In this interview, Joy discusses the surprising humor in her new thriller, Jenny Cooper Has a Secret, her desire to see older characters across all genres, and more.

Name: Joy Fielding
Literary Agent: Tracy Fisher at WME
Book title: Jenny Cooper Has a Secret
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release date: August 5, 2025
Genre: Psychological suspense
Previous titles: The Housekeeper; Cul-de-sac; All the Wrong Places; The Bad Daughter; She’s Not There; Someone Is Watching; Shadow Creek; Now You See Her; The Wild Zone: Still Life; Charley’s Web; Heartstopper; Mad River Road; Puppet; Lost; Whispers and Lies; Grand Avenue; The First Time; Missing Pieces; Don’t Cry Now; Tell Me No Secrets: See Jane Run; Good Intentions; The Deep End; Life Penalty; The Other Woman: Kiss Mommy Goodbye; Trance; The Transformation; The Best of Friends. Plus Home Invasion, a novella designed to encourage adult literacy.
Elevator pitch: A 92-year-old woman suffering from dementia claims to be a serial killer.

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What prompted you to write this book?

As far as what prompted me to write this book, I’ve always enjoyed writing suspense, and I thought it would be an interesting twist on the genre—as well as high time—to have both the protagonist and the villain of the novel be women over the age of 70 (and one of them over 90!). Older women have been largely ignored in suspense fiction—all fiction, for that matter—and I thought it was time for our voices to be heard. I also just found the whole topic of memory and how it defines us to be a fascinating subject to explore.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

It generally takes about two years from the time I conceive an idea until it ends up in print. It’s about a year from the time I get an idea until the book is finished, and then another year—sometimes longer—to go through the editing and other publishing-related issues. As to whether the idea for this book changed during this process, the answer is that while the basic idea didn’t change, the manuscript itself underwent a number of changes. I did some restructuring to heighten the suspense in the first half of the book, and I made a number of cuts to dialogue that were too repetitious. I also made a significant change regarding something that happens to a secondary character. But as I said, the basic idea remained the same.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Frankly, I’m always a little surprised when an editor feels some changes are necessary to my books, especially involving structure, because I usually don’t let an editor see the manuscript before I’m pretty sure it’s perfect. But writers have editors for a reason, and I’m always willing to listen to advice that will improve the book. In the case of Jenny Cooper Has a Secret, my original editor felt that while the first half of the book contained plenty of drama, it needed more suspense, which she stressed was not the same thing, so she asked me to move some things around and to try to amp up the suspense in the first half. This involved a lot more work than I’m used to—and frankly, don’t particularly like. Restructuring is very hard because when you change one little thing, it changes everything that came before and after. It’s a lot of work! After I made the changes, the editor still felt I could do more, but I disagreed, and thankfully, my current editor agreed with me. Jenny Cooper is more a psychological page-turner than hard-core thriller.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

I believe it was Flannery O’Connor who once said that if the writer is never surprised, you can’t expect the reader to be surprised, so I look forward to the little surprises that come my way when I’m writing. I always know the beginning and the end of my novels and a few key things that have to happen along the way. I used to write a fairly detailed outline, and this is something I would still recommend to beginning authors. But the more books I write, the shorter my outlines get. As I said, I always know how my books will end, although I don’t always know precisely how. But in writing suspense, you have to know where you’re going to end up in order to build that suspense and everything has to be a little bigger than what came before. If you don’t know where you’re headed, you can’t do that, and you end up wandering all over the place, which just means an awful lot of rewriting. In Jenny Cooper, what surprised me was how funny the book turned out to be and how sympathetic the women were. I got very attached to these women, and actually found myself tearing up at one point. I didn’t expect that.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope that, above all, readers will just totally enjoy the book and find it impossible to put down. I also hope that readers will recognize themselves in the characters and care about their fates. I hope that they’ll realize that stories can still be written that are modern and new while featuring older protagonists.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

If I could share one piece of advice with other writers, it would be this: When telling the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, bring on the three bears! In other words, get to the interesting part of the story.

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That was the conundrum I found myself in when I started writing my latest thriller, The Deepest Fake.

(Live-writing My Thriller Novel.)

As a practicing physician, I’ve always felt confident fictionalizing medical topics, where my background lends an air of authority, deserved or not. But when The Deepest Fake plunged me into the world of artificial intelligence, I couldn’t rely on my day job anymore. Readers wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, give me the same benefit of the doubt. I’m, at best, tech literate adjacent.

Through researching and writing this book, I stumbled on some important lessons—many of them the hard way—about weaving AI and emerging technology into a story that feels authentic. The biggest takeaway? I didn’t have to be a neural network engineer to tell a convincing story about the human consequences of high-tech innovation.

Readers expect credibility, but in fiction, they don’t need a deep technical breakdown of the subject matter. In other words, they don’t have to see under the hood to enjoy the ride. Overexplaining science slows the pace and pulls readers out of the story. Instead of delving into cloud infrastructure, I opted to show the emotional fallout from a deepfake: the devastation, helplessness, and shame of a victim whose voice and image have been twisted beyond their control.

All genre fiction—whether it’s historical romance, legal thriller, or Nordic noir—requires some world-building. That challenge becomes even trickier with AI and technology, where it’s easy to overwhelm or confuse readers. What helped me most was using the characters to explain the science to one another, rather than rely on the narrator. Dialogue gave me the freedom to simplify, generalize, and take creative liberties.

For example, instead of paragraphs of prose explaining the complexities of AI versus artificial general intelligence—the kind that could truly think and reason—I let the characters unpack it in conversation. Paraphrased, it sounds like this:

“So Generative AI doesn’t really ‘think’ for itself?”
“Exactly. It stitches complex patterns together. As convincing as it is, it only simulates intelligence and creativity. True general intelligence—like you or me—actually understands and decides. Unlike AI, it has agency. And we’re not there yet. Thank God.”

After all, I wasn’t trying to teach computer science. I was exploring how big, abstract ideas can tear through ordinary lives.

Another common trap in writing about AI is chasing headlines. But advances in the field happen so quickly that today’s breakthroughs would probably feel passé before the book even hits the shelves. I found it better to treat tech news as inspiration rather than a blueprint—to let it spark “what if?” scenarios while making sure the plot still stands on its own.

