BunzelGram

November 21, 2022    Issue #112

 

This Week's Thoughts On Mysteries, Thrillers, and All Things Crime

Publishers and editors know that a good cover blurb from a respected author or two can go a long way in grabbing attention, and selling a new book. That’s why I’m absolutely delighted that two of my favorite bestselling writers have offered this magnificent praise for my new suspense novel Greenwich Mean Time:

• “A globe-spanning, mind-spinning thriller that will delight fans of Jason Bourne. Ronin Phythian, an assassin with extraordinary powers and a code of his own, deserves a sequel. Make that sequels.” (Joseph Finder, author of House on Fire)

• “A rollicking good time of thrills and skills.” (Steve Berry, author of The Omega Factor)

GMT launches January 10; 2023. Pre-order now!

—Reed Bunzel

Iconic Cars That Define The Hero In

Mysteries, Thrillers, And Crime Fiction

If you think about a book or movie that was defined by a car, you’ll most likely think of James Bond’s silver Aston Martin DB5, Steve McQueen’s green 1968 Ford Mustang GT in Bullitt (left), or the 1958 Plymouth Fury from Stephen King’s horror novel Christine. As Craig Henderson writes in last week’s Crime Reads, “Cars bring to the modern thriller what horses brought to the western; namely, speed and excitement, car chases, drive–bys, and hit-and-runs. The wonderful thing about imagination is that anything can be made exciting in the right hands. Picture, for a moment, Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw doing their getaway in The Getaway on foot, or on push bikes. Not the same movie.” What we drive has become so much a part of who we are that we tend to believe that the make and model of other cars on the road, the manner in which they’re being driven, speaks volumes about the person at the wheel. When I wrote the initial draft of Palmetto Blood, the first novel in my Jack Connor series about an Iraq war vet with PTSD who is trying to fit into society after returning from battle, it was important to put him behind the wheel of a vehicle that defined not only who he was, but also reflected his experiences in the desert that defined his current circumstances. I settled on a 1967 orange Camaro convertible that he couldn’t possibly afford, but was given to him by a grateful father after saving his son’s life. That car became a symbol through every book in the series, and appears again in the upcoming Indigo Road, scheduled for release next year.

 
Bullitt Chase Scene

The First Line Of A Novel Sets The

Tone Of Everything That Follows

It may not seem like it, but many authors struggle diligently to create the perfect first sentence of a book. If those first words don’t grab the reader and propel him or her forward, there’s no guarantee that all that follows will be any better. Even if you’re a diehard fan of a particular novelist, you want to make sure that you’re spending your time and money on a well-crafted story that won’t disappoint. I’m in full agreement with Mary Kay McBrayer, who recently wrote in Novel Suspects that “a book needs to get my attention pretty much immediately. I want the first line to grab me by the collar, sit me down, point a finger in my face and say, ‘you will fall in love with me.’” With that in mind, she compiled a list of seven favorite first lines in crime fiction, including:

• “Los Angeles burns”; Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper

• “I hear the crack of his skull before the spattering of blood reaches me”; Verity by Colleen Hoover

• “I sent one boy to the gas chamber at Huntsville”; No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

• “It’s strenuous work to saw through a skull”; All That Is Wicked by Kate Winkler Dawson

• “Death is my beat”; The Poet by Michael Connelly

• “Max Rupert laced his fingers behind his head and settled into his pillow to await the ghosts;” Forsaken Country by Allen Eskens

• “It was the bright yellow tape that finally convinced me my sister was dead”; The Damage Done by Hilary Davidson

 
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COLD CASE

Vet Who Killed Sergeant Arrested 48 Years After Allegedly Shooting Teens

An Army vet who once did time for killing his superior officer was arrested earlier this month for a double murder of two teenage boys in Oregon 48 years ago. Steven Paul Criss, now 65, allegedly gunned down 16-year-old Donny Bartron and 18-year-old Pete Zito, Jr. in an execution-style shooting in a parking lot in 1974. Bartron had been working on the engine of a 1956 Oldsmobile when he was shot; his body was found slumped over the open hood, while Zito was found lying on the ground next to the driver’s door. “Both teens had been shot multiple times in the head with a .22 caliber gun,” lead Detective Mark Povolny said at a Friday press conference. Police initially charged Joseph Amir Wilson with the double murder, but he was later released. Two months later, 17-year-old Criss was arrested for theft, and a deputy found a .22 caliber gun in his car. It was tested and returned to Criss because it was not deemed to be a match for the evidence at that time. Shortly thereafter, Criss joined the Army, and in 1976, pled guilty to fatally shooting his commanding officer, Sgt. Jacob Kim Brown, over an argument. [He was released on parole in 1988 after serving just 12 years.] Washington County sheriffs decided to reopen the double-murder case earlier this year and re-ran ballistics tests on the gun used to kill Brown. Criss, who had been living in Aloha, a community 12 miles west of Portland, was arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree murder.

