CLAN is out!

CLAN by Harry Shannon $3.99 on Kindle, soon to be on Nook...

They have been among us for thousands of years. One mysterious gene they carry lies dormant—until they change. Joe Case is an ex-cop searching for the man who humiliated his sister. Kelly McCammon is a Hollywood executive running from the Russian mob. Destiny leads them to tiny Salt Lick, Nevada…A town under siege.

"CLAN is a thriller with a genuine bite. Once Harry Shannon gets his claws in you he will not let go! Highly recommended."
—Jonathan Maberry, New York Times Bestselling author of Patient Zero and Dust & Decay

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005IDKXDI/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_SfNuob0Z436WN

Mystery Scene Features "Flesh & Bones"

Paul Levine here...

Today's Mystery Scene Blog features the e-book version of "Flesh & Bones" with a nice mention of my September hardcover, "Lassiter."

Many thanks to Oline Cogdill, the dean of mystery reviewers.

INSIDE TOP SUSPENSE: Writing the Bad Guy

We’re baaack… and this week we’re talking about the Bad Guys. How do you write a Bad Guy who’s not cardboard, stereotypical, or boring? Our very own “bad guys” Bill Crider, Dave Zeltserman, Harry Shannon, and Paul Levine will tell you. But don’t let them stop you. Please join us with your two cents. (Of course they may have to kill you afterwards…)


Bill Crider here. Everybody likes to write the villains. I’m sure a good analyst could explain why better than I can. Anyway, for me there has to be something in even the worst villain that people like. Or maybe that’s the wrong word. “Recognize” might be better. Villains have to be as human as the other characters. They should also have reasons for what they do. I’m not a fan of the book that ends with the “he must have been crazy” explanation. And while Shakespeare can get away with attributing Iago’s misdeeds to “motiveless malignity,” I’d never try that one, not being quite in Shakespeare’s league. One more thing: The villain has to be right for the story. Hannibal Lecter wouldn’t fit in Cabot Cove, or at least he wouldn’t work for me in that setting. (Jessica Fletcher could probably handle him, though.)

Dave Zeltserman here. I’ve written a lot of bad guys, but none badder than Kyle Nevin. Violent, amoral, near-psychopathic, Nevin is my protagonist for Pariah. That’s right. The main guy, the one who the reader is going to follow throughout the book. This is a character who thinks nothing of breaking a man's fingers and slamming a car door into his face for leaving a dumpster in the neighborhood uncovered, or beating someone to near death for failing to pay him what he considers the proper respect. But readers need to like and sympathize with your main character, right? Well, Nevin has a certain verve and charm to him, but what readers really need is to be fascinated by him and want to know what’s coming next. What’s important in creating a character like Nevin, and really any bad guy is that he has to feel very real and can’t be some drooling cartoonish version of a villain. The things that Nevin does might be very wrong, but in his skewed way of thinking it all makes sense and is justified, and the reader needs to believe that also. As long as Nevin’s logic, no matter how screwed up it might be, is consistent, he will seem very real to the reader, and very scary.


Harry Shannon here. We'll use "guy" knowing the antagonist could easily be female, especially these days. As any actor will tell you, the bad guy has rationalized his behavior and rarely thinks of himself as the bad guy. The rest us have treated him unfairly, or someone else's cruelty has justified his own. A sociopathic personality is driven by fear, anger, avarice and not much else--but isn't ever at peace. He tends to believe the rest of us are the same way, i.e. crying crocodile tears, manipulating for advantage and so on. That makes for a scared and hollow experience of life. Knowing this can help create a far more realistic enemy. The sexual psychopath is often driven by a punishing super ego. John D. MacDonald understood both those folks very well, and gave them voice as few authors have done. Evil humans are like the rest of us in that sense, that is to say tortured by inner demons they usually don't even recognize as their own. If we can relate to them on a psychological level they are that much more terrifying.