For instance, when I first read about so-called “deathbots”—AI chatbots trained on a person’s digital footprint to simulate posthumous conversations—I was floored. The idea of interacting with a digital echo of a lost loved one, almost like having a Zoom call with the dead, was both fascinating and deeply unsettling. But rather than fixate on how the technology actually works, I found myself asking more personal questions: What if this tool unraveled someone’s life? What if it became the gateway to an even greater deception?

Another key lesson I learned is that while technology always marches—sometimes rockets—forward, the underlying themes remain unchanged. Deepfakes may one day give way to even more immersive deceptions, but the deeper questions (who controls the truth, who profits from lies) are perennial. Technology may provide the means, but it’s rarely the motive or the killer, though it does make for a convincing red herring.

Click to continue.

One other key takeaway: Technology can enhance a story’s atmosphere, much like setting does, but it can’t replace character or plot. Consider Jurassic Park: Those genetically re-engineered dinosaurs hooked us, but the story’s heart lay in its tension, stakes, and complex, believable characters. The same holds true for stories about AI. Without fully realized people, even the flashiest innovation falls flat.

In the end, what matters most is emotional resonance. A character willing to risk everything—their life, their identity, their integrity—will always be more memorable than the most sophisticated technology or gadgetry. That’s true even in the Bond franchise. What gave the AI real impact in my story was anchoring it in the characters’ emotions, struggles, and sometimes survival. That made it matter to me and, hopefully, to my readers.

As for where AI is headed, I’m as curious as I am cautious. The possibilities are thrilling, but the risks are just as real. And terrifying. I wanted to bring that tension into my story. To do that, I needed the right lens: a Cassandra, a protagonist who speaks the truth but isn’t believed by those around her. Through her voice, I could explore my own doubts, questions, and hopes.

What I’ve learned is this: When you root complex technology in genuine human stakes, it becomes not just plausible; it becomes meaningful. And that approach works far beyond AI. By focusing on the universal elements of story—trust, betrayal, identity, connection—you can write with confidence about any fast-changing field, even one outside your expertise.

Quick Tips for Writing Fiction Involving Emerging Tech

• Let dialogue do the heavy lifting. Use character conversations to explain complex ideas in natural, relatable ways.
• Don’t chase headlines. Let recent news inspire you, but don’t tether your plot to tech that might age out quickly.
• Focus on emotion. Highlight the personal consequences of the technology—where the stakes feel real.
• Keep it light but plausible. Do your research, but don’t overload the narrative with jargon.
• Lean on timeless themes. Whether your subject is AI, biotech, or law, the emotional core—trust, betrayal, fear, hope—will always resonate.

Check out Daniel Kalla’s The Deepest Fake here:

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The post How a Deepfake Thriller Taught Me to Write Realistic AI appeared first on Writer's Digest.

I started my professional career 20 years ago on a group blog called Murderati. Group blogs were all the rage—we were pre-social media at that moment—and I was lucky enough to fall in with a group of writers who were exploring all facets of crime fiction. I was the tech-savvy one of the bunch, so I learned how to code and design the website in addition to being the Friday blogger. It was incredible fun, but also a tremendous amount of work.

(How Substack Helped Me Publish My Novel at 55.)

I grew up on Murderati. Late to the writing game (I started blogging in 2003 at age 34, three years before my first book was published), I knew very little about how the industry worked, and even less about what it took to have a career in writing. I learned the ropes experimenting with voice, analyzing writing trends, and otherwise baring my soul for the world every week. It taught me the discipline of meeting deadlines and how important it was to think about writing, even when I wasn’t creating. I ate up every ounce of advice and insight the other bloggers were sharing. I learned; we all did. Over the years, I published book after book, and yes, blog after blog.

33 books and 22 years later, I’ve learned a little bit about what it takes to have a career in publishing. I’d like to think I know how to write a compelling story. And I’ve never been able to break the habit of a weekly blog. Now it’s called Friday Reads, lives on Substack, and is an amalgamation of writing advice, book recommendations, and genial chit chat between me and my readers, many of whom, after all these years, are dear friends.

When Substack appeared on the scene, I jumped in with both feet. The current iteration of social media, with its brevity, incessant scrolling, and performative nature, can be challenging for me. Long-form writing has always been my forte. After all, I am a writer—not a producer, photographer, videographer, or actor—and Substack seemed like a great place to explore a deeper connection with my readers. I arrived a little earlier than most; I was writing on Medium and wasn’t happy with the changes that were in place, and I loved the simple, clean interface that Substack provided. I built the site with my most treasured essays, making it beautiful, functional, and easily readable, transferred my small but loyal weekly blog readership, and continued writing.

(An Honest Review of the Medium Publishing Platform.)

But Substack has a subscription model. And I’ve always wanted to write a book on writing. I’ve collected all the blogs I’ve ever written into a file that I’ve been trying to get off the ground for a long time, but it’s never worked. Publishing has changed so dramatically over the past 20-plus years that much of my older publishing and marketing advice is no longer relevant.

But the actual craft of book writing…well, that’s advice people always want to hear.

I was just starting to work on a new book—Last Seen. And it hit me—why not try live writing the process of writing the novel, from concept to publication day. Multiple birds with one stone. A – It would be great fun, B – It would give me a legitimate reason to put work behind a paywall, and C – I could focus on building my nonfiction book at the same time as writing the fictional one.

Click to continue.

I started by examining the lifecycle of a book. I wrote down all the steps it takes from concept to publication and realized that for me, a story moves through 22 distinct phases. I decided to document them all, allowing readers deep insight into my process and encouraging writers to follow along as they built their current work in progress. Admittedly, deconstructing my process is something I’ve been doing since I started blogging, but nothing like this. This was my book journal come to life, as intimate, realistic, and honest as I could possibly be.

I even taught myself how to outline so I could explore and express that part of the process for those of us who aren’t inveterate pantsers. I hate to admit it, but I actually think it helped the book in the long run (though I did go rogue at one point because the whole thing fell apart on me).

