Profile: Charles Maddox, Victorian investigator by Lynn Shepherd

Today’s guest blogger is Lynn Shepherd. Tom-All-Alone’s is her second novel to be published and features Charles Maddox a descendent of the Charles Maddox found in her debut novel Murder at Mansfield Park. It is due to be published in the US on 1 May 2012. Lynn offers us pass-notes on her Victorian investgator. More information about Lynn and her work can be found on her website www.lynn-shepherd.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @Lynn_Shepherd.

Charles Maddox is the young detective at the heart of Lynn Shepherd’s Dickensian murder mystery, Tom-All-Alone’s, which is published by Corsair on February 2^nd. The title Tom-All-Alone’s is one of the alternatives Dickens considered using for Bleak House (as is the US title, The Solitary House), and Lynn’s story runs in parallel with Dickens’ plot and draws in some of his most memorable characters, though in a completely new story that stands on its own. Charles Maddox is most definitely Lynn’s own creation, and here’s our low-down of this intriguing new boy in dark and dirty London town….

Let’s start with some background

It’s 1850, and Charles Maddox is 25. As the book opens he’s living in a room in a lodging-house near the British Museum with his cat, Thunder. As you look round his room you can tell that this is a young man with a scientific bent – the whole place is crammed with his books and maps and his precious collection of specimens, which range from fossils to shells to stuffed birds. As for his appearance, he looks rather like Tom Hiddleston (or so Lynn tells us!). He has charm, no mistake about that, though he seems rather engagingly unaware of it, and if he’s vain about anything it’s certainly not his clothes.

So how did he become a private detective, of all things?

The key thing here is that this Charles Maddox is not the first. Young Charles is the great-nephew of the first Charles Maddox, the great Regency thief taker who solved the mystery in Murder at Mansfield Park. Of course old Maddox is elderly now, and quite early in Tom-All-Alone’s Charles moves from his lodgings to his great-uncle’s house in Buckingham Street, between the Strand and the river. The old man has become erratic of late – lucid one minute, and angry and violent the next. The disease that afflicts him won’t be identified for at least another 50 years, but Charles is sure of one thing: his uncle needs him. He’s idolised Maddox since he was a little boy, and the two of them are far closer than Charles has ever been to his own father, who’s a distinguished doctor, though distant and aloof. It was his father who insisted Charles follow him into medicine, and his father who was incensed when he gave it up less than a year later and joined the Metropolitan Police.

But didn’t you say he was a private detective?

Indeed he is. Because he made the mistake of tangling with Inspector Bucket, the formidable detective of Bleak House, and questioning his judgement in the investigation of the murder of a low-life called Silas Boone. One charge of insubordination later and Charles is back on the street, trying to establish himself on his own, just as his great-uncle did all those years ago. Only business is slow, and the only case he has is threatening to prove a dead end. It’s this case – the disappearance of a baby from a workhouse 16 years before – that brings Charles to the broken-down and rat-infested graveyard of Tom-All-Alone’s, at the opening of the book.

So what sort of person is Charles?

Clever, quick-witted, and resourceful. Acutely observant of other people’s behaviour and motivations, but very much less so when it comes to his own. Hot-tempered and impulsive (that skirmish with Bucket wasn’t the first time his temper has got him into trouble, and it won’t be the last). He’s also extremely reserved, and rarely willing to become emotionally involved with anyone, with the sole exception of his cat, and his uncle Maddox, whom he loves and reveres in almost equal measure, though even their relationship can hardly be described as frank and open. As to why that might be so - you will have to discover for yourself…

How does he become involved in the story of Tom-All-Alone’s?

He’s hired by Edward Tulkinghorn, the formidable lawyer of Bleak House, to track down the man who’s been sending threatening letters to one of his rich and powerful clients. But what starts as a simple commission rapidly turns into something deeper and darker, which will pitch Charles into open antagonism with Tulkinghorn, and threaten to expose a terrible secret he will stop at nothing – even murder - to conceal...

