Behind the Book: The Woman Who Walked Through Walls
I started at the execution scene and wrote backward. Here is the story behind three women, a device that removes consequences, and what people do when they cannot be caught.
Tag: Psychological Suspense
Tension built from character rather than plot machinery, from novelists writing something through on the page.
GeopoliticsBehind the Book: Shield of Ashes
Shield of Ashes asks what a real nuclear war would look like in a multipolar world. Here is how a short story about one launch became the biggest book I have written.
MysteryBehind the Book: Unlikely Hero
Unlikely Hero started with a single image, a nuclear bomb near Los Angeles, and became a two-character story about a criminal, a cop, and one impossible choice. Here is how it was built.
Fiction WritingGhostwriting Suspense: Engineering Dread on the Page
Ghostwriting suspense is engineering dread. Every scene has to tighten the screw, controlling what the reader knows and when.
FictionReincarnation
Two women in a 1971 therapy office begin remembering lives that are not theirs. A love story across eighty-two thousand years, braided through three threads.
Book ReviewsCrime and Punishment
The impoverished Raskolnikov moves from a theory-justified murder into the agony of guilt, paranoia, and the slow pull toward confession. The definitive novel of conscience, demanding but essential, and one of the towering achievements of world literature.
Book ReviewsThe Girl on the Train
A blackout-prone alcoholic narrator becomes entangled in a missing-person case she may have witnessed from her commuter train. A gripping, twisty page-turner built on genuinely unreliable narration, with a messy, unlikable heroine whose dysfunction is the point. Strong entertainment, a…
Book ReviewsRebecca
The unnamed second wife, haunted by the memory of the dead Rebecca and the chilling Mrs. Danvers, at the estate of Manderley. A perfectly built atmosphere of dread and a landmark of psychological suspense, with one of the most famous…
Book ReviewsGone Girl
On the morning of his fifth anniversary, Nick Dunne's wife vanishes, and what follows reshaped domestic suspense: dual unreliable narrators, a mid-book reversal both shocking and scrupulously fair, and a savage look at marriage and performance. A masterclass in structure…
Fiction WritingMasters of Terror and Suspense
An analysis of cinema's 20 greatest slasher films plus 20 honorable mentions. From Halloween to Scream, see what separates real horror craft from mere exploitation: psychological depth, narrative innovation, and technical mastery.
Creative Writing20 Thriller and Suspense Writing Exercises with Craft Mechanics
20 exercises targeting dread mechanics, pacing control, and the gap between what the reader knows and what the character suspects.
Author TalksJohn DeHart: From 30 Years of Drumming to Writing Psychological Suspense as Catharsis
Former drummer John DeHart joins Author Talks to discuss trading music for writing, cathartic psychological suspense, and making his hometown a character.