TSM: How did your own passion for mysteries and reading help you develop the protagonist of Eight Perfect Murders, Malcolm Kershaw? PS: Mal’s passion for reading is very autobiographical. If he likes a book, it means I liked that book. The similarities between us stop there! TSM: Is the list of Eight Perfect Murders that […]
Author Archives: The Strand Magazine
Excerpt from Nadine Matheson’s THE JIGSAW MAN
Chapter 16 Henley watched Olivier through the shatterproof window. He spoke to one officer while another officer inserted a key into the handcuffs around Olivier’s wrists. Olivier said something, and the short Asian officer shook his head and laughed. Olivier placed his hand on the second officer’s arm, and Henley flinched. The cuffs were […]
Author Q&A with Andy McNab
TSM: SAS: Red Notice was recently adapted into a major film starring Sam Heughan, Tom Wilkinson, and Andy Serkis. Is this your first adaptation and how was that experience for you? AM: My first adaptation was the 2-part TV series that was made from BRAVO TWO ZERO, my very first book. It starred British actor Sean […]
SPY SITES OF PHILADELPHIA – Author Q&A with H. Keith Melton and Robert Wallace
AFG: What is a true event in the world of intelligence that we should know about but has not been publicized? KM: The biggest event that the public is generally unaware of is the shift from agents (and officers) using cover when posted abroad, to emigrating abroad under true name. The widespread use of […]
Seven Tips for Rediscovering Your Love of Reading
While some writers have been writing stories since they could hold a pencil, that wasn’t my experience. I was a reader first. For thirty-five years I fell into books, crawled into stories, and lived there as often as possible. Then one day the stories in my head tumbled onto a page. I started writing, […]
Tips for Creating the Perfect Villain
How many times have you read a book where the villain reminds you of the old black-caped character twirling his handlebar mustache and laughing maniacally? Readers may have settled for that characterization a hundred years ago or even twenty-five years ago, but now they are looking for more complex characters and a more perfect villain. […]
Sibling Rivalries throughout the Ages
Sibling rivalries have existed throughout recorded history, beginning with Cain and Abel in the bible. I haven’t been exempt myself, and if you have a sibling, you probably haven’t either. Siblings can be the best of friends, and also, the worst of enemies. When I was a teenager, one of my three sisters threw […]
The Strange True Stories Behind The Girl in the Mirror
Why do we read novels? We all know they aren’t true, but we allow ourselves to believe, to get caught up as though in a dream. Readers’ willingness to suspend disbelief is perhaps one of the strangest things about fiction. However, there are limits. Some readers will happily swallow stories with fanciful creatures, sci-fi […]
Seven spellbinding books that shaped modern ‘Western’ magic
Corpus Hermeticum (1st-3rd centuries CE), Anon These mysterious ‘wisdom texts’, written in Greek and attributed to an ancient Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, could claim to be foundational to both Western magic and science! Their huge influence followed their rediscovery and translation during the Italian renaissance, and the hermetic idea of controlling nature by […]
The Killer’s Shadow – Author Q&A with John Douglas and Mark Olshaker
AFG: Tell us about your latest book. The Killer’s Shadow is about the hunt for Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist serial killer who roamed the country with the self-imposed mission of killing African Americans, mixed-race couples and Jews, all with the intent of fomenting a race war in the United States. My first […]
WHAT PUTS THE THRILL INTO DOMESTIC FICTION?
Writing across several genres—women’s fiction, romance and domestic thrillers—can be challenging and a question I’m often asked is ‘what is a domestic thriller?’ For me, it’s women’s fiction with a killer twist…or many. Domestic thrillers are also labelled as domestic suspense, domestic noir and psychological thrillers, when in fact they’re a subgenre of the […]
The Writer Inside Me
Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me (1952) established him as one of the preeminent practitioners of hardboiled crime fiction. A first-person confession of a small town deputy sheriff going on a murder spree, it is a frightening and gripping novel that earned Thompson the sobriquet “Dimestore Dostoevsky.” Stanley Kubrick, who directed two Jim […]