Crime Fiction News

A new poster for the forthcoming film The Raven which is based around the author Edgar Allan Poe. John Cusack who plays Poe becomes entangled in the search for a serial killer who is using the more gruesome pieces of his work as motivation. The new poster is definitely eye-catching, the blood-red wings creating a real sense of menace. The Raven is due to be released in the UK on 9 March 2012.

Date for your diary! The successful Crime in the Court that first took place last year in July and organised by David Headley of Goldsboro Books will once again take place this year. The date is 5 July and is to coincide with Independent Booksellers Week. Watch this space for further information.

Calling all budding US based writers! Poisoned Pen Press have announced the first annual Discover Mystery Award, a first book contest for unpublished writers trying to break into the mystery genre. This spring, join them by entering your mystery manuscript of 60,000-90,000 words in an effort to win a $1000 prize, the Discover Mystery title, and a publishing contract from Poisoned Pen Press.

At Poisoned Pen Press, they take their mission to “Discover Mystery” very seriously. They have always prided themselves on the discovery of new writers, and now they are on the hunt for fresh voices and new stories. They are not afraid of something different, either, so if you’ve got a mystery, they want to see it! Poisoned Pen Press is waiting to discover you!

Here’s what to do:
Visit www.poisonedpenpress.com/contest

Read the guidelines carefully and fill out the form on our website, pay the $20 entry fee, and attach your manuscript. All entries are due by 11:59 pm (Pacific), April 30th, 2012. A winner will be announced by May 31st, 2012. Entries will be judged based on their synopses and manuscript text, with the assistance of celebrity judge, Dana Stabenow!

Entry Requirements and Guidelines:
· Unfortunately, we will not be able to help you decide if your book is a good fit for our contest. If you have questions about the kinds of books we publish, please visit www.poisonedpenpress.com.
· Due to the number of entries, Poisoned Pen Press will not be able to answer questions regarding your contest entry.
· This is a first-book award. It is open to writers who have not published a full-length book in the mystery genre.
· Manuscripts previously submitted to Poisoned Pen Press are eligible for entry in Discover Mystery, provided that those manuscripts have undergone major revisions.
· Manuscripts previously published in print or digitally, including self-published, are not eligible.
· Manuscripts must be between 60,000 words and 90,000 words in length.
· The Poisoned Pen Press Discover Mystery Award is open to all authors writing original works in English for adult readers who reside in the United States .
· Non-fiction of any kind, including autobiography is not appropriate for this contest.
· To avoid conflict of interest and to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, friends and former students of a judge or a Poisoned Pen Press employee are ineligible to enter the competition for that year.
· Poisoned Pen Press makes every effort to vary the judges by region and aesthetics, so that writers, if ineligible one year, will certainly be eligible in future years.
· You may not submit your manuscript to other publishers while it is under consideration by Poisoned Pen Press.
· Poisoned Pen Press cannot consider manuscript revisions during the course of the contest. Winning authors will have an opportunity to revise their works in collaboration with our editorial staff before publication.
· Should no entry meet editorial approval, Poisoned Pen Press reserves the right NOT to declare a winner.
· Failure to pay the entry fee will exclude you from the contest.
Write. Win. Publish.
www.poisonedpenpress.com/contest

The third series of Whitechapel starts tonight at 9pm on ITV. The storyline for tonight’s episode is based around four people being butcher at a fortified tailor’s workshop in the East End. Soon everyone in the area are obsessed with horror and panic at this seemingly impossible and grisly murder.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will not be shown in India after all. India’s Central Board of Certification asked for five scenes to be cut which the director David Fincher refused to do. The film was due to be released on 10 February. The full article in the Guardian can be read here. The Telegraph’s take on it can be read here.