I’m now nearly to publication day, the end of this series, with only a few posts left. It has burgeoned into almost 75,000 words of craft advice, story development, progress reports, behind-the-scenes looks at the day-to-day writing life—what’s worked, what hasn’t, where I pulled my hair out, where I wept for joy—and everything in between. It’s a living, breathing memoir; a craft book; a year-long journal, all rolled into one. And, of course, I realized there are more than 22 steps; I’d missed a few along the way, so I also included a number of essays labeled Interim Steps, which are designed to encourage and illuminate. In these, I discuss ego, the psychology of writing, what to do when you get blocked, and how to develop new stories. They round out the book’s lifecycle.

Writing is hard. There’s no question about that. And the more you do, the longer you’re in this game, the harder it gets. There’s no secret handshake, no magic. It’s just diligent, steady work, grinding out the words, day by day. I thought it would be fun for people to see what it actually takes to write a novel. Judging by the response I’ve had, I was right.

Check out J.T. Ellison’s Last Seen here:

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(5 Strategies for Writers to Keep Writing.)

However, if you want the thrill of engaging your mind in solving a puzzle without blood, gore, and reality seeping in, check out a cozy mystery. Cozies provide an escape from a world where crimes go unsolved, bad guys get away on technicalities, and society is numbed into inaction. But lighthearted doesn’t equate to lightweight, and fun doesn’t mean wimpy. Cozies prove that mysteries can be fun as well as suspenseful. Here are some tips for ways to write high stakes crime fiction which is still lighthearted and fun.

Basic elements needed for crime fiction include, setting, characters, a compelling plot, a crime, and a sleuth. Cozies are mysteries that feature an amateur solving a crime. There isn’t a lot of graphic violence. No sex on the page, and no bad language (well, not much). The use of the amateur sleuth is one element that opens the door for fun. A police officer, FBI, or other law enforcement professional is highly trained. They know the law and are sworn to uphold it. Chances are good that your average baker, librarian, or bookstore owner has no clue about forensics, chain of evidence, or search and seizure practices.

A trained professional would never break into a suspect’s house to look for and seize evidence. An amateur sleuth isn’t bound by those same restrictions and will boldly go where no law enforcement dares to tread. That boldness will often create suspenseful scenes for an amateur sleuth. Will the killer come back unexpectedly? Will they get caught? Readers will need to keep reading to find out.

So, one of the first things that will help with making sure your mystery is humorous involves your characters. Your sleuth or their side kick could have a quirky sense of humor or an affinity for getting into trouble. A sleuth who inherits a bakery, but can’t cook, can provide a host of opportunities for fun.

One of the few things I remember from high school geometry is “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” Euclidean geometry is great if you’re driving from New York to Chicago. However, if you’re writing crime fiction, following a straight line can make for a very boring tale. If your sleuth follows all the clues correctly and never veers down the wrong path, it will create a predictable and boring experience for your readers. One of the rules that mystery authors adhere to (or should) is to play fair with the reader.

Click to continue.

This means readers should get all the clues needed to solve a mystery at the same time that the detective or sleuth gets the clues. However, just because the reader has a clue doesn’t mean that the detective needs to or that they follow it. Don’t be afraid to let your detective make mistakes. No one is perfect. Let your sleuth misinterpret a clue because following that clue down the wrong path can increase the suspense: Will the sleuth get back on track in time? It can also lead the sleuth into a potentially humorous situation.

Readers of crime fiction know that there are two types of clues. There are clues that the author leaves for the reader to help figure out Whodunit. There are also false clues or Red Herrings that provide another way to send the sleuth down the wrong path. In Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series, Wolfe says one of my favorite quotes. “Any fool could solve the most difficult of cases if everyone told the truth.” (Rex Stout, Three Doors to Death).

The shortest crime fiction book would be if a detective questions a suspect and asks, “Did you kill Mr. Body in the library with a pipe?” And Professor Plum confesses. Worse book EVER! Readers expect characters to lie. They expect that false clues will try to send them off the trail. “Is the mud on the butler’s pants important?” False clues can help keep the tension high by adding another level of complexity and intrigue to the plot.

My tips for high stakes crimes that are lighthearted and fun involve creating quirky, interesting, imperfect characters who are bold and intelligent and aren’t afraid to make mistakes. Lies and false clues can divert the reader while still providing tension and a dash of humor.

Cozy mystery plots are often just as tightly wound as those found in other forms of crime fiction. It requires a great deal of thought, creativity, and ingenuity to have an amateur with no formal training separate the clues from the red herrings, track down a killer, avoid getting killed, and bake cookies (knit, quilt, garden), all without swearing. I’d like to see Sherlock Holmes, Jack Reacher, or James Bond track down a cold-blooded killer and bake a pie with a flaky crust that melts-in-your-mouth that will keep readers chuckling as they ponder Whodunit.

Check out Valerie Burns’ Icing on the Murder here:

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The post Plotting the Perfect Crime (Without Losing the Fun): Tips for Writing Lighthearted Mysteries With High Stakes appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this interview, Juliet discusses writing about her native northern California in her new mystery novel, Asylum Hotel, her advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Juliet Blackwell
Literary agent: Jim McCarthy, of Dystel, Goderich, and Bourret LLC
Book title: Asylum Hotel
Publisher: Berkley
Release date: July 29, 2025
Genre/category: Mystery/thriller/suspense
Previous titles: The Paris Showroom, The Vineyards of Champagne, and several other standalone novels based in France; The Witchcraft Mystery series, The Haunted Home Renovation series, The Art Lover’s Mystery series.
Elevator pitch: The abandoned Hotel Seabrink has been a silent witness to several mysterious deaths over the years, and locals believe a curse follows anyone who dares set foot on the grounds. When the ghostly image of a teenage girl appears in a photograph, and a fellow trespasser is killed, disgraced architect Aubrey Spencer must uncover the identity of a modern-day murderer before she—and her best friend—succumb to the alleged Seabrink curse.

