Bruce DeSilva's Blog, page 53

Look Who's Reading "Rogue Island" Now! It's Best-Selling Author Steve Berry

Steve Berry

Steve Berry is the New York Times best-selling author of ten thrillers, including ten in the Cotton Malone series. His latest is The Jefferson Key. Steve is past president of International Thriller Writers.

Rogue Island, which won both the Edgar and Macavity Awards for best first novel, is available in trade paperback and Kindle editions here. You can purchase a downloadable audio edition here.

When Competing Against Friends for Writing Awards, the Best Result is a Tie

Over the past few months, I've found myself competing with two new friends, Paul Doiron and Hilary Davidson, for some of the same writing awards, and I love how it has turned out.

My novel, Rogue Island,  won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award and Mystery Readers International's Macavity Award for best first novel. Hilary won the Spinetingler Magazine and Anthony awards for her first novel, The Damage Done. And Paul won the Strand Magazine and Barry Awards for his first novel, "The Poacher's Son."

Folks have been telling me that the Edgar is the most important one, but as far as I am concerned, this is a tie.

11 Months After Publication, "Rogue Island" Is Still Getting Reviewed

It's not often that crime novels keep getting reviewed nearly a year after they were published, but my Edgar Award-winning book, "Rouge Island," is.

The latest review is by Kim Forbes, a contributor to Yahoo, and I'm pleased to say that she understood some of the things I was trying to say with the book. You can find her review here.

Look Who's Reading "Rogue Island" Now. It's Marilyn Manson!

My wife, Patricia Smith, caught up with the outrageous Marilyn Manson at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. They were both there to read poetry for a classy event arranged by actress and poet Amber Tamblyn. Manson, although best known as a musician, is also a writer, painter and actor.

"Rogue Island" is available in trade paperback and Kindle editions here. It is also available in a downloadable audio edition that can be found here.

Look Who's Reading "Rogue Island" Now! It's Thriller Writer Steven James!

Steven James

Steven James's six novels are as suspenseful as it gets. The Bishop  was names the 2010 Book of the Year by Suspense Magazine, and his new one, The Queen, is even better.

James, who has a master's degree ins storytelling, teaches writing and storytelling at conferences throughout the world. Publishers Weekly calls him "a master storyteller at the peak of his game."

Rogue Island won the Edgar Award for best first novel and has been shortlisted for the Anthony, Macavity, Barry and Shamus Awards.  You can purchase the trade paperback and Kindle editions here.  It is also available in a downloadable audio edition that can be found here.

"Bullet for One," Brian Drake's New Thriller, ROCKS!

 John Coburn is a private eye who wo't let the law stand in the way of justice.

Five years ago Coburn watched as his father was gunned down by a masked man. Tortured by the fact that the killer was never caught, Coburn fights the feelings of failure that haunt his every waking moment.

Now, history has repeated itself.  When his best friend Felix is murdered after agreeing to protect a witness, Coburn dives in to catch the killer before the police and FBI.  Battling official law enforcement and his own demons, Coburn turns over every lead, rattles every cage, and stretches his own moral code to the breaking point.  As he digs deeper into a mystery that involves a team of thieves, corrupt businessmen, and a mafia kingpin with a price on his head, Coburn realizes that revenge has a cost he cannot calculate.

If he fails, can he live with another ghost?

If he succeeds, can he live with the consequences?

Published by Single Bullet Press, Bullet for One is available here for your Kindle.

Look Who's Reading "Rogue Island" Now! It's Thriller Writer Sophie Littlefield.

Sophie Littlefield won the prestigious Anthony Award for A Bad Day for Sorry and has also been nominated for an Edgar Award. She writes a post-apocalyptic series of thrillers as well as adult fiction.

Rogue Island won the Edgar Award for best first novel and has been shortlisted for the Anthony, Macavity, Barry and Shamus Awards.  You can purchase the trade paperback and Kindle editions here.  It is also available in a downloadable audio edition that can be found here.

A Review Of The New Novel By George Pelecanos.

With The Cut, George Pelecanos, introduces a new series character — a returning Iraq War vet named Spero Lucas.

None other than Stephen King has declared Pelecanos our finest crime novelist, but does The Cut measure up to his earlier work?  You can learn what I think by reading the review I wrote for The Associated Press.  You can find it here.

 

Look Who's Reading "Rogue Island" Now! It's Thriller Writer Richard Helms.

Richard Helms is a two-time winner of the Derringer Award and has won or been nominated for just about every award in the thriller genre. His latest book is titled Thunder Moon.

Rogue Island won the Mystery Writers of America's prestigious Edgar Award for best first novel and has been short-listed for the Anthony, Barry, Macavity and Shamus Awards that will be announced in September.

The novel is currently available in trade paperback and Kindle editions that can be published here.  A downloadable audio version from Audible can be published here.

A Brilliant New Literary Spy Novel From The Great Thomas H. Cook

A cataract, and the surgery to remove it, stopped my reading cold for a couple of months this summer; so I didn't get around to reading the latest novel by Thomas H. Cook, one of my favorite writers, until this week.

The Quest for Anna Klein, which was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in July, is Cook's first foray into the spy novel genre. However, the structure of the book will be familiar to fans of the author's finest crime novels including The Fate of Katherine Carr and The "Last Talk With Lola Faye.

Once again, the main character is struggling to come to grips with something that happened in the distant past – an event that changed the course of his life. And once again, it was an event that he didn't fully understand because of his tendency to deceive himself and because key information was withheld from him.

The novel opens shortly after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Paul Crane, a young foreign affairs expert who has just penned a tract calling for vengeance, is dispatched by a Washington think tank to interview an aged former intelligence officer who says he has thoughts that could assist American policy-making on the terrorist threat.

Crane meets Thomas Jefferson Danforth in the latter's posh New York City club, hoping to get the interview over quickly and rush back to Washington ahead of an expected snow storm. But Danforth has other plans. He has a story to tell—"a little parable," he calls it – and he's determined to spin it out in his own time.

After Hitler rose to power in Germany, Danforth explains, a U.S. intelligence officer asked him for permission to use his remote Connecticut estate to conceal a mysterious young Jewish woman while she was being trained in the use of firearms and explosives in preparation for an undercover assignment in Europe.

Danforth agreed; but as he watched Anna Klein prepare for her assignment, he became entranced by her. Eventually, he broke off his engagement to a wealthy woman and volunteered to accompany Anna on her perilous assignment.

In Germany, things went bad. Anna and another operative were arrested by the Gestapo, and Danforth barely escaped with his life. Convinced that he and Anna were betrayed by a double agent, Danforth returned to Europe after the war to search for her, to discover who betrayed them, and to wreak revenge.

But the deeper he looked, the more he realized how little he understood about Anna and their assignment. Eventually he began to think that Anna herself may have been a double, or event triple agent.

Thomas H. Cook

Cook structures his story as a conversation between Crane and Danforth, the narrative flashing back and forth between their talk and the vivid details of the espionage assignment and Danforth's quest.

His search for answers, and revenge, we gradually learn, has consumed him, causing him much hardship and eating decades of his life.  This superbly well-written, literary novel has more twists and turns than a John le Carre thriller; and in the end, there are three surprises you'll never see coming.

The Quest for Anna Klein is more than just another spy novel. It is at once a tormented love story and a morality tale about betrayal and vengeance. And most importantly, Danforth (and Cook) gently prod Crane (and the reader) toward an understanding of the high cost of zealotry.

You can purchase the book here.