Very interesting and thought provoking article by Philip Hensher in the Guardian about Elmore Leonard under the subtitle “the great American novelist”. Whilst I admire Elmore Leonard a lot, I am not sure that I agree with him being cast as the great American novelist. I know that it is all about a matter of taste, but Chandler aside (who is my all time favourite crime writer) what about James Ellroy, George Pelecanos, Philip Roth, James Lee Burke, Hammett, James M Cain and Patricia Highsmith (and those are just a few off the top of my head) to name a few, they are all great American novelists as well.

A very interesting interview with Philip Kerr is in the Telegraph. Certainly worth reading for an insight as to how he started to write the Bernie Gunther novels.

As interviews go, a brilliant one in the Chicago Sun-Times with Walter Mosley who talks about the reaction he received when announced that his Easy Rawlins series was likely to end. Needless to say a lot of people were not happy with the news.

Not sure how I missed this but Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey fame has signed on according to Daily Screen to play the lead role in the feature version of Peter James’s Dead Simple.

Rather sadly it appears that the US are planning a remake of Spiral the French police procedural drama. According to the Guardian it will be transferred to the streets of Philadelphia and is being developed by Sam Mendes. It will be interesting to see how this turns out, as the original series that was shown on BBC 4 was a hit.

Jim Kelly at Death's Door

Today’s guest blogger is Jim Kelly. Jim is the author of the Philip Dryden series which is set in Ely in the Fens. His latest series features Detective Inspector Peter Shaw, is based on the North Norfolk coast and in the port of Lynn. In 2006 he won the CWA Dagger in the Library.

I rarely get the thrill of actually committing a crime. I’m reminded of an exception to this by an item of stolen goods, which sits on my desk. I thought I’d tell you all about this on the basis that I appear – according to legal advice - to be protected by the Statute of Limitations, and by the fact that the object itself is of a value which is unlikely to inspire the interest of barristers. So look upon this as a confession. This is just between you and me.

It’s a key and key fob. For those of you who like detail – and hey, we’re all crime geeks, so that’s all of us – the key was made by PAPAIZ of Brazil. (For those of you with busy lives, that’s a red herring) But it’s the fob that I was after. It is black Bakelite, that kind of brittle heavy plastic that is so resonant of the post-War era in which I grew up. (We had a Bakelite phone at home, which so rang so infrequently that we all jumped when it did. My mother would instantly cover her mouth with both hands on the basis that if it was ringing there must have been a death in the family). Anyway, the point is the black fob carries a single name in stencil: CHRISTIE.

The scene of my crime is Burgh Island off the south Devon coast. The time is 1997 – five years before the publication of my first novel, The Water Clock. I was forty years old and my wife had booked a room at the island’s art deco hotel. It’s a strange place – a tidal island, reached by a causeway at low water and for several hours on either side of low tide by a peculiar sea tractor – a kind of box-car on stilts, which drives out into the water. It’s all very exciting, so much so I had to repair to the Pilchard Inn – the island’s only other building – for several pints to get over the ordeal.

It was here, sitting outside watching the tide finally close off the island from the distant beach that we learnt that this was a very famous island if you are a student of crime writing. In 1939 Agatha Christie published And Then There Were None, a whodunnit not only conceived on the island but set on it – albeit half-heartedly disguised. (The original title was the reprehensible Ten Little Niggers) It sold for 7/6 and has – to date – shifted 100m copies, making it one of the best selling books of all time. The plot is one of adamantine beauty: eight people who have previously committed crimes for which they were not punished are summoned to the island. Their hosts, they are then told, are away, but they will be looked after by two servants. Each of the ten dies – in a fashion mirroring the original nursery rhyme now known as Ten Little Soldiers, until there are none left. The police arrive to find the ten bodies. Who dunnit – who could possibly have done it ? The last death – by the way – is clearly not suicide.

