There’s something eternally captivating about the idea of hidden treasure, conjuring images of sunken ships and secret passageways, coded maps, and skeletal guardians. So it’s only natural that so many writers of mystery and suspense have turned to the trope when crafting their narratives. The stakes are bound to be high and motives plentiful when…
It’s hard coming to the end of a series. I knew that the Shetland novels had run their course and I needed something different to spark my imagination. New characters to meet. I’d always dismissed suggestions that I should set books in Devon where I grew up. It lacked the wildness, the authenticity of Shetland…
What drives people to commit murder? I wrestled with the question as a law enforcement officer, and now continue to do so as a crime writer. According to the CDC, over 26,000 homicides occurred in the US in 2022. It’s not the highest year on record, which was 1991, but the rate has been trending…
There by the lift, on that last day, Bond asked Moneypenny if she thought he had a cold heart. “No,” she said. “That’s the problem.” Before she could add another word, M had called James back, and she never told him what she meant. That his heart, or his sentiment, or whatever you…
(A tip of the hat to Warren Clarke—1947-2014) Picture this: You have finished your novel, and as the euphoria evaporates, the publishers say, “How about a sequel?” By now the euphoria has been sucked into the stratosphere because … you haven’t the faintest idea what to write next. What does the honest writer do?…
Writing historical fiction frequently feels like playing detective as I research events in the past, trying to understand what happened and why, looking for clues in the historical record that help me bring a setting and time period to life for readers. I’m often drawn to lesser-known events in history, and it’s the desire to…
We love detectives in fiction for the same reason we’d hate them in real life: They’re always watching. Standing out in the dark and peering through the window to spy an adulterous couple. Keeping tabs on the powerful to report their corrupt acts. Trailing the murder suspect to watch him return to the scene of…
Recently, as my publisher and I began to prepare for the release of my new book, I updated my author bio for the first time in years. I try to be as tight-lipped as possible with personal details, and in this case I ruthlessly whittled down the bio to a single sentence that was essentially…
I’ve learned there’s always a new way to tell a story. Having written successful books on the Titanic and Amelia Earhart, I know from experience that if you dig deeply enough, you’ll often find surprising new details and angles to make it fresh. In both books, of course, readers already know the end of the…
What is it about someone showing up at your house carrying a suitcase? Do you hear the Jaws music? There’s nothing quite as illustrative of what “point of view” means as when you view your home through the eyes of a guest. Why did you not see the spider webs on the chandelier? Why did…