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What prompted you to write this book

I was excited to write a book set in my native northern California! An hour or two north of San Francisco, there’s a very different vibe from the mellow southern California coast so often depicted in films and television. Here, the coastline is rugged and wild, with waves crashing off rocky outcroppings, and isolated stretches of dramatically twisting highways that can seem rather foreboding—especially when foggy! I spend a lot of time near the little town of Gualala, which boasts an old hotel built in 1903, and often wondered what life must have been like in the area during that time. Cue my writer’s imagination, and I thought of a long-since abandoned grand hotel from the Golden Age of Hollywood located somewhere in these remote, majestic, redwood-covered mountains…

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

This idea had been stewing for a couple of years, at least. The actual writing/editing/rewriting took about nine months, and then there’s always a lag of nearly a year before the actual book lands on bookstore shelves. And yes, my ideas always change during the process of writing. No matter how I endeavor to give my editor a detailed outline, I give myself permission to veer off my plan as the story develops. To me, this is one of the greatest joys of writing: allowing the plot to unfold naturally rather than adhering strictly to the original plan. This means a lot of rewriting and reworking ideas, but to me it’s worth it—and frankly, it’s the only way I can produce a novel!

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

I always learn from the process of being edited and forced to revise. I’ve been working with my editor at Berkley for nearly 20 years now, and I find her insights to be invaluable. I often fight against them initially, but I have to admit that her instincts are almost always on point. I do a lot of research, and I have a tendency to try to include way too much information in my books. Though it can be painful to make cuts, I find the streamlining ultimately leads to a better experience for the reader.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

There are always surprises while I write—that’s a big part of the joy of writing! The last couple of books I wrote were based in France and required months of research, so part of me assumed that I would be able to write a book set in California without too much difficulty. But of course, I was wrong. I took a deep dive into the history of the “poor farm” tradition in the U.S., which was fascinating from a sociological as well as a human perspective. I based one character on William Randolph Hearst, of Heart Castle, and found myself reading about the “Golden Age” of Hollywood and newspaper tycoons. Finally, while doing local research I came to understand the special situation when it comes to law enforcement in this remote stretch of the California coast: The area is considered Sonoma County below the Gualala River, but Mendocino County above it, and the county seats of both (as well as official police stations) are quite a distance away. Locals call the area “Mendonoma”, and they tend to be an independent bunch, at the ready to help a neighbor or stranded tourists.   

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope readers will gain a sense of California’s vibrant and wild coastal setting. I hope Asylum Hotel spurs an appreciation for history and architecture, and that readers connect with the struggles of my protagonist, Aubrey, as she tries to re-center and find her sense of self. Above all, I hope readers are able to envision themselves trespassing in a massive old abandoned hotel—and are thoroughly entertained! Entertainment sometimes gets a bad rap, but it’s essential for our primate brains to wander and play and visualize. Fiction fosters our imagination and creativity, as well as boosting connection and understanding.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Keep going. Even when it’s torture. Maybe especially when it’s torture. In my experience, the Muse (or whatever one calls inspiration) only shows up when a writer puts her butt in the chair and produces the worst first draft ever. Make it a terrible, wretched draft. Vomit all the worst words out onto the page; only then will you have something approximating a manuscript in hand. Only then can it be cleaned up and take the form of an actual book!

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Yet authors who write for literary estates are often misunderstood. Skeptics grumble about publishers “cashing in” on big names after they’re gone. More awkwardly, some readers don’t realize the original author is no longer living. (Brian Andrews, who’s co-authored Jack Ryan novels with Jeffrey Wilson, recounts a story of a reader who approached him at an event, gushing, “Mr. Clancy, you’re my favorite author.” Andrews had to tell him: “I’ve got two pieces of bad news for you …”)  

You might be pleasantly surprised to learn estate novels often have much more to do with honoring the original authors’ wishes—and helping their families pay tribute—than with a third party’s payday. Clancy, for instance, had a big hand in what Jack Ryan’s future would look like, greenlighting his first estate writer, Mark Greaney, when he was still alive. Andrews points out that for every legacy series that begins with an author’s death, there are also authors like Lee Child, who recently tapped his brother Andrew to take over writing Jack Reacher. 

“You might have run out of the stories that you feel you can tell in a compelling way about this particular set of characters, or maybe you need somebody else with different perspective or fire in the belly at a certain point to take over,” Andrews says. “With Clancy, he didn’t need the money anymore, and he had plenty of fame, but thinking about his legacy … He wasn’t in great health, he was of the age where he’s starting to think about his own mortality, and at that point, you start saying, I can either pack it up and the characters die with me or pass the torch on to somebody else.” 

In the best light, estate novels are a win-win for readers who can’t get enough, as well as writers who get to step into the shoes of their literary heroes. 

We spoke with some of today’s most prominent estate writers about how it all works behind the scenes, what it’s taught them about the craft and the business, and more. 

MEET THE ROUNDTABLE 

Brian Andrews & Jeffrey Wilson (Andrews-Wilson.com) are The New York Times bestselling coauthors of multiple covert ops and action-adventure series, including Tier One, Sons of Valor, and The Shepherds. Their second Tom Clancy novel, Defense Protocol, released in December 2024. Andrews is a U.S. Navy veteran, Park Leadership Fellow, and former submarine officer. Wilson has worked as an actor, firefighter, paramedic, jet pilot, and diving instructor, and was deployed in the U.S. Navy as a combat surgeon with a SEAL Team. 

Andrews and Wilson say they first caught the eye of Tom Colgan—who edited Tom Clancy himself and stayed on to edit his estate books at Putnam—when they were on submission for Tier One. While Colgan didn’t acquire the book (Thomas & Mercer did), he followed their career and later approached them about writing a novel for the W. E. B. Griffin estate’s Presidential Agent series. Once they proved themselves with that project, 2021’s Rogue Asset, he asked if they were interested in applying their unique blend of experience to iconic hero Jack Ryan. With Andrews’ submarine history, it’s fitting their first Clancy offering, Act of Defiance, was a sequel to The Hunt for Red October. 

Don Bentley (DonBentleyBooks.com) is The New York Times bestselling author of eight books including his Matt Drake thrillers, the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan Jr. series, and Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series (beginning with 2024’s Capture or Kill). Bentley has served as an Army Apache helicopter pilot, an FBI Special Agent, and on the Dallas SWAT team. 

Flynn’s literary legacy differs from many others, starting with the circumstances of his untimely death at age 47 in 2013, with books under contract at the time. Flynn’s peer Kyle Mills was hand-picked by the estate to continue the series, which he did for nine more novels. 

