madness, and Mack’s failure to solve the series of ritualized murders—eleven seemingly unconnected victims left with the ancient sign for Mercury etched into their flesh—was the final nail in the coffin for a once promising career.

Twenty years later, two bodies are found bearing the haunting signature of the Prophet. Caitlin Hendrix has never escaped the shadow of her father’s failure to protect their city. But now the ruthless madman is killing again and has set his sights on her, threatening to undermine the fragile barrier she rigidly maintains for her own protection, between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession.

Determined to decipher his twisted messages and stop the carnage, Caitlin ignores her father’s warnings as she draws closer to the killer with each new gruesome murder. Is it a copycat, or can this really be the same Prophet who haunted her childhood? Will Caitlin avoid repeating her father’s mistakes and redeem her family name, or will chasing the Prophet drag her and everyone she loves into the depths of the abyss?

Edgar-winning novelist Meg Gardiner writes thrillers. Fast-paced and full of twists, her books have been called “Hitchcockian” (USA Today) and “nailbiting and moving” (Guardian). They have been bestsellers in the U.S. and internationally and have been translated into more than 20 languages.

The Evan Delaney novels feature a feisty freelance journalist from Santa Barbara, California. Stephen King calls them “simply put, the finest crime-suspense series I’ve come across in the last twenty years.” China Lake won the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original. Later it was a finalist for NPR’s 100 Best Thrillers Ever. The Jo Beckett series features a San Francisco forensic psychiatrist. It includes The Liar’s Lullaby, The Memory Collector, and The Dirty Secrets Club, which was chosen one of the Top Ten thrillers of 2008 by Amazon and won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Procedural Novel of the year.

The Nightmare Thief, featuring both Jo Beckett and Evan Delaney, won the 2012 Audie Award for Thriller/Suspense audiobook of the year. Meg’s stand alone novel The Shadow Tracer was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2013. Her current title, Phantom Instinct, was chosen one of “The Best Books of Summer” by O, the Oprah magazine.

Meg was born in Oklahoma City and raised in Santa Barbara, California. She graduated from Stanford University, where she lettered in varsity cross country and earned a B.A. in Economics. She went on to graduate from Stanford Law School. She practiced law in Los Angeles and taught in the Writing Program at the University of California Santa Barbara. Later she moved with her husband and three young children to London. There she began writing mysteries set in the California she loves. She hasn’t stopped. Writing thrillers is job she’s immensely lucky to have.

In addition to her twelve novels, Meg has published short stories in American and British magazines. She’s contributed essays to anthologies including Now, Write! Mysteries, The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook, and the Anthony Award winning Books to Die For.

Beyond writing, Meg is a three time Jeopardy! champion and a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. She lives in Austin, Texas.

The Agents and Editors of This Year's Crime Bake

HALLIE EPHRON: My favorite conference is coming up this fall 11/8-11/10 near Boston, the 12th annual New England Crime Bake ("Crime Bake"/"Clam Bake" - Get it?) at the Hilton Dedham, MA, near Boston and a stone's throw from the Amtrak station.

And YES, you can still register for it.

This year the Guest of Honor is the fabulous Edgar winning author, Meg Gardiner.  

(Here's some photos of Crime Bakes past... with some folks you may recognize.)

This year author panels include a passel of folks who came to their first Crime Bake unpublished and went on to find agents and publishers.

Here are just a few:
- New England Sisters in Crime President Barbara Ross. (She writes Maine Clam Bake mysteries for Kensington)
- New England Mystery Writers of America President Steve Ulfelder. His first Conway Sax novel "Purgatory Chasm" was an Edgar finalist. His series is published by Minotaur Books.
- Edith Maxwell who writes not one but TWO series. Her latest, A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die, is the first in the cozy Local Foods Mystery series  published by Kensington Publishing.
- Liz Mugavero just published her first Pawsitively Organic series mystery, Kneading to Die, also from Kensington.
- Michael Nethercott's debut novel Seance Society is being published this fall by Minotaur/Thomas Dunne Books.

Oh, the agents and editors you'll meet!I've gone to the Crime Bake every year and been on the planning committee for 11 of them. This year I'm in charge of programming the agents and editors. So let me tell you some of what we have up our collective sleeves...

