By George Ebey

“Geiger was an apostle, a slave to the specific. He was constantly breaking down, distilling, and defining parts of the whole, because in IR—information retrieval—the details were crucial. His goal was to refine the process to an art, which was why every single thing that happened from the moment Geiger walked into the room had its own degree of significance and required recognition. Each facial expression; each spoken word and silence; each tic, glance, and movement. Give him fifteen minutes in the room with a Jones and nine out of ten times he would know what the reaction to a particular action would be before the Jones made it: fear, defiance, desperation, bravado, denial. There were patterns, cycles, behavioral refrains. You just had to pay very close attention to see them all.”
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By J.N. Duncan

I’d like to welcome Jeremy Bates to the ITW list of authors with his debut thriller, WHITE LIES, a knock-out, twisty story about the trouble caused by one, little white lie. Degreed in English Literature and Philosophy, Jeremy has traveled the world and taken up residence in half a dozen different countries, but the broad scope of his life doesn’t keep him from focusing in on small, normal places, where equally normal people can find themselves involved in big-time terror.  Welcome, Jeremy! Let’s get to the good stuff.
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By Ian Walkley

Despite fifteen years in the making, Donna Galanti’s A HUMAN ELEMENT is a debut novel that brings a fresh approach to paranormal fiction. The book was released in March as a paperback original by Echelon Press. The New York Times best-selling author, Jonathan Maberry, has described A HUMAN ELEMENT as “An elegant and haunting first novel. Unrelenting, devious but full of heart.”

Donna has lived from England to Hawaii, owned a campground in New Hampshire and worked as a photographer in the U.S. Navy. With a background in marketing, Donna operated a resume writing service for years until she closed up shop to write novels. If she couldn’t write she would bike, hike, and kayak every day. Visit her on her website.
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By Clea Simon

Down on Primrose Lane lived a strange old man who always wore mittens. Not much was known about him – until he was murdered. Four years later, a true-crime author, David Neff, starts looking into the case. Neff has his own demons: a best-selling author, he is still reeling from his wife’s suicide. And as he begins to investigate the murder, he finds that his own demons may be as dangerous as those in the outside world. Real-life award-winning short-story writer and journalist James Renner took the time to discuss his debut thriller, THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE, which will be published this month by Sarah Crichton Books.
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By Karen Harper

Broke and jobless after graduating from university, Arthur Pender and three friends turn to kidnapping to survive. Their strategy: work quickly, demand low ransoms, and always keep moving. It works perfectly, until they kidnap a Detroit mobster who somehow winds up dead.

Suddenly, Pender and his gang find themselves pursued by two opposite factions: the law, in the form of veteran state investigator Kirk Stevens and hotshot FBI agent Carla Windermere, and an organized crime outfit looking for payback. All three groups criss-cross the country, playing a terrifying game of cat and mouse that leads ultimately to an explosive and brutal conclusion.
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In the future, teens rent their bodies to seniors who want to be young again. One girl discovers her renter plans to do more than party – she plans to use the body to murder someone.

Sixteen-year-old Callie lost her parents when the genocide spore wiped out everyone except those who were vaccinated first–the very young and very old. With no grandparents to claim Callie and her little brother, they go on the run, living as squatters, and fighting off unclaimed renegades who would kill for a cookie.

Hope comes via Prime Destinations, run by a mysterious figure known only as The Old Man. He hires teens to rent their bodies to seniors, known as Enders, who get to be young again. Callie’s neurochip malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her rich renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, even dating Blake, the grandson of a senator. It’s a fairy-tale new life . . . until she uncovers the Body Bank’s horrible plan…
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By Derek Gunn

CHAOS ERUPTS at the U.S. Supreme Court when an assassin guns down six justices as they are hearing a case.

…and this is in the very first chapter.  I read this one in two sittings, in fact my son was lucky to get collected at all. I don’t normally read court room thrillers, although this can’t really be described as taking place in the court room. It takes place in and around the complex working of the US legal system. The killing of six Justices has left a huge hole in the legal system and the investigation is ongoing through a combined task force of FBI, Homeland Security etc., but little head way is being made.
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By Milton C. Toby

Science and thrillers have been companionable bedfellows at least since Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN was published almost two centuries ago, and maybe longer than that.  When science takes a central role in a thriller, how accurate must the science be?  I put that question to Debut Author Kira Peikoff, whose novel LIVING PROOF is due for release this month from Tor.

“I don’t have a background in hard science,” Peikoff said, “but my background and training as a journalist gave me the confidence to interview professionals to get the information I needed for the book.  You need to know how to ask the right questions.”

