As a reader, I have eclectic tastes. I tend to avoid bestseller lists, which is why my shelves are filled mainly with novels from the early-nineteenth to late-twentieth centuries. Putting aside a few staple classics, such as Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, this list comprises 10 books that rank among…
The books you read shape the books you write, and nothing has influenced me more than mysteries, right from the very start. The first books I remember reading—after the Madeline and Winnie-the-Pooh years—were mysteries. Encyclopedia Brown and Jupiter Jones were the gateway adventures leading to Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew. I loved them for the…
Why was writing The Murder List like doing math? Because it’s all about understanding the properties of a triangle. One of the basic shapes of in geometry, right? And one of the basic shapes of conflict. Three points on a triangle. Or three points of view. And in a twisty triangle thriller, it all depends…
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 tale of intrigue, I tend…
Narrowing down to five the thrillers that served as catalysts for me to write Virtual Sabotage was difficult. I’ve read hundreds of thrillers and each one has inspired in its own way. But these five, in no particular order, have all taught me valuable lessons. The following authors demonstrate a level of talent that I…
I do love a book with a house in it. When I write one, I draw a floor plan with cupboards, light switches and door hinges marked. When I read one, well, I draw a floor plan with cupboards, light switches . . . and I’m not alone. A quick search online yields the Waltons’…
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Daphne du Maurier’s novel My Cousin Rachel is a study in character ambiguity. Published in 1951, it takes place—not unlike her earlier Rebecca (1938)—on a sprawling estate in the author’s beloved Cornwall. Du Maurier again works in the mystery-romance mode, and to a large degree, My Cousin Rachel inverts her most famous novel’s premise. Rebecca charts the…
Daphne du Maurier published her story “The Birds” in her 1952 collection called The Apple Tree. Several years later, Alfred Hitchcock bought the rights to the story, and in 1963 he released it as a film with a script by novelist Evan Hunter. Hitchcock had already filmed two du Maurier works, Jamaica Inn in 1939…
Daphne du Maurier’s story “Don’t Look Now,” first published in the collection Not After Midnight (1971), is one of the great pieces of fiction set in Venice. For all its beauty and art and atmosphere, “The City of Water” has served like no other city as a backdrop for sinister tales of mystery and doom. From Thomas…