I was taken by this story. I loved the notion of the island as a ‘locked room’, and the notion of the ‘impossible crime’ – the two central pillars of what became known – perhaps unfortunately given the board-game rigidity of the premise – as the Golden Age of British crime fiction. But Christie could plot like no other. So imagine my delight on discovering that we had been allocated the Christie suite ! The very room in which she had devised her masterpiece. On leaving I contrived to discover the key fob in my luggage as the sea tractor groaned its way through the water towards the mainland. I seem to recall my wife making me promise to return it by post. Whoops.

CUT to the early winter of 2009. Fearlessly I have decided to do some research so that I can write a new Shaw and Valentine mystery based on an island. Norfolk is not a very helpful county in this regard – there are only a few sandy islets on its endlessly smooth, littoral coast. I have a ruck-sack, a map, and am wearing a wet suit. (A half one – for summer – but I still look like a tadpole.) The beach is at Wells, a mile from the town, a glorious sweep of sand and dunes looked over by the most complete terrace of beach huts in Britain. Across the sands wanders the channel which links the North Sea to Wells harbour. It is deep and treacherous. On the far side of this channel – so dangerous that in summer a wartime siren wails an hour before the tide turns – lies my destination – the islet of East Hills, a thin spine of sand, topped with pines, surrounded by reed marsh.

The only problem is I have to walk there, a prospect not lightened by the knowledge that I am a very poor swimmer. Even at low tide this involves wading through several feet of fast-running current across a fifty yard channel to ribbed sea-sand, then picking a way to the island itself, about a mile distant. I have used tide tables to compute the exact moment when it is best to cross. I pick my spot and begin to wade out, the water quickly rising to my chest, so that I have to hold the rucksack over my head. The water is icy. I have an audience of bemused walkers, and up in the dunes, I sense the eyes of the coastguards in their hut, and the crew of the full-time lifeboat in their second-floor rest-room – which boasts a picture window giving a perfect view of my impending death. Because I’m more scared of looking like a coward than death itself I wade on. I’m now in big trouble. My bones ache with cold, the water is so deep I am now bouyant and my toes are clinging to the sand, and the rucksack is soaking wet. I drift off for a few seconds (seawards – because the wind and tides are still pushing water out of Wells harbour) By pure chance I am deposited on a thin sand bar. My feet grip the sand in a prehensile miracle and I waver there, a inch from being taken out into the North Sea. My heart crashing around in my rib-cage like a fairground dodgem I begin to edge back to dry land.

Defeated, I still don’t want to give up. I yearn to sit on East Hills and think through the plot of the new book I’m planning. So I take advice: wandering up to the Coastguard Hut I ask them if it is safe to cross the channel. (This is typical isn’t it? As if being told by someone in authority it is the right time will in some way make me three foot taller.) They consult various tables and tell me it is the right moment – and exactly where I have just failed to cross. (Let this be a lesson to us all. Never trust someone who has to consult a table). I then go to the lifeboat house. I’m invited up to the restroom with its view north towards the unseen pole. The sea looks Arctic blue from here, and I guess they think I’m an idiot. I ask them the same question. Two crewmen think about an answer. They don’t consult a table, they walk to the window and look at the sea. Give it an hour is their advice. The wind is from the north and it’s bottled up the tide in the vast expanse of Wells harbour, so the water is running out late. And if I want to wade then do it right in front of the lifeboat house – not up the channel where I tried.

An hour later I’m sitting on East Hills. The trip was hair-raising and I’m really not looking forward to going back, but at least I’m here. It’s spooky. In the lee of the island – the seaward side – there’s a kind of petrified forest, and an old pillbox, and evidence of camp fires but no sight of anyone. There’s a solitary trainer hanging from its laces in a stone pine. I find myself looking behind me along the sandy paths as I explore. I sit down with flask, sandwiches, and binoculars and think about my plot: will it work?

