Mark Rubinstein's Blog

Adrian McKinty Had Given Up On Writing: A Late Night Phone Call Changed Everything

Adrian McKinty’s life story is extraordinary. He grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland during the “Troubles.” After studying law, he attended Oxford University on a full scholarship to study philosophy and politics. While writing on the side, he worked at many occupations in the UK and U.S.: security guard, bartender, truck driver, bookstore clerk, rugby coach, door-to-door salesman, high school English teacher, and librarian.

As a full-time novelist, he’s either won or been nominated for near...

David Morrell: Finding Inspiration, Transcending Genres, and Going the Distance

David Morrell is an acknowledged master of the suspense/thriller genre of storytelling. His iconic protagonist of First Blood, John Rambo, is one of the most enduring figures in contemporary fiction. As a professor of American literature at the University of Iowa, Morrell both taught and wrote novels until he eventually resigned his professorship to write on a full-time basis.

He has either won or been nominated for virtually every award in the suspense/thriller universe and has authored twen...

Don Winslow and the Making of a Drug War Epic

Don Winslow, the acclaimed author of The Winter of Frankie Machine, Savages, The Force and other literary crime novels has completed his internationally bestselling trilogy which includes The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, and his just published novel, The Border.

For forty years, Winslow’s protagonist, Art Keller, has been on the front lines of America’s longest and most deadly conflict: The War on Drugs.

The heroin epidemic is still the scourge of America, and now, Keller is not only at war...

My talk with Lee Child about his “contract” with readers

Lee Child has sold millions of books world-wide, and his Jack Reacher character has virtually become a household name. This series follows the adventures of former American military policeman, Jack Reacher, a loner who wanders from place to place. Lee’s first novel, The Killing Floor, won both the Anthony Award, and the Barry Award for Best First Novel.

After graduating from college, he worked in commercial television and was involved in producing shows like Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel...

C.J. Box on the Modern Western & Crime Thrillers

C.J. Box is the bestselling author of 17 Joe Pickett novels, four standalones, and a collection of short stories called Shots Fired. He’s won multiple awards including the Edgar, the Anthony, the Gumshoe, and the Barry. His books have been translated into twenty-seven languages.

He lives with his family outside Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Joe Pickett, the protagonist in the series, is a Wyoming game warden who often finds himself embroiled in perilous situations for him and his family.

In The Disappea...

Jonathan Kellerman and the Dark Psychology of Crime Fiction

Jonathan Kellerman, the bestselling author of more than forty crime novels, is known to mystery-lovers everywhere. With a doctorate in psychology, Jonathan has applied his knowledge not only to his novels, but to those he has co-written with his wife Faye, and son, Jesse. All three are bestselling authors. He has also written children’s and nonfiction books.

He’s won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony Awards, and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. Along with the late Sue Grafton’s “Alphabet...

A Trial is Really All About Storytelling-My Talk with Scott Turow

Scott Turow, the bestselling author of Presumed Innocent and other novels, graduated with high honors from Amherst College, receiving a fellowship to the Stanford University Creative Writing Center which he attended from 1970 to 1972. He then taught creative writing at Stanford. He entered Harvard Law School, graduating in 1978. For eight years, he was an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago, serving as lead prosecutor in several high-visibility federal trials investigating corruption...

‘Into the Black Nowhere,’ A Conversation with Meg Gardiner

Meg Gardiner is an Edgar Award-winning author who has written 13 previous novels. Her best-known books are the Evan Delaney series. Her previous novel, UNSUB, is a taut and terrifying thriller concerning the hunt for a serial killer. Meg has continued the Unsub series (Unsub meaning Unknown Subject) with Into the Black Nowhere.

Into the Black Nowhere features Caitlin Hendrix hunting another Ted Bundy-like serial killer who kidnaps women in southern Texas. He snatches them in plain sight witho...

‘The Wife,’ A Conversation with Alafair Burke

Alafair Burke is the bestselling author of eleven previous novels. She co-authors the bestselling Under Suspicion series with Mary Higgins Clark. A former prosecutor, she now teaches criminal law and lives in New York City.

In The Wife, Angela Powell is married to Jason, a brilliant economics professor at NYU and a minor celebrity in New York City. Angela has a tragic past, but after marrying Jason, she and her son move out of her mother’s home and look forward for the chance to reboot her li...

‘The Immortalists,’ A Talk with Chloe Benjamin

Chloe Benjamin’s first novel, The Anatomy of Dreams, received the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award. She received her MFA in fiction form the University of Wisconsin. Her fiction, poetry and essays have been widely published.

The Immortalists is a tale of family love, prophesy, destiny and magic. Among other questions, it asks, If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? In 1969, a travelling psychic arrives in the Gold family’s neighborhood; she claims to be able to tell a...