Having asked the “right questions,” the NYU journalism graduate added, the next step is deciding how much to bend the rules without destroying the author’s credibility.
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By Rick Reed

Loren Christensen is the author of DUKKHA: THE SUFFERING, introducing Sam Reeves, a thirty-four year old martial arts instructor and Portland, Oregon police detective.

Police Detective Sam Reeves, a 34-year-old martial arts instructor, has a solid fifteen-year record as a good police officer with the Portland Police Department. For the first time, Sam is forced to take a life in the line of duty and despite the findings of “good shoot” he struggles to recuperate psychologically from the killing.
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Jeremy Burns is a rule breaker.  If there’s such a thing as poetry in death, Jeremy has found it as he rivets your eyes to each sinister page, describing what assassination looks like, tastes like and feels like.  In the first fifteen pages you hope the killer will be foiled.  You keep saying to yourself, it won’t happen, it won’t happen, it won’t happen.  And then you hold your breath until it does.

The book is FROM THE ASHES. And Jeremy Burns is part of a great experiment by Fiction Studio Books to get good authors noticed and into the hands of people who like reading works by good writers.  Published January of 2012, the experiment is working.  Jeremy has already generated buzz from Barnes and Noble Booksellers.  But perhaps the biggest buzz will be in what he chooses to write.  Jeremy says, “I decided to look at the historical record and see what mysteries no one had yet covered, and I created a strikingly plausible scenario that fits in rather eerily with the established history.”
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By Miranda Parker

NEW YORK JOURNAL OF BOOKS praised debut paranormal author Chris Holm’s DEAD HARVEST (Feb 2012) for its ability to pull ‘readers in and pins us to the edge of our seats with a cleverly conceived story that is flawlessly executed.”

Although this is his first novel, Holms previous work has appeared in: ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, and THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2011. He’s also been an Anthony Award nominee, a Derringer Award finalist, and a Spinetingler Award winner.

DEAD HARVEST is the story of Sam Thornton, a young man who collects souls. The souls of the damned, to be precise. Once taken himself, he’s now doomed to ferry souls to hell for all eternity, in service of a debt he can never repay. But when he’s dispatched to retrieve the soul of a girl he believes is innocent of the horrific crime for which she’s been damned, Sam does something no Collector has ever done before: he refuses
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By Miranda Parker

O MAGAZINE named Nancy Bilyeau’s THE CROWN (January 2012, Simon & Schuster) one of the “16 Books to Watch for in January 2012,” because “the real draw of this suspenseful novel was its juicy blend of lust, murder, conspiracy, and betrayal.”

When Joanna Stafford, a young novice, Dominican nun, learns her cousin is about to be burned at the stake for rebelling against King Henry VIII, she makes a decision that will change not only her life, but quite possibly the fate of a nation. Charged with a mission to find a hidden relic believed to possess a mystical power that has slain three Englishmen of royal blood in the last 300 years, Joanna and a troubled young friar, Brother Edmund, must seek answers across England. Once she learns the true secret of her quest, Joanna must finally determine who to trust, and how far she’s willing to go to protect her life, her family and everything she holds dear.
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By Virna DePaul

In THE PROFESSOR, someone is murdering women on South Carolina’s college campuses: three women, three different schools.  The Governor’s order to State Law Enforcement Agent Mick O’Shaughnessy is simple: make it stop.  More political maneuvering diverts Mick to nearby Douglass College.  There, instead of another dead body, he finds Meg Connelly, grad student and faculty advisor for the latest victim.

Determined to finish her master’s degree, Meg doesn’t need anybody’s help – including her estranged family – to succeed.  There’s something irresistible about Mick, but the last time she let someone get close to her, she lost everything except her self-respect.

As the investigation heats up, so does their relationship.  But Mick’s interest in Meg doesn’t just endanger her heart—it puts her in the sights of the killer.
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By George Ebey

Ghosts and other strange occurrences are the order of the day in author Elizabeth Voss’ upcoming novel of paranormal suspense, THE WINSLOW INCIDENT.

Summertime 2010. A small town hidden in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Welcome to Winslow, Washington, where all anyone expects is another ordinary summer: tourists taking the ghost town tour, locals cooling off in Ruby Creek, the carnival in Prospect Park. Nothing unusual. That’s because residents here have always done well at keeping order, keeping secrets and keeping the past buried.