Meanwhile, Bentley had been working at a breakneck pace on Jack Ryan Jr. books alongside his own and was weighing next steps. “I was trying to be a full-time writer, and my series [alone] didn’t pay enough for me to do it,” he explains. “And Vince Flynn is my favorite all-time writer. When my second book didn’t sell, I actually took my favorite Vince Flynn book, Protect and Defend, and note-carded it out and stuck it to our bedroom wall. He was the writer I wanted to be, so I tried to dissect how he did things.  

“I talked to my agent and said, ‘This is going to sound crazy, but the series I’d really love to write would be Vince’s series. I don’t know that Kyle is ever going to stop writing this, but what do you think?’” He asked at the exact right time: Mills was stepping aside. 

Bentley says that while he had a great experience with the Clancy estate, the Flynn estate operates more like a small family-owned business, headed by Emily Bestler, his editor, and Sloan Harris, his agent. “They still get choked up when they talk about him,” he says. “[The interview with] Sloan was more of an in-depth conversation about the series itself and what I thought of Mitch Rapp, what made him unique, why did I want to write him.” 

Not only did Bentley get the gig, he also continues the tradition of doing book events in Flynn’s St. Paul hometown—and joins the family for dinner every time. 

Brian Freeman (BFreemanBooks.com) is The New York Times bestselling author of more than 30 novels, including the Jonathan Stride and Frost Easton series, the International Thriller Writers Award-winner Spilled Blood, the Edgar Award finalist The Deep, Deep Snow, and his Macavity Award-winning debut, Immoral. In 2019, he was selected by Putnam and the Robert Ludlum estate to continue Ludlum’s Jason Bourne franchise. His sixth Bourne novel, The Bourne Vendetta (#20 in the Bourne universe) released in January 2025.  

“Ludlum I think was one of the earliest and biggest of the legacy programs, and there are a lot of Ludlum universe books out there—multiple authors over the years,” Freeman explains. But readers might not realize that in Ludlum’s lifetime, the Bourne series was a trilogy—only three of the 20 books available today. “In the case of Bourne, it really did not take off until after the movies started coming out. The Matt Damon films were so popular that I think it was clear there was a demand to bring back Bourne on the literary side as well.” 

This explains the uncommon gap between Ludlum’s The Bourne Ultimatum in 1990 and Eric Van Lustbader’s Book #4, The Bourne Legacy, in 2004. Freeman says Van Lustbader was chosen to revive the series based in part on his friendship with Ludlum, penning 11 books before the estate switched publishers, at which point Freeman’s agent asked if he was interested in being considered. It was an easy yes: The Bourne Identity was one of his all-time favorites. The new editor, Tom Colgan, seasoned from his Clancy estate work, wanted to know Freeman’s vision.  

“There had been so many iterations of Jason Bourne in the public consciousness,” Freeman says. “My feeling was that it didn’t work to try to build on anything that had come before … that to make it work we needed to do something completely different.” Freeman’s pitch? “To go back to the very beginning and recreate that character, so that it really felt like Ludlum’s original vision of Bourne, but move the character forward, bring him into the modern era, make him younger again, surround him with basically an all-new background, all new sub-characters, all new plots, and essentially reboot the series from the ground up.”  

Freeman won the job: “And that was how The Bourne Evolution took shape.” 

Crafting your first estate novel must have been intimidating. How did you approach it? 

A&W: I think the first question every estate author asks is, “Do you want me to try to write like the original author?” Tom Colgan’s advice was: Do not try to imitate the master, because you will fail. Also, that would create a tremendous amount of stress because now you’re going to second-guess every sentence you write. He said, “I didn’t recruit you to write the book because I thought you wrote like him. I recruited you to write the book because you’re good storytellers, and I think you’re going to do a great job with whatever plot you come up with for this series.” So, the guidance is, then: Be faithful to the characters, respect the legacy, but write your own book. Without that mandate, I think no one would want to do this job.  

Freeman: When I first got the gig, my initial response was, Oh my God! [giddy], and my second response was, Oh, my God [serious]. It doesn’t matter how much time passes: It’s intimidating to step into the shoes of a giant like Ludlum. He was truly one of my writing idols growing up. And I wanted to do justice to his character, so there was a lot of pressure. But it’s certainly true that because there had been 40 years since the original release of The Bourne Identity, it gave me a degree of freedom to go in a new direction. Because I don’t think anyone would expect four decades later that you’d still have Bourne dealing with Vietnam and Watergate … 

[The question of how to handle it stylistically] was one of the things that I spent a lot of time at the beginning thinking through. [Colgan’s advice not to imitate the master] was really good. … Yet at the same time, I think to make it authentic as a Ludlum novel, you need to be influenced by how Ludlum told his stories. It’s not just about plotting and characters—he had a distinctive prose style. It was very breathless, very dramatic, he used to get teased by reviewers about his use of italics and exclamation points …  

But it was such a distinctive style that if you tried to replicate that style, it would come across as a caricature. So, I was trying to let the Ludlum style feel laid into my style, so what comes out is a little bit Ludlum and a little bit Freeman. … That has worked well to make it feel Ludlum-esque but not try to imitate what he was doing. 

Bentley: When Kyle got the gig, he said, “Send me whatever Vince has on this book”—[expecting] maybe a box of notes by his desk. What he got was a document with three sentences in it, and that was all Vince had written. There were no notes, no suggestion of the story. Vince’s final book was called The Last Man and Kyle’s first book was called The Survivor, and Kyle calls that book a forgery—what he means is, he went to great lengths to try to mimic Vince’s writing style, and he took great pride in taking those three sentences and putting them in the book. Kyle made that series his own going forward, but he would still look very closely at words Vince used. … 

People were very apprehensive when I took over. So, my philosophy was, because Capture or Kill is a throwback to Vince’s era—it falls between his last two books, Pursuit of Honor and The Last Man—I went back and read those books over and over. But I knew I couldn’t write the way he did, and I knew if I tried that I’d spend more time concentrating on the syntax than the spirit of the book, so I didn’t try to do that. 

Did you all reach out to the previous estate writers as part of the handoff process?  

Bentley: Kyle was an incredible gentleman and bent over backwards [for me]—starting with the fact that when they announced it, for every post on social media where someone would say, “Why are you leaving? I don’t know if Don can do this,” he’d respond, “Don’s the right choice.” … 

[Kyle gave me] summaries of every book, he had all the books in Word so you could search them, he had made a massive series bible. It’s at least 20 different documents, plot, active characters, all that stuff. 

