Every book starts with a question. Sometimes it’s big: what happens when the past catches up with you? How far would you go to protect the truth? But sometimes it’s... different. More like: What’s the best musical instrument case to hide a body in? These are the...
Here’s how I usually write books. I don’t pitch them. I don’t outline them. I don’t (usually) send early pages to my agent. My editor often has no idea what I’m working on until the manuscript shows up in her inbox, fully formed, bleeding from the corners. It’s not...
How many of you saw “necessary evil” in the subject line and thought this would be another A.I. rant? Wrong! I’m onto social media now. Years ago, my publicist audited my social-media presence, because that’s a thing. What I was doing right, what needed work, what was...
(Note: This following is best read in the internal voice of an angry old man yelling at kids skateboarding in his driveway.) Goddamnit. A.I. is taking over the world and I hate it. I hate A.I. because, by and large, it makes life easier, and things that are easy don’t...
Hoo, boy. To say I’ve been surprised with the success of Tell Me What You Did is an understatement. It spent about a week as the #1 paperback (of all fiction and non-fiction) on Barnes & Noble and is currently #5 on B&N and in its fifth week on...
Twenty-one years ago, it was my brand-new agent who told me I had written a thriller. Cool! I thought. Followed by, what’s a thriller? I had no business writing a book. I had no training. No English degree. Knew nothing about books other than I enjoyed...
Happy New Year! My new thriller, Tell Me What You Did, will be out on January 28. This is an angry, scary book that’s gotten a lot of pre-release attention—more so than any of my earlier nine releases—and I can’t wait to see what happens with it. Like most of my...
Well, hi! This is Scully. Carter’s dog. I’ve been alive for two years and it’s awesome! I’m in charge of the newsletter this month. Carter said he ran out of ideas, which is weird, because ideas are kinda his job. Does this mean we won’t be able to afford food? But...
All right, now that it’s November you probably don’t want to hear about Halloween. Too bad. You can go down to your local grocery store and immerse yourself in all the Christmas decor you want, but for now, we’re doing a Halloween debrief. I’ve come to realize writing...
First things first: my Halloween theme this year is pirates. Usually my October newsletter is all about my Halloween theme, but I’m running late this year and it’s not even in good-enough shape to take pictures of my decorating progress. If I get some good...