The premise is simple – if not as rigid or puzzle-like as Christie’s. A summer boat trip takes 76 people out to East Hills in 1994: tickets are sold, so we know the numbers. The boat returns six hours later to pick up the trippers. As it approaches the floating dock there is a scream – a woman, wading out to swim, encounters the body of a young man, shrouded in a cloud of blood. He dies on the sand from a knife wound. The police evacuate the remaining 75 people from the island. The crime is unsolved. A blood soaked towel is recovered from the island – discovered in the pine woods behind the beach. Forensic analysis confirms two blood types – one of which is the victim’s. But it is not possible to extract a DNA sample given the rudimentary state of the science at that time.

CUT forward to now. West Norfolk police have decided to spend a Home Office grant on re-opening the case. A DNA trace is extracted from the towel which does not match the victim and is from a man. Thirty of the 66 people evacuated from East Hills are still alive and are men. They have been summoned to King’s Lynn police headquarters for a DNA test. Five of the eight who have died are male, and the recovered DNA – Sample X – will be compared to familial samples from their relatives. Given that 76 went out, and 75 came back – plus the body of the victim – the DNA sweep will give them the identity of the killer.

Except that now I sit here on the sand it is clear it might not. The killer could have waded over, or swum, and then got away. So I walk to the northern point of East Hills and look out to sea. I need to create my own island – just like East Hills but a few miles off the coast, isolated by a lethal rip-tide, and inaccessible. It’s a fateful decision because it marks the real beginning of the story of Death’s Door – the moment when I left reality behind and started to build the fiction. I’ve just paused for a moment in writing this BLOG to go downstairs and answer the front door. It’s the postman with a box of copies of the new book – the first time I’ve seen or held it. It’s handsome. I put one copy up on the shelf, and put my CHRISTIE key fob on top.

2012 Dilys Award nominations

The 2012 Dilys Award nominees have been announced by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. The Dilys Award has been given annually since 1992 by IMBA to the mystery titles of the year which the member booksellers have most enjoyed selling. The Dilys Award is named in honor of Dilys Winn, the founder of the first specialty bookseller of mystery books in the United States.

The nominees are:-

Faithful Place by Tana French (Penguin)

Wicked Autumn by G M Malliet (Minotaur)

Tag Man by Archer Mayor (Minotaur)

A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

Ghost Hero by S J Rozan (Minotaur)

Louise Penny won the Dilys Award in 2011 with her novel Bury your Dead and again in 2007 for her novel Still Life. Both Louise Penny and S J Rozan were nominated in 2010 for their novels The Brutal Telling and Shanghai Moon respectively.

The winner will be announced March 31 at Mining for Murder, the 2012 Left Coast Crime Convention in Sacramento.

Congratulations to all the nominated authors!

News from Pan Macmillan and Orion

Pan Macmillan Publishing Director, Wayne Brookes has acquired two brand new psychological thrillers by Hilary Bonner from Tony Peake.

Brookes secured world rights for The Cruellest Game and one as yet untitled novel. The Cruellest Game is scheduled for publication in 2013.

Hilary Bonner says,

“I am absolutely thrilled to have joined Pan Macmillan and been given this wonderful opportunity to write stand-alone psychological thrillers. This without doubt marks a return to my roots and what I feel I do best. It also gives me the chance to work with Wayne Brookes, whom I have known and admired for many years. And I am pleased to be able to report that the first book, The Cruellest Game, is already well under way. It traces the calamitous sequence of events which befall an apparently near perfect family following unexpected revelations of lies and duplicity.”

Wayne Brookes comments,

“When I heard that Hilary wanted to write another thriller, I couldn’t have been happier. She’s the queen of the twist in the tale and The Cruellest Game is a fabulous example of expert plotting. Hilary is a wonderful storyteller and is the perfect fit for Pan Mac.”

Tony Peake says,

‘'In these uncertain times, it's doubly rewarding and hugely exciting for an agent to see an editor and a writer click like Hilary and Wayne have done. Their shared vision and enthusiasm will, I am sure, bring forth spectacular results.”