I hate talking about works in progress [normally] but I was nervous about this book, so we spent an hour on the phone where I went through what I was thinking, and he was unbelievably helpful. I can’t say enough good things about how hard he worked to make it a good transition. 

A&W: We asked Mark Greaney and Marc Cameron for advice. Another cool thing about [the Clancy universe] is, Tom Colgan involves current and former Clancy authors in the decision-making process of who the heirs are going to be. I like that there’s this community; it’s almost like we’re going to try to safeguard this special thing that is the Clancy legacy … 

There is one rule: Jack Ryan is immutable. He’s Captain America. Jack Ryan is not going to lie or cheat or have an affair. He’s not going to take a bribe; he’s not going to wilt under moral pressure or scrutiny. He will do the right thing. He will stare down danger. His character is incorruptable. And if you follow that rule, you can do whatever else you want. But that’s your lone star.  

Freeman: I don’t want to be influenced by anyone else’s vision other than Ludlum. Eric did a great job over his books, but that was his vision. … 

There was no series bible, and the estate did not put any guardrails on what I was doing. For the first book, I mapped out where I was going with the plot, and I wrote a few chapters so they could get a sense of where I was taking the series, and they gave the green light. One of the things I was proudest of was when The Bourne Evolution was done, Tom sent the manuscript to the estate, and they came back and said, “We wouldn’t change a word.” And I’ve loved hearing from Ludlum fans who’ve told me, “It’s like having Ludlum back in our lives.” 

It’s been nice also finding out there are a lot of folks—amazingly—who had never [read] Bourne before and now discovered Bourne as a literary character by reading my books. So that’s been exciting on both ends. 

Are there “rules” to Bourne? 

Freeman: Well, the interesting thing is, I don’t like action heroes to be immutable. I like them to change and grow, to evolve as three-dimensional characters as the series goes on. You can definitely have different versions of that: I think the Jack Ryan, Jack Reacher vision would be, you know, the readers are looking for the same hero in every book and that’s what keeps them coming back. And that’s perfectly fine. 

For me, what has made Bourne so enduring is not that he doesn’t change but that he does. The essence of Bourne is his psychological complexity—he’s lost his memory; he’s struggling with existential questions of who he is and what his moral stature is. As a result, he can’t be the same in every book … that’s what gives him his special character as an action hero. So, I’ve really allowed Bourne to change a lot in the course of these books.  

What does it mean to you to get to carry on this legacy? 

Bentley: First, as a reader, Vince Flynn was the first writer to write this post-9/11 hero whose job was to hunt down his nation’s enemies. … There’s part of writing technothrillers where you have to get the details right, but there’s also an aspect of capturing the ethos of the men and women who do this job for real. His characters were believable because they were like people I’d had the opportunity to serve alongside. 

And then as a writer, he was a huge inspiration to me because his first book didn’t sell. He self-published it and he was a scrapper and then he had this big turn. 

A&W: It’s important for people to know that we’re trying to honor the characters and we’re doing it because we were fans first. I mean, I read Red October on a submarine chasing Russians around—that’s pretty cool to get to write the sequel to that book that helped inspire me to military service. 

As Navy veterans, not only is this an opportunity to honor the estate, but to honor the service and sacrifice of the men and women who are serving in the armed forces. … The next generation of service men and women are hopefully people who are reading this book now and saying, “I want to do that.” 

What other things are you asked that you’d like to set the record straight on?  

Bentley: People talk a lot about the fact that Vince’s name on the book is really big and mine is small. … Well, I’m writing in Vince’s universe, he created it. 

It isn’t that we as authors have somehow finagled the rights … the estate retains all the IP to it. But just as a fan, I’m glad that somebody’s still telling stories in the Tom Clancy universe. I’m glad that Kyle didn’t let Vince’s universe die … and now I get to tell stories with the same characters. So, I certainly understand how people react that way, but if you’re a fan, why wouldn’t we want to have somebody tell more stories in that universe? 

Freeman: Most people ask if I know Matt Damon. [Laughs.] … There has clearly been a wonderful cache that comes along with doing the Bourne series. It’s been a tremendous honor and opportunity. The books are incredibly fun to write. My own books tend to be very emotional psychological mysteries, and you really have to be digging down deep into your soul to write them. The Bourne books are fun. I love the action, I love the psychological complexity of the character, so it’s been some of the most enjoyable writing I’ve done in my career. 

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In this interview, Joe discusses writing about people facing uncertain futures with his debut novel, Florida Palms, his advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Joe Pan
Literary agent: Stephanie Cabot
Book title: Florida Palms
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release date: July 22, 2025
Genre/category: Literary Crime Thriller
Elevator pitch: After graduating high school, a close-knit group of poor Florida kids get roped into a drug-running operation. Soaring, ambitious, and deeply humane, Florida Palms is a gritty coming-of-age story with an enormous heart and an unflinching vision, where boys without heroes become men without dreams.

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What prompted you to write this book?

Books dealing with the Space Coast of Florida tend to focus on NASA and the aerospace industry, but never the locals. I grew up a poor skateboarder in the area with two younger brothers and a single mom working at Little Caesar’s to provide for her children. The struggles we faced often felt insurmountable under the overbearing economic forces which persisted in keeping us in our place. Returning to that time in my life, I’m often struck how, despite a lack of options, people continued to operate with a rich inner life, the one thing they had ultimate control over. My mother’s resilience was especially impressive. But the poverty took its blood-right, and I lost friends and family to addiction, gun deaths, bad decisions, and violence. I tackle these subjects head-on in the book, documenting the lives of people making tough choices in tough times—specifically during the Great Recession.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I began writing around these subjects in grad school, around 2001. The book began as a monstrous collage of all my beliefs of what a novel could be, fed by an ambition to catalogue all the weird, true #FloridaMan stories I could fit onto the page. But I soon learned that a single novel isn’t meant to encompass everything—you pick your battles. I would go on to tighten up the storyline to get at the psychic wavelength I wanted my readers to experience, and pushed harder into generating a greater sense of place. I made my character’s interiors a priority while boning up my reading on how drug cartels actually operate. After two decades, and some false starts, the book was picked up by my agent and later S&S, and here we are.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

