I write both thrillers, (with settings around the world), and frontier fiction where the craziness of man against man occurs in wilderness settings; where the land itself, or the weather, or even the wildlife adds to the conflict, sometimes becoming another opponent, and occasionally becoming a refuge.
Carmen and I will once again attend Bouchercon, a convention of writers and readers, this year in Calgary. A high percentage of the writers and readers at this convention are aficionados of the mystery genre. With that in mind, I’ve focused on that genre in my own reading for the last two months. Here are my favorite authors from my time in the underworld. Robert Dugoni has been writing legal and police thrillers for decades. His book, Her Cold Justice was a fun read. A.C. Frieden, usually writes thrillers set across the globe. Last year he wrote his first mystery set in New Orleans. Dead In The Quarter is not the kind of book you read at bedtime; it might keep you awake. Gene Koon is a new writer, who like Frieden and me has extensive experience around the world. He ignored that part of his life and wrote a fun mystery set where you would never expect a thriller to occur. His book Another Try should be a cozy fireside story in quiet Oregon wine country, but it isn’t. Who knew that bullets and chardonnay pair well together? Jay S. Bell as himself and under a pseudonym has been writing mystery for decades. His book Welcome To Cottonmouth is one of the most intense action stories I’ve ever read. With dozens of books under your belt you can ignore many of the traditional rules of storytelling and make it work.
I encourage everyone who loves to read, to leap off from a cliff once in a while and pick up a good book in a genre that you might never normally read. For me, they are a window into challenging worlds I don’t normally visit. It’s amazing how often I will get a note from a reader who mostly reads romance, explaining that the romance in my thriller or frontier fiction books, set in crises settings, elevates passion to all new levels. I’m happy to respond to every note and to recommend another of my books or even one form another author who I read.