Hilary Bonner is the former Show Business Editor of the Daily Mirror and the Mail on Sunday. A former Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, she is the author of nine novels and five works of non-fiction and now lives in the West Country, where she was born and raised.

For more information, please contact Liz Sich at Colman Getty on 020 7631 2666; liz@colmangetty.co.uk

According to Katie Allen at the Bookseller, Orion is to publish a new novel by George Pelecanos, a writer on TV show "The Wire", as a late addition to its spring schedules.

What It Was, a noir thriller set in 1970s Washington DC, will be published as a £25 signed and numbered hardback collectors edition and a £9.99 trade paperback on 9th February. Orion will also simultaneously publish the title as a £5.99 e-book [pictured] price-promoting it for 99p for the first month.

Editor Bill Massey bought UK and Commonwealth rights in the title in October 2011 directly from Little, Brown US. He said: "George delivered this novel unexpectedly, so we’re really publishing it as a one-off, as a treat for his fans, with spectacular-looking print editions alongside a low-priced e-book to attract new readers.

"This may be a publishing first, because even the e-book looks cool." The novel follows private investigator Derek Strange who becomes embroiled in the chase of ruthless killer "Red Fury". The publisher saying: "this is Pelecanos writing in the hard-boiled noir style that won him his earliest fans". Pelecanos was an Emmy-nominated writer on the hit crime series "The Wire" and is a writer on US drama "Treme".

Ethan Cross talks about his love of stories

Today's guest blogger is Ethan Cross whose debut novel The Shepherd is published today. Ethan talks about his love of writing stories, his book The Shepherd and getting published.

Telling stories on a grand scale has been my dream for as long as I can remember. When a fireman or a policeman would come visit my school, most of my classmates’ heads would swim with aspirations of growing up and catching bad guys or saving someone from a blazing inferno. When these moments came for me, however, my dreams weren’t to someday be a cop or put out fires; I just wanted to make a movie or write a book about it. And my dream has come to fruition with the release of my first novel, The Shepherd.

But to what can I attribute my undying love of stories?

It started as early as I can remember. I wasn’t an only child, but since my three sisters are so much older than I am, it felt that way growing up. I’ve always been an introvert and my favorite pastime as a young boy was playing pretend with my action figures and my imaginary friends (as my parents called them). But I’m not sure if they were truly the imaginary friends that we traditionally think of. I say this because they were more like characters in my own little movies. At the time, it was a boy playing with his imaginary friends, but I still do basically the same thing as an adult, only my imaginary friends find life on the pages of my books.

I’ve also been an enormous fan of movies since I was very young. How many ten-year-olds do you know that had a calendar hanging on their wall marking the release dates of every major Hollywood production? I would convince my parents to take me to sometimes two or three movies in a single weekend. We would often hit the 4:30 matinee at the theater, walk out, and drive straight over to get a good spot at the drive-in or turn around and walk back into a 7:00 o’clock showing at the same theater. In high school, I would rent a couple of movies every night from our local video store, although I did still find time to date, sing and play guitar in a rock band, play sports, and serve as our senior class president and valedictorian.

Not much has changed since then; my wife and I still take in a movie every weekend. Shortly after college, I also discovered a great love for reading, sometimes consuming three to four books a week. For me, movies and books have always been and always will be magical experiences.


Today’s guest blog is by Ethan Cross whose debut novel The Shepherd has just been released in the UK today. Ethan talks about why he has always wanted to write stories, his road to writing The Shepherd and getting it published.

Telling stories on a grand scale has been my dream for as long as I can remember. When a fireman or a policeman would come visit my school, most of my classmates’ heads would swim with aspirations of growing up and catching bad guys or saving someone from a blazing inferno. When these moments came for me, however, my dreams weren’t to someday be a cop or put out fires; I just wanted to make a movie or write a book about it. And my dream has come to fruition with the release of my first novel, The Shepherd.