A ton. I run two small presses (Brooklyn Arts Press, Augury Books) so I was familiar with the publishing landscape at the DIY level. Simon & Schuster is a whole different beast, and I’m in awe of how well they’re set up to reach indie bookstores, librarians, and readers. Publishing is a large community made up of many smaller communities, all reliant on real people, and personal relationships built over time. I’ve spent the months leading up to publication leaning on my own relationships to help get the word out. I think the biggest lesson is how in today’s publishing climate social media influencers, and even a single post, can change the trajectory of a book. It’s word-of-mouth on a massive scale.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

The biggest surprise for me was a learning experience. After my editor gave me notes, I was befuddled on how to write new sections into a manuscript I felt I had polished to a shine. And once I went back in with the changes, the narrative began to break, but in those exposed crevices I was able to insert new passages that created a stronger foundation for the characters. I realized the only thing holding me back from making the book stronger was my own fears that I couldn’t write my way back into the novel, which were unfounded. It’s a stronger book now for taking that risk.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

My hope is that readers become more familiar with the psychology of young men and women faced with uncertain futures that are almost entirely reliant on their economic conditions. People get boxed out of the American Dream early, and what we often view as criminality or criminal impulses are simply people working their way through a system designed to force them out, not lift them up. Human behavior is finite, meaning we all act similarly when placed in similar situations, some of which is cultural, but much of which is reliant on one’s education and one’s place in the pecking order. Life is about options, and to withhold options is to breed struggle, and struggling people will do whatever it takes to survive.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Create a daily routine, and make writing a part of that routine. You don’t have to write every day, but it helps. Just like exercise. Myself, I get up, grab a coffee, walk up through the Hollywood Hills with my wife, come back, and get to work. It’s something I adhere to fairly strictly, so that the impulse to diverge is really awkward-feeling. My second piece of advice is to research the hell out of whatever you’re writing about, but also be aware that your characters get to choose how they act. A lot of good ideas, in life and writing, come when you’re just listening.

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In this interview, Paul discusses how the true horrors of the tech industry helped inspire his debut thriller, The Confessions, his advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Paul Bradley Carr
Literary agent: Marilia Savvides (The Plot Agency)
Book title: The Confessions
Publisher:  Atria / Simon & Schuster
Release date: July 22, 2025
Genre/category: Thriller
Elevator pitch: When a newly sentient AI sends letters to millions of people confessing their most unforgivable sins, a female CEO and a former nun must join forces to stop humanity from tearing itself apart—if their own dark secrets don’t kill them first.

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What prompted you to write this book?

I spent two decades working as a journalist in Silicon Valley, covering the worst behavior of tech billionaires—so I know this world very, very well. That said, I was tired of endless stories where an AI somehow gains consciousness and decides to wipe out humanity (yawn). Instead, I wondered what might happen if the first emotion ever felt by a computer wasn’t anger… but crushing guilt. How might it try to make things right, and—this being a thriller—how could that go very, very badly for the world? The character of Maud, a bookselling former nun who had taught the algorithm to be empathetic, arrived on the page fully formed. A few days later, I found Kaitlan, a qualified executive who had been handed a poison chalice by a deeply sexist industry (but who also may or may not have done something unforgivable in response), and I was off to the races.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

The Confessions started out as a short story, written because I had recently opened a bookstore in Palm Springs and had no time to write anything longer. I wrote that version in about two weeks and showed it my agent, Marilia, who gently ordered me to turn it into a full-length novel. A couple of months into that process, Sean DeLone at Atria read some early pages and made a pre-empt offer for the book. I delivered the full manuscript six months later. So, the entire process from idea to finished manuscript took about a year, but really it was three lunatic work-bursts: two weeks, two months, and six months—in between serving customers at the bookstore.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

The biggest surprise came from this being the first book I’ve written since becoming a bookseller. As authors we (hopefully) hear a lot of enthusiasm from editors and publishers about our books and their plans for marketing and selling them into eager bookstores. But until I actually opened one of those stores, I had no idea how insanely crowded the market is, and how difficult it is to convince a bookseller to take a chance on a debut novel no matter how interesting the concept, or how good the blurbs are. We have maybe an hour or two with our sales reps, three or four times a year, to hear about everything they’re excited about. And even if we love a book and order a pile of copies it’s terrifying how many things can go wrong between the publisher warehouse and bookstore shelves.

To be clear: This is not a criticism of the process—compared to the tech industry, the publishing industry is a dream. I just mean it’s been good and healthy to realize that my book, this thing I’ve worked so hard on and put so much sweat and love into, exists alongside millions of other books that are just as important. 

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

I’m constantly surprised at Silicon Valley’s ability to be worse in reality than my thriller writer imagination. I showed an early draft of the novel to Roger McNamee (author of Zucked) who was one of Mark Zuckerberg’s early investors and mentors. He sent me back an email listing all the ways I had made my fictional techies and corporate lawyers way too reasonable and moral than the real ones. In fiction, your characters have to behave in believable, human ways. In Silicon Valley, not so much.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

A thrill. First and foremost, The Confessions is a thriller—with a dash of old-school murder mystery—and hopefully it’s a page-turner. If readers find themselves stopping at the end of each chapter to think deep thoughts about morality or artificial intelligence, then I’ve probably screwed up the plot or the pacing. That said, I’ll be OK if a few days after finishing the novel those same readers suddenly have a full-blown panic attack when they realize that everything in the story is either already true, or very easily could be. I have that panic attack at least twice a day.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

If you ever find your ego getting out of control, open a bookstore and watch customers picking up novels that you know are incredible, then putting them down 10 seconds later with a dismissive sigh because the first line didn’t grab them or the cover doesn’t quite work. (If you think making the sausage is bad, you definitely don’t want to watch it being sold.) More practically, don’t believe the nonsense that you need to spend hours every day in an ergonomic chair or construct your fantasy writing cabin to finish your novel. Most of The Confessions was typed between customers, my laptop perched on a stack of Simon and Schuster boxes, during a 110-degree Palm Springs summer. 

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In this interview, Ryan Pote discusses blending genres with his debut novel, Blood and Treasure, his advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Ryan Pote
Literary agent: Mark Tavani, David Black Agency
Book title: Blood and Treasure
Publisher: Berkley
Release date: July 22, 2025
Genre/category: Crossover/Thriller
Elevator pitch: The destruction of the International Space Station and the discovery of an ancient scroll are inextricably intertwined in this debut crossover thriller from a former Navy helicopter pilot.