Until now.
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By Dana Granger

Fans of dark, thrilling horror tales are in for a treat this December. That’s the release date of Brett Talley’s THAT WHICH SHOULD NOT BE. Set in the universe created by H.P. Lovecraft, THAT WHICH SHOULD NOT Be is the story of Carter Weston, a student of history and folklore at Miskatonic University. Carter is chosen by his professor and mentor, Dr. Atley Thayerson, to recover an important artifact—a once lost book of arcane lore, the Incendium Maleficarum. As Carter departs for the village of Anchorhead, a nor’easter descends upon the Massachusetts countryside, and he is forced to seek shelter in a seaside tavern. Inside, he meets four curious men. Each one has his own story to tell, and each is stalked by the same dark forces, forces that lurk in dreams and the black void just beyond man’s imagining. As these tales unfold, it becomes clear that the tie that binds them all is the very tome which he seeks, and that Carter, the student who started the night as a skeptic, may be the only hope for mankind.
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By L.J. Sellers

Her interest in the occult started around the same early age as her love of mysteries so it seems only natural that Rochelle Staab would eventually write a paranormal whodunit. Taking it a step further, Staab’s debut is titled WHO DO, VOODOO? and comes with high praise from reviewers and authors alike.

RT REVIEWS says: “The first in the Mind for Murder mystery series set in Los Angeles grabs your attention from the start with creepy tarot cards, voodoo priestesses, and cursed spell books. A fresh and entertaining premise for a new series that is cleverly plotted and executed.”
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Alma Katsu’s debut novel The TAKER is sure to appeal to fans of dark romantic fiction, drawing on history and the supernatural to tell a tale of obsession, revenge, punishment and, ultimately, redemption. BOOKLIST said, “Readers won’t be able to tear their eyes away from Katsu’s mesmerizing tale,” while PUBLISHERS WEEKLY said, “Katsu’s vividly imagined first novel is…full of surprises and a powerful evocation of the dark side of romantic love.” The TAKER has been compared to Interview With the Vampire, The Historian and The Twilight series, but is not part of the vampire literary tradition and creates a new myth all its own.

True love can last an eternity…but immortality comes at a price…
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By Virna DePaul

Since the age of eighteen, Joseph has been assassinating people on behalf of a cause that he believes in but doesn’t fully understand. The War is ageless, hidden in the shadows, governed by a rigid set of rules, and fought by two distinct sides-one good, one evil. The only unknown is which side is which. Soldiers in the War hide in plain sight, their deeds disguised as accidents or random acts of violence amidst an unsuspecting population ignorant of the brutality that is always inches away.

Killing people is the only life Joseph has ever known, and he’s one of the best at it. But when a job goes wrong and he’s sent away to complete a punishingly dangerous assignment, Joseph meets a girl named Maria, and for the first time in his life his singleminded, bloody purpose fades away.
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A dying man might ask for anything: forgiveness, a compassionate ear, a cold glass of water. Jimmy Veeder’s father asked him for a Mexican prostitute.

It has been twelve years since Jimmy set foot in the desert border town of his youth. But as his father’s cancer spreads, Jimmy returns to share what little time they have left. He never expected to be sent into the Mexicali underworld in search of a hooker named Yolanda. With the help of an erratic-at-best childhood friend and too much beer, Jimmy stumbles among the violent, the exploited and the corrupted on the Calexico/Mexicali border.

The search that follows forces Jimmy to confront family secrets and question everything he held to be true about his father.
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By Andrew Zack

It’s an exciting new time in the publishing world.  Authors without publishers are selling a million copies or more of eBooks on Amazon.  Authors are direct publishing more and more and agents are often now falling into the role of publisher, helping clients exploit rights to their works when tradition markets don’t see the potential.  Which leads us to PETROPLAGUE, a new thriller by Amy Rogers.

UCLA graduate student Christina Gonzalez wanted to use biotechnology to free America from its dependence on Middle Eastern oil.  Her genetically-altered bacteria will extract energy from the vast, inaccessible tar sands of the western hemisphere.  But an environmental extremist sabotages her work by blowing up a field test.  Soon after, an eruption at the La Brea Tar Pits makes Christina wonder if there’s a connection.  When burning cars choke the freeways and jets departing LAX fall from the sky, Christina realizes her oil-degrading bacteria have escaped–and they’re eating LA’s gas.
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by Terence Cumberworth

Jennifer Hillier wants to get into your head. That’s right, she wants to play with your mind. Her first published novel, CREEP, is a psychological thriller designed to do just that. Here’s a glimpse:

Pulsing with the dark obsession of Radiohead’s song “Creep”, this taut thriller – Jennifer Hillier’s superb debut – rockets from its seductive opening to a heart-pounding climax not easily forgotten.