But to what can I attribute my undying love of stories?

It started as early as I can remember. I wasn’t an only child, but since my three sisters are so much older than I am, it felt that way growing up. I’ve always been an introvert and my favorite pastime as a young boy was playing pretend with my action figures and my imaginary friends (as my parents called them). But I’m not sure if they were truly the imaginary friends that we traditionally think of. I say this because they were more like characters in my own little movies. At the time, it was a boy playing with his imaginary friends, but I still do basically the same thing as an adult, only my imaginary friends find life on the pages of my books.

I’ve also been an enormous fan of movies since I was very young. How many ten-year-olds do you know that had a calendar hanging on their wall marking the release dates of every major Hollywood production? I would convince my parents to take me to sometimes two or three movies in a single weekend. We would often hit the 4:30 matinee at the theater, walk out, and drive straight over to get a good spot at the drive-in or turn around and walk back into a 7:00 o’clock showing at the same theater. In high school, I would rent a couple of movies every night from our local video store, although I did still find time to date, sing and play guitar in a rock band, play sports, and serve as our senior class president and valedictorian.

Not much has changed since then; my wife and I still take in a movie every weekend. Shortly after college, I also discovered a great love for reading, sometimes consuming three to four books a week. For me, movies and books have always been and always will be magical experiences.

The original idea for The Shepherd started out years ago as a short 40-page story written for a college English class. I was watching a movie called Frailty (great movie, by the way), and it got me interested in the idea of turning the tables on who we saw as the villain and the "good guy". The short story asked the question, "Do the ends justify the means?" and dealt with the abuse of power. The serial killer in the short story (the character that later evolved into Ackerman) was actually not a character at all, since the story centered upon the finding of the killer's dead body. I originally intended to use the short story as a starting point for the novel, but the book took me in such different directions that there is basically nothing recognizable left from the short story. The class was a senior level English course, and I handed in the story on one of the last days before graduation. On the following day, the teacher asked me to stay after class and urged me not to stop writing. Her words meant a lot and really stuck with me.

But when I laid out the roadmap for the book version of The Shepherd, I didn’t just want to write a standard serial killer or murder mystery novel. I wanted to do something a little different. Without quoting another blurb or running through the standard book description, I would say that my goal with The Shepherd was to write a book that I would want to read. And I love books that are fast-paced with a lot of action. I tried to take the serial killer genre but put a slightly different spin on it (and the book also revolves around a larger conspiracy in which the killer plays a part). There are a lot of books out there that feature the hunt for serial killers; after all, these men are like aliens among us. They think and act in ways that most of us cannot begin to comprehend, which in turn makes them fascinating. But while most novels of this type take the police procedural approach and the following of clues to find the killer (and my book does have some of this), The Shepherd is designed to get the reader into the killer’s head and make them wonder how the other characters are going to escape. In other words, it’s not a “follow the clues to unmask the killer” type of book. It’s more a “oh my God, he’s in the next room…and he’s got a shotgun” type of book.

As I said, I’ve always had a deep love of stories and knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life. I had written a partially-finished screenplay in High School, and at one time in my life, I had considered moving to California and attempting to break into the film industry. But I knew that was an uphill battle, and much of my time was being consumed by another dream: music. While reaching for that dream, I was able to play all over the Midwest, record a few CDs, and open for national recording artists as a lead singer and guitar player. But I never gave up on my dream of telling stories, and I continued to develop the ideas in my head.

Up to this point, I had never been a truly big book reader, but then a friend introduced me to a series of Star Wars books that picks up where the original movies left off. I had always been a Star Wars fan, so I decided to give the books a shot. I loved them, but I also discovered a love for books. It wasn’t long before I was reading everything from suspense thrillers to action and adventure. I had always considered writing a novel, but it was at this point that I knew that was what I wanted to do. So I began development on The Shepherd, and after more work than I could’ve possibly imagined, I finished a first draft. However, the book was far from finished.