Paul Levine here. Harry referred to John D. MacDonald, author of the classic “Travis McGee” series. MacDonald also said “there are no one hundred per cent heroes.” I’d like to turn that around and say that the best antagonists are not “one hundred per cent villains.” Remember cold-blooded assassin Alan Ladd in “This Gun for Hire.” He feeds a stray cat…before slapping around his landlady and shooting the target of a paid hit. The best villains believe what they’re doing is right, at least according to their own skewed moral codes. Remember “Max Cady,” the relentless ex-con portrayed by Robert DeNiro in the remake of “Cape Fear.” Was he evil? You bet. But Cady doubtless thought he was justified in terrorizing Nick Nolte’s family. After all, Nolte, his own lawyer, sold him down the river. That violated the code of lawyers…and criminals alike. (Coincidentally, “Cape Fear” was adapted from a novel by MacDonald, “The Executioners.”) Something else we can learn from the vicious Max Cady. A villain can be uneducated and crude and yet brilliant in his own, twisted way. And that’s far, far better than a stupid, brutish villain. The antagonist should be a worthy opponent of the hero, whose task must be challenging, both physically and mentally, and sometimes morally as well.

Inside Top Suspense is coming back this Monday

Join us Monday as we discuss writing the bad guy.

More Inside Top Suspense topics are also planned. And if you've got topics you'd like us to discuss, let us know about them.

SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE at KindleBoards

Hi, all. Those of you who are on KindleBoards might be interested in a discussion about SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE. It's part of their "Read With The Author" Book Klub, which they're in the process of reviving. I am one of six authors they asked to lead a discussion, and I had the "good fortune" to be the guinea --er -- first.

So, I'd love it if you popped over and put in your two cents. There are a bunch of threads, but you really don't have to have read the book to participate -- some of them are pretty general.

Thanks. See you over there.

"the best of both crime fiction worlds into one delightfully charming read"

Julius Katz and Archie is a wonderful mix of old school and new. It’s old school in that the mystery is presented in a slight variation on the classic British drawing room setup (the suspects are all gathered together, though not in a secluded location), the violence is minimal and offstage, with the investigator solving the crime through intelligence and deduction instead of car chases, fist fights and shootouts. New school, on the other hand, is well represented by Archie’s very high tech presence (he’s constantly hacking into various databases to gather information) and hard-boiled personality. Indeed, in Julius Katz and Archie author Dave Zeltserman has packaged the best of both crime fiction worlds into one delightfully charming read.

Elizabeth White's review of Julius Katz and Archie

Today's Sizzling Summer Read: Blood Dreams by Jack MacLane

I'm Bill Crider. Jack MacLane is my evil twin. He's usually chained up down in the basement, but back in the late 1980s he somehow got loose, got hold of a computer, and wrote some horror novels for Zebra Books. The family never thought much of Jack, even when he became a writer, but the funny thing is, he coulda been a contender.

At least his editor at Zebra Books thought so. After Jack's first couple of novels, she was going to give Blood Dreams a big push. It's the story of a man named Hubert, who runs a used-book store in a small town. His hobby is killing people. He's very clever, so he's never been caught or even suspected. Not until a boy who has strange dreams, nightmares, really, and all of them about Hubert, comes along. Bad things ensue. And there are alligators!

But I digress. I was going to tell you about how Jack almost became a contender. The editor at Zebra really liked his work, and she had big plans for Blood Dreams. A die-cut foldout cover. A dump full of the books to put at the front of the big chain bookstores. Stuff like that. Jack still has a couple of proof copies of that cover among his little treasures.

But that's all he has because the editor left before the book was published. It became an orphan, and while it did have a cool cover, it didn't get the big push. The new editor shoved Jack's next two books way to the back of the catalog, and Jack, in a black depression went out and, . . . Never mind. We still don't talk about that. He's been down in the basement since then, fondling the tattered paperback editions of his work, talking to spiders, and staring at those cover proofs, now growing moldy with age.