This year we're trying something new: a Page One Idol. Here's how it works:

Attendees bring the first 1/2 page of a work in progress and entrust it to an expert reader who reads it aloud (without revealing who wrote it) to a panel of agents and editors. They listen -- this is not the Gong Show -- and then share: would I keep reading? Why or why not?

It's a chance to hear what editors and agents perceive as serious writing problems, story issues, and what they can and can't sell in today's market. It will be like getting to be a fly on the wall watching an agent do what they're paid to do: separate the wheat the from the chaff.

We'll also have a Friday night panel discussion on how e-publishing is changing the book business. Eve Bridburg, agent and founder of our fabulous local writing "school" Grub Street, with moderate the discussion. Weighing in will be Kensington editor Peter Senftbleben, and writing opinion leader Jane Friedman who is the former publisher at Writers Digest Books and currently the web editor for the Virginia Quarterly.

We'll still have our one on ones, expanded this year to six minute sessions during which attendees pitch an idea to an agent or editor. There's no extra fee for this, but you do need to sign up in advance.

And what a fabulous lineup of editors and agents this year!

• Ann Collette - Ann is back! She had a fantastic year with the success of our own Barbara Shapiro's NY Times bestseller "The Art Forger." Ann is with Boston's Helen Rees Literary Agency. She's one of those agents who says what she thinks and fights like the devil for her authors. 
• Liza Dawson - Liza Dawson heads her own NYC literary agency, Liza Dawson Associates. Before becoming an agent she was a vice president and executive editor with a big mystery list at Morrow and Putnam. She handles crime fiction of all sorts. Her agency sold Susan Hasler's debut novel "Intelligence" to Thomas Dunne Books and recently optioned it to Happy Madison and Sony Pictures for a television series. This is her first time at Crime Bake.
• Denise (Deni) Deitz - Deni is an acquiring editor at Five Star, a publishing house with a unique focus on the library market. Some of our own authors who have had books published by Five Star include Susan Oleksiw, Toni L. P. Kelner, and Leslie Wheeler. This is Deni's first time at Crime Bake.
• Jane Friedman - Jane Friedman is former editor and publisher for Writers Digest Books. She is a widely regarded expert on the digital transformation of the publishing industry, and has spoken at venues such as the NEA, NPR Morning Edition and Publishers Weekly. She writes a wildly popular award-winning blog about writing and publishing and is the web editor for The Virginia Quarterly. This is her first time at Crime Bake.
• Ellen Larson - YA mysteries are wildly popular, and Ellen Larson edits a brand new line of them for the Poisoned Pencil, part of Poisoned Pen. Founded in 2012 and growing fast, Poisoned Pencil takes online submissions from authors and agents. This is her first time at Crime Bake.
• Gina Maccoby - Gina Maccoby heads the Gina Maccoby Literary Agency. Just a few among the award-winning mystery authors she represents are Linda Barnes, Rick Riordan, and Lee Goldberg. She is on the Board of Directors of the AAR and a member of the AAR's Contracts and Royalties subcommittees. This is her first time at Crime Bake.
• Gina Panettieri - Gina Panettieri, another agent we are welcoming back, heads Talcott Notch Literary Agents located in Connecticut. Another Crime Bake favorite who cannot be with us this year, Paula Munier, is now a literary agent working with Gina. Mysteries, thrillers, and suspense top the list of what they represent.
• Peter Senftleben - Associate editor at Kensington Books, Peter Senftleben is actively acquiring mysteries (adult and YA and "new adult') including cozies and stories with a romantic flavor. Some of the New England/Crime Bake authors he works with are Barbara Ross and Liz Mugavero. (His bio ascerts: "He does not want to see anything with terrorists of any kind.") This is his first time at Crime Bake.
• Marlene Stringer - Marlene Stringer heads the Stringer Literary Agency in Naples, Florida. She handles a wide range of commercial fiction including thrillers and mysteries, adult and YA.This is her first time at Crime Bake.
• Roseanne Wells - Roseanne Wells is an agent with the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency based in New York City. Roseanne loves "smart mysteries that center around a strong detective: Sherlock Holmes, Veronica Mars, Flavia de Luce from Alan Bradley’s "Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie." I look for sharp minds and witty banter, complicated narratives that keep me guessing, and an emotional arc as well as the whodunit plot.

