Sunday, July 15, 2007
Maine Writers Index
New on the Maine Writers Index:
Joanne Clarey (pictured), mystery and thriller writer, former Portland resident and now Maine summer resident.
Portland native and resident, Down East columnist, journalist Elizabeth Peavey
Labels: clarey, columnist, journalist, maine writers index, mwi, mysteries, peavey, thrillers
Monday, July 09, 2007
Recommended Summer-Reading Thrillers
Four thrillers are recommended, some with reservations, in New York magazine's book section: The Dark River by John Twelve Hawks, the second in the dystopian 'Fourth Realm Trilogy'("like The Da Vinci Code without the shameful aftertaste"); The Red Dahlia by Lynda La Plante (of the Prime Suspect TV series); Chain of Evidence by Garry Disher, set in Australia; and The Tenderness of Wolves by debut author Stef Penney.Labels: book reviews, crime fiction, crime novels, thrillers
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Crime Novels are the New Mainstream Fiction
"[C]rime-related books we now call thrillers -- private-eye novels, legal thrillers, spy thrillers, even literary thrillers - constitute the new mainstream of American popular fiction. If you look back a few decades, the bestseller lists were dominated by writers like James Michener, Harold Robbins, and Jackie Susann. They wrote about sex, movie stars, wars, and exotic foreign lands, but not about crime -- crime novels were still 'genre fiction,' often published as paperback originals. All that has changed. Look at the American bestseller lists any Sunday and you'll find that at least half of the novels listed are thrillers of one sort or another." So says Patrick Anderson in the Guardian's book blog.Labels: crime novels, fiction, mysteries, thrillers
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Dean Koontz on Faith
"While his novels are often filled with darkness (Faith & Family magazine warns: 'Disturbing scenes include violence, gore and frightening portrayals of great evil; some sexuality.'), he is animated by his Catholic faith -- a faith which has become more evident in his books in recent years.
"His most recent book is Brother Odd (Bantam), his latest in a series of books about the character Odd Thomas. Koontz spoke with Register senior writer Tim Drake from his home in California about faith and its impact on his writing.
"I don’t shy away from having violent things happen, but I don’t dwell on it. I feel, as a Christian, writing books that have a moral purpose to them, it’s actually incumbent upon me to write about evil, because this kingdom is Satan’s and he is the prince of the world. It’s here and it’s among us."
Labels: catholicism, faith, interview, koontz, thrillers
Friday, February 16, 2007
Dan Brown-Alikes
NYT article on the plethora of thrillers about sacred secrets, thanks to the success of The Da Vinci Code:
"Take a sacred treasure. Add a secret conspiracy. Attach a name well known to scholars -- Dante, Poe, Wordsworth, Archimedes, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, the Romanovs, Vlad the Impaler, 'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,' whatever -- and work it into a story that can accommodate both the Glock and the Holy Grail. If there’s any room left for the Knights Templar or DNA samples from Biblical figures, by all means plug them in.
"Thanks, Dan Brown. Look what you started. In the sound-like-Brown genre the stakes are high, the scruples are absent and the copycatting is out of control. Your own next book (possibly to be called The Solomon Key, arrival date unknown) is already a pre-sacred text."
Also offers a list of recent/current readalikes.
Labels: conspiracy theory, da vinci code, dan brown, solomon key, thrillers