IF HE CAN’T HAVE HER . . .
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On the Crystal Coast of North Carolina, in the small town of Emerald Isle…

Juli Cooke, hard-working and getting nowhere fast, marries a dying man, Ben Bradshaw, for a financial settlement, not expecting he will set her on a journey of hope and love. The journey brings her to Luke Winters, a local art dealer, but Luke resents the woman who married his sick friend and warns her not to hurt Ben—and he’s watching to make sure she doesn’t.

Until Ben dies and the stakes change.

Framed by the timelessness of the Atlantic Ocean and the brilliant blue of the beach sky, Juli struggles against her past, the opposition of Ben’s and Luke’s families, and even the living reminder of her marriage—to build a future with hope and perhaps to find the love of her life—if she can survive the danger from her past.
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Detective Decland Dupree arrives at the crime scene, where the recipient of his first childhood kiss lies in a pool of blood. Not fifteen minutes later, the body of a man is found next door.

The most sadistic serial killer in New Orleans history is on the prowl. He selects both a man and a woman, raping and killing them on the same night. When another woman from Deck’s past is found and identified, the young detective is flooded with questions.

How does this maniac know Deck?

Why is the FBI deputy director sabotaging his efforts to capture the killer?

And, most unsettling, who’s next?
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“A late night fog fluffed over Decatur and my windshield. The only thing I saw was Big Tiger’s Trusted Bail Bonds’ chalk white office gleaming through the muck. I wished I could turn around and have Justus ride along, but not tonight, not anymore. I sighed. This was not the time to fall in love with a good man.”

- an excerpt from A Good Excuse to Be Bad (Kensington Books July 2011)

Former investigative journalist turned Atlanta bail recovery agent “Angel” Crawford is busy raising her daughter, trying to make ends meet and attempting to get thoughts of her sexy new pastor, Justus, out of her mind. Then her twin sister Avalyn shows up on her doorstep with her children in tow and hours later Avalyn’s husband, a prominent bishop, is murdered. Angel’s reporter instincts kick in and she must work fast to clear her sister’s name, and enlists Justus to help bring the killer to justice.
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by Gary Kriss

So there I was, ogling Lady Gaga’s left upper arm and thinking about James Barney.

Yes, that James Barney, the one whose debut novel, The Genesis Key, will be released by Harper on June 28.

And, yes, that Lady Gaga, the one who has already been released.

It was her tattoo that conjured up Barney, the one in German with the following advice for writers:  “’In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?‘”
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A murder at the Taj Mahal. A kidnapping in a sacred city. A desperate chase through a cliffside monastery. All in the pursuit of a legend that could link the world’s great religious faiths.
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by Milton C. Toby

J.B. Lynn always has been a writer, even when she was a child, and even now when she doesn’t have a pen in hand.

“I was that little kid who always had her nose in a book,” Lynn recalled, “who grew up to be the woman who still always has her nose in a book.  I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a writer, creating problems for my characters, dreaming up impossible situations and spinning tales. I’m the kind of person who can’t see a handprint on the wall of an elevator without imagining half a dozen scenarios of how it got there. I’m never not writing, even if I’m not recording my thoughts.”
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by Dana Granger

Adam Mitzner may be brand new to the “legal thriller” scene, but he’s already getting rave reviews for his debut novel, “A Conflict Of Interest”.  Publishers Weekly said “This gifted writer should have a long and successful career ahead of him,” and Perri O’Shaughnessy described “A Conflict Of Interest” as “Psychological And Legal Suspense At Its Finest.”
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By Diane Holmes

Former legal secretary Yvonne Anderson’s debut novel is a fascinating blend of Space Fantasy and Speculative Thriller, with a running thread of The Gospels.

“Yvonne Anderson is an amazing talent. Her stories remind me of what I love best about Madeleine L’Engle’s writing…depth with subtlety. Yvonne has a fan in me for life.” — Gina Holmes, best-selling author of Crossing Oceans
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by Michael F. Stewart

Are you in the mood for a puzzle? Do you enjoy ancient mysticism married to contemporary thrills? Mysterious. Exotic. And even contentious. Meet The Witch of Babylon’s author D.J. McIntosh.

Here’s the cover copy for her forthcoming June release:

Out of the searing heat and sandstorms of Baghdad’s infamous summer of 2003 comes The Witch of Babylon, a gripping tale rooted in ancient Assyrian lore and its little known but profound significance for the world. John Madison, a Turkish-American art dealer, caught between his brother’s obsession to save a priceless relic and a deadly game of revenge staged by his childhood friend, must find the link between a modern day witch and an ancient one.
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