I'll be there, too, along with Reds Hank Phillippi Ryan ("The Wrong Girl") and Lucy Burdette ("Topped Chef") and Julia Spencer Fleming ("Through the Evil Days"), all with new books!

Hope to see some of  you there. Meet you in the bar for Cosmos!

Secrets of the Notebooks!

HANK PHILLIPPI  RYAN: I know, it wasn’t fair. When last we left the wonderful John Curran—knower of all knowledge about Agatha Christie, the first person privy to her secret notebooks and the author of two award-winning non-fiction books about the Queen of Mystery (Secret Notebooks' now out in paperback!)-- I had just asked about his favorite Poirot and Miss Marple, and then, evil me, I said we were out of time. So, now we have more time! 

And John has revealed he will come visit today to tell us some brand new Agatha info---our eyes only. Got to love it.

 (And hey—let’s give away another copy of the Secret Notebooks! (Our last winner was Susan Elizabeth. And the winner of Meg Gardiner’s RANSOM RIVER is: Lexie’s Mom. And the winner of the ARC of THE OTHER WOMAN is: Margarete. Email me with your address, okay?)

And now:

HANK:  Who is your favorite Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple?

JOHN: The best Miss Marple ever was, and remains, Joan Hickson, who, thankfully, filmed all of the novels for BBC television. Actresses, either before and since, never captured the essence of Miss Marple as she did. Some of them have been completely unsuitable and I completely disapprove of the latest idea of ‘inserting’ Miss Marple into books in which she never appeared.

And the best Poirot is, undoubtedly, David Suchet. Later this year he will embark on the last five titles to be filmed and then he will have completed the entire Cases of Hercule Poirot! Although some of the adaptations have not been good (Appointment with Death, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd), overall the standard over the last 20 years has been remarkably high. It will be a remarkable achievement when he finishes the last film.

HANK: We’ve all seen The Mousetrap. (Again and again. And anytime anyone has tickets, invite me, okay?)  But of course there were other plays.

JOHN:  Agatha Christie is the only crime-writer to achieve equal success and fame as a playwright as well as a novelist and short-story writer. Although her first Poirot play, Black Coffee (1930), is not very impressive she enjoyed writing scripts and her first big success on the stage was And Then There Were None in 1943. But she wanted more control over what happened to her books (she was very unhappy with what adapters did to, for instance, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) so she adapted The Hollow, in 1951, herself. And then she wrote original plays - in the 1950s she wrote The Unexpected Guest, Spider’s Web and Verdict directly for the stage and adapted The Mousetrap and Witness for the Prosecution.

HANK: I could watch that a million times. It’s always a surprise, and always wonderful. Charles Laughton, I mean, how perfect. All this was happening at the same time?

JOHN: Yes! During this period she had three plays running simultaneously in London’s West End, a record for a female playwright that stands to this day. In 1961 three one-act plays, under the title, Rule of Three was her last success; the final play she wrote, Fiddler’s Three, was not considered good enough to reach the West End. The Mousetrap has now been running for almost 60 years and seems likely to run forever. I hope to write about her career as a playwright in my next book in two years time.

HANK: And of course you’ll be here to tell us all about it! Do you read modern crime fiction? (How do you even have time?) Who are your favorites among living writers?

JOHN: Yes, I read and enjoy a lot of modern crime fiction although my main interest is in the writers of the Golden Age – Christie and her contemporaries, Dickson Carr, Sayers, Queen, Marsh etc. I greatly admire P. D. James and Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine; the American writer Charles Todd, whose books are set in the England of Christie – just after the First World War; Robert Goddard, who creates wonderfully complicated plots; the novels of Colin Dexter, who has now, sadly, retired; the earlier titles of Val McDermid before they became too gory; and Laura Wilson who sets her books during World War II.

HANK:    If you could ask Agatha Christie a question what would it be? 

JOHN:  My problem would be keeping it to only one! It would have to be ‘How did you do it? How did you, a woman with no formal education and no background in writing become the biggest-selling, and most translated, writer in history?’ And I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to answer me.  She would probably look amused and say ‘I really don’t know!’