After doing a lot of research and knowing that I couldn’t get my book published without an agent, I decided to attend a writer’s conference in New York City called Thrillerfest. It included a period of time where you were able to pitch your novel to a group of agents, but you only had three minutes with each. I did well during my pitches and generated interest from all but a couple of the agents with whom I spoke. However, during Thrillerfest, I also attended three days of classes taught by some of biggest authors in the world. It was at this point that I realized my book wasn’t ready for primetime, and I still had a lot of work ahead of me. I also made a lot of new friends and contacts within the publishing industry, and one of them referred me onto a man named Lou Aronica.

The funny thing is that Lou had been the head of several of the big publishing houses, and while heading Bantam Spectra, he was the guy that came up with the idea of having Star Wars books (the same books that got me into reading). It all felt very serendipitous, so I began working with Lou to take my work to the next level. But Lou wasn’t finished with me yet. He also loved my book so much that he referred me onto my agent, Danny Baror—a man who represents some of the biggest authors in the world. Then, a few months later, Lou contacted me about a new undertaking. He had decided to start a new publishing imprint that was going to be invitation only. He asked if I would want to be one of the first authors to be published under this new imprint. I was, of course, excited to continue working with Lou and accepted.

Since then, the book has become an international bestseller described as “Silence of the Lambs meets the Bourne Identity” and “A fast paced, all-too-real thriller with a villain right out of James Patterson and Criminal Minds.” I’ve also signed on with Random House in the UK and have deals in other countries as well including Germany, Italy, Russia, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

HARLAN COBEN'S STAY CLOSE TO BE FILMED

News via Deadline.com reaches us that Lawrence Kasdan and bestselling author Harlan Coben are to team up on a feature adaptation of Stay Close, Coben’s latest thriller novel which Dutton will publish March 20. Lawrence Kasdan will direct the film. In Stay Close, a past crime returns to devastate the lives of a photojournalist, a suburban mother with a hidden past, and a homicide detective obsessed with a series of unsolved disappearances. The Hitchcockian thriller plunges all three into a dark world of sex, secrets and shocking violence.

The "team" expect to have a script ready by the time the book is published. So far, the only movie adaption of Coben’s work was 2006’s Tell No One, and that was a French film directed by Guillaume Canet. It wasn’t until after that film’s success that Warner Bros acquired remake rights, with Ben Affleck attached to direct, Chris Terrio writing and Kennedy/Marshall producing. All Coben’s books have been optioned repeatedly, only to languish in development hell.

“Everybody told me I was crazy to make that deal with Guillaume, but in hindsight I was enormously lucky,” Coben says. “That book was optioned first by Mike Ovitz’s AMG, which maybe was a kiss of death, and then Sony tried before the rights came back to me and this crazy young French guy came along with great ideas and a plan to set the film in France. Every one of my books has either been optioned or is under option, and it seems to me that this situation with Larry isn’t much different than an option deal where a producer gets somebody to acquire, then has a script written and then something goes wrong.”

Kasdan told Mike Fleming of Deadline.com that after he made Darling Companion, which was stylistically reminiscent of his film The Big Chill, he wanted a potboiler reminiscent of his earlier film Body Heat. “Harlan and I met at a conference organized by Jeff Bezos, and we just hit it off,” Kasdan said. “I’d read a couple of his books, and after asking him why they hadn’t been made into his movies, he told me his tale of woe, of having everything optioned and developed to death. We agreed to look through his stuff, and he said, I just finished a book today, do you want to read it? I think it’s the most adaptable of his books, with a tight plot and strong characters. We’ll have the script ready by March, and at that point we’ll see who salutes. When you boil Harlan’s fiction to its core, it’s intensity, momentum and tension and this will be a medium budget sexy and violent film.”

Published in the US March 20th 2012
UK March 29th 2012