My informal research has led me to the theory that Crazy Cat Ladies ™ invariably start out as crazy cat kids. I know I did. Any number of my childhood photos show me carrying, petting, or otherwise engaging with a feline of some sort. The corollary to the CCL theory… Read more
Although I’m a writer of novels, one of the most common compliments I receive from my readers is that my books are very cinematic. This is deliberate because when I’m writing a scene, I can see it playing out in my head like a movie and I want the reader… Read more
What would you do if your life started mirroring that of your character? If you’re a horror author, you might freak out. Romance novelists, on the other hand, might find it exciting and sexy. But I’m a mystery writer, which leads me to believe that the most appealing mysteries are… Read more
Some books really do change your life. For me, it was Dr. No, not the first James Bond novel but the first to be turned into a movie in 1962. I read it when I was ten years old, stuck in an all-boys boarding school in North London, the sort… Read more
If your name is Michael Connelly, Lee Child, or Harlan Coben, you don’t have to worry about audiences finding your books. Those guys—and the select few authors in the same category of general popularity and writing excellence—have established a brand, hooked an audience, and set themselves up for continued readership…. Read more
…let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings; How some have been deposed; some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d; All murder’d… —William Shakespeare, Richard II People everywhere—even those with… Read more
Alfred Hitchcock. That’s my first answer when people ask me who I like as an author. I have to be honest though; I do not think of him as an author. I always think of Alfred Hitchcock as a director. Hitchcock was a storyteller first and foremost. He had an… Read more
The second born of the six Mitford sisters, Pamela Mitford is perhaps the one most easily overlooked. Where her siblings achieved fame and notoriety for their novels, extreme political opinions, enormous stately homes, or racy living, Pamela was best known—if at all—as “the country girl.” In some ways, this made… Read more
Georgia Tann left a dark legacy throughout the country, sewing tears among children and their birth parents for decades. Wearing gray hair, spectacles, a floral dress, and a sweet Southern smile, Tann looked like any caring grandmother—but most who encountered her learned that it was all a vile mask of… Read more
When it comes to a good mystery, the setting is everything. True, people can be murdered anywhere and, yes, most crimes probably get solved in the forensics lab, but that’s not the stuff that makes the spine tingle and the flesh creep. When I’m settling down for a truly terrorizing… Read more