 HANK: SO Reds, John will be here to discuss…what’s your favorite Christie play? Or movie?  We still haven’t decided who should play Tommy in the Tommy & Tuppence movie—and hey, wasn’t John going to give us the scoop on that. Oh, wait, he said he couldn’t. Shall we keep trying? Meanwhile, shall we cast Tuppence? And who was the young actress who was threatening to play Miss Marple? 

And John also promises some big news. 

Remember, we’re giving away a copy of  SECRET NOTEBOOKS!

Five ways to KILL Suspense

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I met Meg Gardiner in a cab. Well, outside a cab. We were at--something in New York, I forget, going somewhere, I forget, and she was about to take the subway. Come with me! I said. I have on heels!  I'm getting a cab.

So we talked the whole way to wherever it was--she was hilarious and personable and wonderful.  I confess that in these situations, meeting a best-selling Edgar-winning author, I always think--here's a successful writer, I bet she could teach me a lot. But that's not the kind of thing you can ask.

So, isn't this clever? I invited her to JRW, so we can all learn.   And I'll give a copy of Meg's new RANSOM RIVER to a lucky commenter! And an ARC of THE OTHER WOMAN to another.

And now..I don't want to keep you in suspense, but here's--well, no. I DO want to keep you in suspense. And here's how. Um, how NOT to.

Five Ways to Kill Suspense

by Meg Gardiner

Suspense is vital to storytelling. It keeps readers turning pages, desperate to learn what happens next. As a building block of drama, it’s as old as literature itself—Aristotle said suspense consists of having some real danger looming and a ray of hope.

The word comes from the Latin suspendere—to hang up—and writers are the hangmen. We keep readers dangling. But if we do it wrong, we kill the story.

Here are five surefire ways to do that.

1. Sacrifice tension for surprise. Unexpected twists can delight or terrify readers. But if you don’t build up the tension beforehand, readers will be bored senseless long before you get to Boo.

Hitchcock put it this way: an audience experiences suspense when they expect something bad to happen and know more than the characters do—but can’t intervene to stop it. Say characters are talking in a restaurant. If all the scene shows is their chitchat, it’s tedious. But if the audience knows that a ticking bomb is planted beneath the table, it’s suspenseful.

The writer’s job is to create tension and then let it build for as long as possible. Be cruel. The page is the one place where cruelty’s a good thing.

2. Commit howlers. I don’t mean minor errors about arcane facts. I mean clanging mistakes about common knowledge. Writers should know that the capital of Brazil is not Rio de Janeiro. That the president’s airplane does not have AIR FORCE ONE painted on its flanks. That Interpol doesn’t strafe fugitives from fighter jets (to name three errors I’ve seen in books or movies). Ludicrous mistakes kill suspense by pulling readers from the story, thinking, Oh, come on. Do your research. And after you’ve done it, have knowledgeable people check it.

3. Write idiot plots. Plots that depend on characters acting like idiots kill suspense faster than cyanide. You’ve read this story: an unarmed woman fails to call SWAT and instead wades into the swamp alone, at midnight, in heels, to rescue her best friend from the maniac with the chainsaw. Go on, honey. Readers will be cheering—for the maniac.

4. Mistake mystery for suspense. Mystery propels our genre. But withholding facts from readers doesn’t always increase suspense. Sometimes it just annoys. Say the hero keeps everything he’s learned to himself until the final pages, when he reveals all. This is meant to make him sound brilliant and the revelation seem huge. But if the audience hasn’t struggled along with him as he digs for the truth, they haven’t experienced the story. They’ll feel shortchanged. (This is another reason to show, don’t tell.)

Or say you hide the identities of characters in a scene. “Two men sat at the dingy bar, scowling.” Maybe the scowlers are assassins, circling for a kill. But if they’re your hero and his brother—and it’s the tenth time you’ve used this ploy—it’s not suspenseful. It's a cheap trick.

5. Put the main character in a tight situation where the only question is whether she’ll survive. Here’s the problem: Readers figure that in mysteries and thrillers, the protagonist is going to live. If your novel’s in first person, they know it. So don’t have the bad guys abandon the heroine in the desert, then spend 50 pages depicting her trek back to civilization. There’s no question she’ll make it, so her tough slog to town contains no suspense.