Not even the news that his books are now available in e-book format seems to cheer Jack up, but I have a feeling you could help. Here's how. Buy Jack's books! Especially Blood Dreams. Help him remember the glory days, when he was an up-and-comer. If he cheers up, maybe we'll even let him out of the basement for a while.

Today's Sizzling Summer Read: Blood Moon

by Ed Gorman

Judging by reader mail over the years Blood Moon is the most sinister of all my suspense novels.

"Blood Moon has everything--prison drama, horror story, whodunit, psycho-thriller--all skillfully combined to lead you to a shock ending." Scotland on Sunday.

I started working on the story after reading two unrelated news stories. One had to do with a strange series of murders in a rural community. The other was about a very rich young man who'd been found guilty of second degree murder for the death of his girl friend and was serving time in particularly violent prison. I wondered both about the nature of the murderer in the boonies and also how the young men, accustomed to a rather cushy life from all accounts, would survive behind bars. A story began to emerge.

"As much a superb thriller as it is a well-plotted detective story." Mystery News

The novel was first published in England where the reviews were generally excellent. The major book club in the UK picked it up and it did well for them. Over here the reviews were also good. I'd written a fair share of horror in the eighties and I was glad to see that mystery readers appreciated how I'd combined the mood of my earlier stories with the whodunit form.

"An expertly wrought atmospheric mystery featuring modern psychological crime fighting by a winning detective." Publisher's Weekly

So I'm happy to see it here on our Top Suspense Group's summer reading list. Happy reading!

"An unusually grueling and suspenseful climax...and uncompromising and unprettified account of violence and human evil..." Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

BLOOD MOON is ON SALE now for a limited time for $0.99. To buy for the Kindle click here.

Today's Sizzling Summer Read: Dying Memories

by Dave Zeltserman

Dying Memories opens with a woman shooting a man to death on a crowded street in Boston, claiming that this man raped and murdered her eleven-year old daughter. Except he didn't, because this woman never had a daughter. Another man stabs an MIT professor to death in front of a crowd in Harvard Square, insisting that he witnessed the professor running down his wife in the street. Except the MIT professor was three thousand miles away when the man's wife was killed.

Reporter Bill Conway discovers that these victims are connected to ViGen Corporation, a shadowy pharmaceutical company. When he tries to investigate ViGen Corporation and their role in these deaths, things quickly turn dangerous for him. The following short excerpt has Bill being questioned after being grabbed from the street and thrown into a van, with his interrogators insisting that his real name is Jeffrey Vozzmer.

“Yes you do, Jeffrey. We’re not idiots here. Tell me what I want to know and this will all be over.”

“Check my wallet,” Bill pleaded. He was nauseous, his left ear throbbing. “My driver’s license will show you that I’m not this Jeffrey Vozzmer.”

“And what would that prove?” Simon asked. “That you took the precautions to be carrying a fake ID? Please, Jeffrey, we’re not amateurs. You should know that.”

“This is all fucked up,” Bill insisted weakly. “I’m not Jeffrey Vozzmer. I never heard that name before.”

Simon ignored Bill, said patiently, “Tell me what I want to know.”

“I don’t know what you want to know.”

The same behemoth who had punched him before raised an eyebrow, asking an unspoken question. Simon, sitting opposite Bill, took his time before shaking his head.

“No, I don’t believe that will be necessary,” he said. “I’m sure we can facilitate Jeffrey to talk without having to resort to any further violence, even if it won’t be of his own volition.” Then to Bill, “One last time, tell me what I want to know.”

Numbly, Bill shook his head. “I swear, I don’t know what that is,” he said.

Simon sighed and picked up a small leather case that was on the seat next to him. He opened the case carefully, almost lovingly, and took from it a hypodermic needle, which he held up for Bill to look at.