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What prompted you to write this book?

To write something I hadn’t seen done yet. To break away from the endless copycats and create my own genre fusion, my way.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

Five years. I came up with the character in two previous, unpublished manuscripts. I wrote this novel in early 2023 and sold it to Berkley almost one year after I finished it. Since then, it didn’t change per se, but it got deeper in many ways. My agent had some very good critiques early on about the opening, so I added several chapters and rearranged some events to make it flow much better.

I also changed the title, which then imbued the novel with a theme of blood and treasure (which is now driving the whole series). It was already there, but the right people help you pull it out. Then, I had to make some serious plot changes for the publisher before I even signed the contract, then it went through multiple rounds of editorials, but only because I turned it back early, so it had time to be reviewed again. Each person had unique insights and gave me room to make new revelations that I layered more and more. My film agent, Sanjana Seelam at William Morris Endeavor, read it and gave me some insightful steers. This was where I basically deconstructed the book (at copyright stage at this point) and almost turned it into a completely different novel with how deep the revision was. It was here where I developed the story into more of a crossover with deeper treasure hunting elements worked into the story.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Yes. A lot of what I’d “heard” about traditional publishing was very, very misguided. Everyone is super nice. Beyond nice. I retained creative control and got to implement whatever changes I felt the book really needed. I was very much involved in the cover development and helped steer it to where it ended up. I got to choose the audiobook narrator from eight auditions. I was much more involved in the entire process, and I always felt that it was my book.  Everyone loves to collaborate. If you’re interested in collaborating and letting other people pick apart your work, to help you make it better, then you will have a great experience in publishing. But I also learned that everything takes a really long time in publishing. Especially for a fast writer like me, I had to learn to keep busy writing other projects to stay fresh and focused.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Yes. Always. For my process, I usually write very fast, but this book just poured out of me. I wrote the entire thing—from first word to final draft—in nine weeks.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope readers feel they got their money’s worth. Everyone who reads a book reads a different book, because of our unique perspectives. I hope that each reader has some part of this book grab them and linger with them a little while afterwards. If I’ve done that, then I’ve succeeded.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

There’s a ton of advice about breaking into this industry. Don’t listen to ANY of it. Listen to your gut. The industry wants new. They want fresh. Write something special, and don’t give up until you sell it. My book didn’t change; my attitude and my representation did. Don’t settle.

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Establish your “closed circle.”

The best mysteries tend to be “closed circle” mysteries—meaning they involve a small number of suspects within a single unit. How you define your closed circle is up to you: It could be family members at a country house or passengers on a Nile cruise … use your imagination! But if you’re planning to write a puzzle mystery, it’s a good idea to focus on a handful of main characters, with the killer lurking somewhere among them. That way, your reader won’t feel short-changed by a villain appearing from nowhere in the final chapter.

Establish your “rules.”

It might seem counterintuitive to talk about rules for a genre where all the most satisfying examples break the rules in some way. But you need a logical framework of some kind in which your plot will unfold. A good rule of thumb is to make sure your detective is never more than one step ahead of the reader, and that your Watson character is never more than one step behind.

Keep it simple.

The best mysteries are the ones which hide a deceptively simple trick in plain sight. Now, that’s not to say that your plot shouldn’t be devilishly complex. But most of those ornate convolutions will be in service to a single, overarching trick. A favorite analogy of mine is the “Orange Tree Illusion” of the great magician Jean-Eugene Robert Houdin. This is a stunningly elaborate trick which relied on an ingenious mechanical construction, pyrotechnics, and various stagehands lurking behind the scenes. But it was all in pursuit of one of the simplest and most ancient illusions imaginable: the disappearance and reappearance of a handkerchief.  

Click to continue.

The timeline is your friend.

In any fiction where the plot is at the forefront, it’s vital to have a clear understanding of your chronology. You need to know who was where, and at what time. Even if the characters lie to each other, and to your detective, you need to have a clear visual of where they were and what they were up to. Think of it like pieces on a chessboard—everything is relative; one move has various ramifications for every other piece on the board. You need to plan your sequence of moves accordingly.

Treat your suspects equally.

Of course you know whodunit, but it’s important to remember your reader doesn’t—or rather, they shouldn’t. To keep them guessing, it’s a good idea to devote equal space to each of your suspects, so there isn’t one particularly obvious front-runner. Also, make sure you don’t go too far in the opposite direction—your murderer should be someone who’s been present in the narrative from the beginning. It can be a difficult balance, but it’s worth getting right.

Motive, motive, motive.

When writing mysteries, you are essentially attempting to deceive several different types of readers. Some will be highly attuned to the physical clues, the erroneous alibis—in other words, the material details. But others will be more directly focused on character and motivation—the immaterial, psychological clues. That’s why it’s important to ensure that your victim was either universally loved or universally loathed. Either everyone has a motive, or nobody does—at least on the surface.

Surprise yourself.

In many ways, you are your own “Ideal Reader.” Presumably you want to write a mystery because you enjoy reading mysteries, so it’s a good idea to think about the types of plot twists and “reveals” that truly startled you. How can you set about replicating that effect? Often the best method is to think of the most obvious solution to your puzzle, and then invert it.

Let’s say that the hated patriarch of a large family has just written his unruly youngest son out of his will. The kid gets nothing. When the old man dies, surely the first suspect to be ruled out is the unruly son? After all, what did he have to gain? This is the “obvious” path for our detective—it’s a logical deduction, after all. But what if the youngest son did have a motive that none of his siblings knew about—something that ran deeper than money? That’s the first inversion.

But it’s not really enough: The best mystery writers tend to orchestrate a double-bluff, only to transform it into a double-double-bluff. What if the youngest son was plotting to murder his father, only for a second, unidentified murderer to beat him to the punch? This is the kind of approach I usually take, with one complication feeding neatly into the next. As long as you don’t tie yourself up in knots, you can leapfrog your way from one revelation to another en route to that all-important satisfying denouement, in which the whole tapestry is unravelled.

Check out Tom Mead’s The House at Devil’s Neck here:

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