But what if you truly want to abandon your protagonist in the desert? Then create real, looming danger… to other characters. And put a clock on it. The heroine must get to a phone by sundown—or the puppy farm will be blown up. Otherwise, cut everything after the bad guys dump her in Death Valley. Skip to her stumbling into the 7-11, dehydrated, covered in cactus needles, and hauling the corpse of the rabid skunk that attacked her.

Now, a confession: I’ve committed all these sins.

Sometimes I’ve caught these mistakes when revising. Sometimes an editor has noted, “Tiresome…” And sometimes I’ve decided a cheap trick is exactly what I need.

In my novel Ransom River, a juror finds herself fighting for her life when gunmen storm the courtroom. Then Rory Mackenzie discovers the attack is connected to an old case that was never solved. It's connected to her, and dark skeletons in her family's history. And bringing the truth to light might destroy her and those she loves.

My first draft opened with a long, procedural courtroom scene in Rory’s point of view. Then, boom—gunmen burst in. (Hello, surprise without tension.) I rewrote it to add scenes in a gunman’s POV. Now, while Rory hears testimony about two cops gunning down a teenager, the attackers circle the courthouse, arm themselves, and stalk toward the building. Readers know something bad’s coming, but they can’t tell Rory: Get out of there.

Then, to create a sense of real danger that would loom over the whole book, I revised again—so the story doesn’t open in the courtroom. It opens when Rory is nine years old. Late one night, she and her best friend see something they shouldn’t—something that scares them. They don’t understand it. They only know something's wrong. Something bad. But what—and how does it come back to haunt her twenty years later?

I’d tell you, but I’ve gotta keep you in suspense.

HANK: Thanks Meg! I'm off to look at my WIP one more time... How about you, Reds? Do you go back and add the suspense? Or write it a you go? I find when I'm in the suspenseful parts, somehow, I'm typing as fast as I can.

The most suspenseful thing I've ever read? Hmm. Dracula? The Stand? The most suspenseful movie I've ever seen? Hmm. The Vanishing? Rear Window? How about you, reds?

Remember--you can win!

*******************

 www.meggardiner.com 

Meg Gardiner writes the Evan Delaney and the Jo Beckett novels, best-selling series that have been translated into twenty languages. China Lake won the 2009 Edgar for Best Paperback Original. The Nightmare Thief won the 2012 Audie Award for Thriller/Suspense audiobook of the year. Meg practiced law in Los Angeles and taught at the University of California Santa Barbara. She lives near London. Her latest novel is the stand alone, Ransom River.

Her blog: Lying for a Living.

Twitter: @MegGardiner1

We are Working Hard. Really.

Today Jungle Red comes to you from Deerfield Beach, Florida, where Mystery Writers of America's Florida chapter hold its annual writer's conference, Sleuthfest.

Sleuthfest is a writer's conference, rather than a fan conference, with workshops, programs, and panels designed to help aspiring writers improve their work and get it published.

This year's Guests of Honor are Denis Lehane, Meg Gardiner, and SJ Rozan--a steller line-up. Yesterday Meg Gardiner gave the keynote speech at lunch, then a poolside chat later in the afternoon. Let me repeat. POOLSIDE.

Meg is charming, gracious, articulate, and passionate about writing. In fact, I was so impressed that I bought Meg's China Lake as my first Kindle book, as in first ever.
(Marcia Talley and I pose by the pool with Meg.)

Today, Dennis Lehane will be speaking at lunch, then later giving a poolside chat about the film adaptation of his book, Gone, Baby, Gone. And tonight there's a poolside party with Heather Graham's band.

Sound fun? It is. But it's also a great opportunity for aspiring writers to meet pros and learn what it really takes to be successful at this business, and a way for those of us in the business to stay connected, and learn about new writers. We all were, after all, fans before we were writers.

That's what it's all about.

And then there's the hot tub.

Wish you all were here.

Escape to Sleuthfest

JRW: Maybe you're in a last minute panic about a gift for a mystery writer or reader. Or maybe you're looking for a warm getaway this winter? We invited Julie Compton to come and talk to us about the Sleuthfest mystery conference, coming in March. Welcome Julie!