“Relax,” Simon lied. “It’s only sodium pentothal. More than enough to loosen your lips but not enough to cause any serious damage. At least not usually.”

Simon then leaned forward. Bill tried to struggle, but the two thugs held him steady.

“If there was a chance that you would cooperate and remove your jacket I wouldn’t need to inject this inside your gum,” Simon cooed softly. “But one must do what one must do. Now, please open your mouth or I’ll have my associates force it open.”

Then it was as if a bomb had been detonated.

Bill escapes this ordeal, but soon finds that it’s not just these mysterious forces after him as he’s framed for a brutal murder. Or at least Bill’s pretty sure he’s been framed. The thing is, as with the reader, Bill’s never quite sure what’s real or not. All he knows is his peril, as well as the stakes involved, keep escalating by the minute.

Dying Memories has some similarities with my crime novels. It’s bullet paced with whiplash-inducing twists and turns throughout which will keep both Bill and the reader off balance. Where it’s very different than my crime novels, like Small Crimes, Pariah, Killer and Fast Lane, is that while they’re pitch black descents into the abyss, Dying Memories is more of a rollercoaster ride colored a murky gray that’s brightened by constant flashes of red. And where my crime novel protagonists, Joe Denton, Kyle Nevin, Leonard March and Johnny Lane, are, putting it as delicately as I can, pretty much bastards who readers root for (at least at some level) to find the hell they deserve, the hero of Dying Memories, Bill Conway, is very different. He’s someone the reader is going to be able to care about.

I hope you enjoy Dying Memories. To buy for the Kindle click here. For the Nook, here.

Today's Sizzling Summer Read - Motion To Kill by Joel Goldman

I wrote Motion To Kill when one of my then law partners complained about another partner. My advice was to write a murder mystery, kill the son-of-a-bitch off in the first chapter and spend the rest of the book figuring out who did it. I took my own advice, created the character Lou Mason and let him figure it out.

Here's the set up.

The ink is barely dry on Mason's business cards when the body of the firm's senior partner, Richard Sullivan, washes ashore at a lake where the firm is having its annual retreat. New enough to the firm to be above suspicion, his partners ask him to investigate. Mason takes on the case, looking for a killer who's got Mason in his cross-hairs. Investigating the case means running through a maze of high-level corruption, sexual misconduct, organized crime and cold blooded murder. Hell of a way to get to know your new partners - the ones that survive, that is.

Motion To Kill is set at the Lake of the Ozarks in southern Missouri and in my hometown of Kansas City. Whether he's in the Ozarks or the courtroom, Mason is a long way from being out of the woods.

Here's an excerpt.

A dead partner is bad for business, even if he dies in his sleep. But when he washes ashore on one side of a lake and his boat is found abandoned on the other side, it's worse. When the sheriff tells the coroner to "cut him open and see what we've got," it's time to dust off the resume. And the ink was barely dry on Lou Mason's.

The time was seven-thirty on Sunday morning, July 12. It was too early for dead bodies, too humid for the smell, and just right for the flies and mosquitoes. And it was rotten for identifying the body of a dead partner. These were the moments to remember.

Mason's dead partner was Richard Sullivan, senior partner in Sullivan & Christenson, his law firm for the last three months. Sullivan was the firm's rainmaker. He was a sawed-off, in your face, thump-your-chest ball buster. His clients and partners loved the money he made for them, but none of them ever confessed to liking him. Though in his late fifties, he had one of those perpetually mid-forties faces. Except that now he was dead, gray as a Minneapolis winter and bloated from a night in the water.

Sullivan & Christenson was a Kansas City law firm that employed forty lawyers to merge and acquire clients' assets so they could protect them from taxation before and after death. When bare-knuckled bargaining didn't get the deal done, they'd sue the bastards. Or defend the firm's bastard if he was sued first. Mason's job was to win regardless of which bastard won the race to the courthouse.

Hope you love it!