 
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Bill Granger Was A Master Of Spy

Thrillers And Gritty Crime Fiction

When one talks about the global pantheon of novelists who dwell in the rarefied air of espionage fiction (think le Carré, Fleming, Ludlum), one writer who often fails to receive the recognition he is due is the late Chicago-born author Bill Granger. Perhaps best-known for his November Man series, Granger was an award-winning reporter for both the Chicago Sun Times and The Washington Post before he turned his attention to writing novels featuring the iconic agent named Deveraux and the eyes-only spy agency known as R Section. The eponymous first novel in the series, The November Man, caused some controversy when it was published in 1979, as the plot focused on the hypothetical assassination of a relative of Queen Elizabeth by blowing up a boat. Several months after the book’s release, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the queen’s cousin, was killed on his boat when a bomb set by the Irish Republican Army exploded. Media were all over the story at the time, and many reporters speculated that Granger knew about the plans in advance. In total, he published two dozen novels, including 14 November Man books; one of them, There Are No Spies, was made into a movie titled The November Man starring Pierce Brosnan. Granger's best-known novel possibly was Public Murders, for which he won an Edgar Award in 1981 from Mystery Writers of America. Sadly, he suffered a stroke in 2000 and was forced to retire from writing, and passed away in 2012 at the age of 71.

 
November Man Trailer

Some Underrated Hard-Boiled

Crime Novels That Will Haunt You

The world of crime fiction and noir is as deep and dark as any complex crime investigation, and there’s no shortage of marvelous novels written by excellent authors. Problem is, as Michael Seidlinger says in a recent edition of Murder-Mayhem, “There’s just so much out there that gets lost amid the marquee names (Dashiell Hammett, Jim Thompson) and the latest bestsellers. As a result, a voracious reader often feels like a detective themselves, hunting through libraries and bookstores, seeking out new gems. If you find yourself searching through page after page at Amazon, digging for a novel that takes hard-boiled and detective fiction into a completely new areas, here's a partial list of some old and new instant classics you might want to check out.

 
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ALSO:

 

Book Sales Continued To Struggle In August

Book sales fell 9% in August compared to a year ago at the 1,367 publishers who report data to AAP’s StatShot program. All segments had declines in the month, with sales of adult books down 9.3% and sales of children’s/young adult books declining 10.9%. [Publishers Weekly]

 

Thinking Of Gifting A Book For The Holidays? Consider These.

From mystery and thriller headliners to books trending on social media to psychological escapes, here are some great holiday gift ideas for the crime fiction lover in your family. [Novel Suspects]

 

Eight Great Thrillers With Effective Plot Twists

The backbone of an effective plot twist is simple, elegant…and astonishingly difficult: handing the reader every piece of the puzzle that they need, one by one, while convincing them that the picture they’re putting together is not the one they think it is. Here are eight thrillers that fit the mold. [Crime Reads]

Coming January 10, 2023:

Greenwich Mean Time

“A globe-spanning, mind-spinning thriller that will delight fans of Jason Bourne. Rōnin Phythian, an assassin with extraordinary powers and a code of his own, deserves a sequel. Make that sequels.” —Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of House on Fire

 

“Greenwich Mean Time is a rollicking good time of thrills and skills.” —New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry

 

When photojournalist Monica Cross literally stumbles into the site of an old airplane crash at the edge of a Himalayan glacier, she is exposed to a dark and deadly secret that was meant to remain hidden forever. Unaware that her life is in grave danger, she attempts to get home to New York while the Greenwich Global Group—a dark-web, murder-for-hire outfit—pulls out all stops to make sure she never gets there. Spanning ten time zones, nine countries, and four continents, Greenwich Mean Time is a tightly spun thriller that plays out against a sinister plot designed to change the course of history for all time.

 
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