What is SleuthFest? Is it for writers or readers?

JULIE: SleuthFest is Florida's premier mystery writer's conference, held every year in Deerfield Beach, Florida. The conference is sponsored by the Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and is usually held in late February or early March. Our next conference is just a few months away – March 3 to March 6. It's a great time of year to visit Florida, especially for our northern friends who crave some warm, balmy weather.

SleuthFest is for mystery writers and mystery fans alike. Third Degree Thursday is chock full of hands-on workshops that focus on the craft of writing, but the Friday and Saturday schedule is loaded with workshops, panels and other events that will appeal to both writers and fans. We're a smaller conference, so fans have a chance to mingle and meet some of their favorite authors in an intimate setting.

Tell us about the special features of the conference that set your
event apart from some of the other mystery conferences.

Florida in March!

Seriously, although Florida in March may be reason enough for some, SleuthFest offers so much more. Our Third Degree Thursday continues to grow in popularity, so in response, we've expanded the schedule to include more workshops, with beginner, intermediate and advanced tracks to benefit writers at all levels. We also have a full track each day devoted to forensics. We have our SleuthFest 101 Dinner, where first-timers have the opportunity to meet other first-timers and learn how to get the most from their SleuthFest experience. We have Readers Corner, where unpublished writers have a chance to read a ten minute segment of their work and get feedback from listeners (and if there’s time, published writers can read, too). After the end of the regular programming on Friday and Saturday, our guests of honor will participate in a book discussion (poolside!) with attendees. Friday night is movie night. This year we'll show Gone, Baby, Gone, which will be followed by a film discussion with a surprise guest. We have our Author Auction, where guests can bid to win, for example, manuscript critiques by bestselling authors or the chance to name a character in their next books. On Saturday night, we have the Agents and Editors Poolside Cocktail Party. It's a great chance to meet an agent or editor in a casual setting. If you're a fan of more structured meetings, you can sign up for a pitch session.

To see everything SleuthFest offers, including the workshop and panel topics, check out the full schedule at www.sleuthfest.com.

Oh, and did I mention SleuthFest is held in Florida?

You have two guests of honor this year and a Spotlight Speaker--tell us about those writers.

We are so pleased to have bestselling authors Dennis Lehane and Meg Gardiner join us this March as our guests of honor.

Dennis Lehane is the critically acclaimed author of nine novels, including Mystic River, Gone, Baby Gone, and Shutter Island, and the recently released Moonlight Mile. Mystic River was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won both the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel as well as the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction given by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.

Meg Gardiner is an award winning author of eight novels, including China Lake, which won a 2009 Edgar, The Dirty Secrets Club, which won the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award in 2008, and her most recent, The Liar's Lullaby.

We’re also happy to welcome S.J. Rozan as our Thursday Spotlight Speaker. S.J. is the author of twelve novels. Her work has won the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity awards for Best Novel and the Edgar for Best Short Story. She's also the recipient of the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award.

How much does it cost to attend SleuthFest?

Our early bird discounted pricing is available until January 15, 2011, and it starts at $235 for MWA members, $255 for non-members. (I say “starts” because some things are extra, such as the SleuthFest 101 dinner.) The hotel, the Hilton Deerfield Beach, has kept our low rate of $139 per night.

As a special incentive to register early, everyone who registers before December 31, 2010 will be entered in a drawing to win signed books by Dennis Lehane and Meg Gardiner, plus a 10 page manuscript critique by one of the agents or editors in attendance.

Anything else you’d like readers to know?

Just that it’s a great conference and would make a great gift for yourself or for the mystery writer or fan in your family! Personally, SleuthFest was the first mystery conference I ever attended, and I didn’t know a soul. I was welcomed with open arms by the MWA Florida chapter members and immediately made to feel part of the family.

Beyond that, almost anything readers might want to know about the conference can be found on the website at www.sleuthfest.com. They’ll find a pretty extensive Frequently Asked Questions page. I also invite anyone who has questions to email me at julie@julie-compton.com. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll find someone who does.

Roberta, thank you for allowing me to tell your readers about the conference!