Today's Sizzling Summer Read: No One Will Hear You

NOW HEAR THIS! by Max Allan Collins

Two serial killers vie for the attention of the public in NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU, the second J.C. Harrow thriller by Matt Clemens and me. You needn’t have read YOU CAN’T STOP ME to jump in here, however, and as much as we like the first book – recently a nominee for the Best Paperback Thriller of the Year – Matt and I feel we’ve upped the ante and improved our game second-time around.

We listened to reviewers and readers and sought to make NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU a state-of-the-art thrill ride. We made the chapters shorter, increased the plot twists, even while trying to delve deeper in the characters...not just Harrow and his superstar forensics team, but the killers themselves. And we introduced a secondary protagonist, LAPD sex crimes detective, Lt. Anna Amari, who more than holds her own with Harrow.

J.C. Harrow is a tragic hero, a former Midwestern sheriff who once saved the President’s life at the Iowa State Fair but – on the same day – lost his family to a homicidal maniac. The national attention this brought him inspired Harrow to become the host of “Crime Seen!” – a sort of reality TV version of CSI, providing Harrow with the platform...and funds...to track down his family’s murderer.

This he did in YOU CAN’T STOP ME, and now in NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU he is questioning whether he should continue on as host of this popular show, contemplating returning to law enforcement in some other small Midwestern town. That’s when a video shows up at Crime Seen HQ from “Don Juan” – a serial killer who murderers a woman on camera by way of “trying out” to be the show’s next villain. When a second killer makes a similar demand, Harrow and his team wonder if they are breeding killers as much as tracking them down....

In addition to being a thriller that has been called “riveting,” NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU takes a sharply critical and satirical look at the reality TV craze and its downside.

True-crime writer Matt Clemens and I collaborated on the first eight CSI novels, and the first two CSI MIAMI novels, selling millions of copies. We later wrote the only BONES novel and three CRIMINAL MINDS novels, becoming along the way a team well-versed in serial killer-fueled suspense and forensics sleuthing. We feel NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU is the best – and certainly most exciting and frightening – of the thrillers we’ve written together.

Will Harrow return? Well, that’s up to you....

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MAX ALLAN COLLINS is the author of ROAD TO PERDITION, the graphic novel basis for the Tom Hanks Academy Award-winning film.

No One Will Hear You is available now for both the Kindle and Nook.

Windsurfing Injury Led to "Riptide"

But for an injury, I might never have become a novelist.

This is the backstory of “Riptide,” a Jake Lassiter novel, now available on Kindle and Nook for $2.99.

In 1986, I rented a condo on Maui for the summer, intent on polishing my skills as a competitive windsurfer. My second day at Hookipa Beach, bouncing over the lip of a roller, the board exploded out of the water and smashed my femur. The E.R. physician told me nothing was broken and recommended smoking a little Maui Wowie for the pain. (No, not Dr. House).


So I sat on the beach with a yellow pad and started handwriting a novel featuring a character that popped into my mind: linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter. Here’s the first sentence of fiction I ever wrote, (not counting certain statements in my appellate briefs). “The old man loved gadgets, money, and large-breasted women, and at the moment, he had all three.”

When I returned home to Miami to resume practicing law, I put the novel aside and wrote “To Speak for the Dead,” which became my first published book. I kept re-writing “Riptide,” which appeared as a William Morrow hardcover under the title “Slashback.” And that line about gadgets, money, and breasts? It’s now the first sentence of chapter two. Here’s what the Tampa Tribune had to say:

“A thriller as fast as the wind...a bracing rush, as breathtaking as hitting the Gulf waters on a chill December morning.”

There’s more about the Jake Lassiter series on my website, including info about “Riptide,” in which Jake Lassiter chases two dangerous professional windsurfers from Miami to Maui in pursuit of the old man’s stolen bonds. You can buy the e-book from Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Smashwords for $2.99.

Paul Levine