Make the story good, then rewrite it: Mark Stevens on his new thriller

By Steve Weddle

The new thriller from Mark Stevens was released on May 1 as an Amazon First Reads selection and quickly racked up thousands of positive reviews. No wonder.

No Lie Lasts Forever is a smart, fast-paced thriller that keeps readers engaged and guessing through 450 pages of twists and turns.

Ahead of the book's official June 1 publication date, Mark and I chatted about this new book, whether his earlier Allison Coil series is really over, and what sort of reader he has in mind when he writes. 

Steve Weddle: So the tagline for No Lie Lasts Forever is “A reformed serial killer coaxes a disgraced journalist into finding the imposter trading on his name.” What a setup. How did that come about?

Mark Stevens: How? I have no idea. I was driving. It was night. I was alone. This was a long time ago. I had written three crime novels. All were safely out of the hands of readers. I had good agents for all three projects at that point, but I was still learning how to write. So, there I was. Driving. I wasn’t trying to dream up a plot. I wasn’t thinking about my next project or anything like that. To put it simply, I was minding my own business. And the whole concept of this book materialized in my head. At least, the general shape of it. I could feel it. I know, that sounds strange to say. I’m not a woo-woo guy. But I could grasp the general tension of the whole story. In a flash.

Steve Weddle: Which section of the book did you write first?

Mark Stevens: Act one, scene one, sentence one. I always start at the beginning. I have no idea how other writers manage to write a scene from the middle of the novel without knowing the beats and details for what has come before. To me, writing out of order is some sort of black magic that should be outlawed because it sets a dangerous precedent for intelligence and perception that is most likely the product of an evil alien presence. What else could it be?

Steve Weddle: How is this new novel impacted by your time at The Denver Post? And why is Flynn Martin a broadcast journalist instead of a print journalist?

Mark Stevens: Second question first: Because the incident that causes Flynn Martin citywide embarrassment, and gets her suspended from the station, is something that plays out as she’s covering an ongoing hostage situation at a convenience store. Flynn already has a bit of celebrity in Denver as a highly visible reporter who has been around for years and that celebrity. Print reporters, generally speaking, don’t have the same public persona and the print reporters don’t typically get put in those situations. Because television reporters have access to that little stick of dynamite: live television.

And I would say much of the book was informed by 20 years in journalism (three different newspapers in all and six years producing national television news for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour back in the 1980s). I also spent a long time working with reporters as director of communications for school districts and the state department of education here in Colorado. So I worked with lots of reporters from the other side of the communications fence, so to speak. The fact that reformed serial killer Harry Kugel works at the Colorado Department of Education is pure coincidence. It’s got to be.

Steve Weddle: Do you have a Mark Stevens reader in mind when you write? And, if so, has that idea of the reader changed for you since you started?

Mark Stevens: It sounds wrong, I guess, but I don’t have readers in mind. Sorry, readers. I guess that comes from years and years of writing without being published. And it’s possible you could think that was the reason WHY I wasn’t getting published, because I didn’t know my reader. But I also think it’s kind of a mistake to think you’ll only have one type of reader, right? So I write for myself. I try to make the story good and then rewrite it five or six times after that.

Steve Weddle: Which part of this book was the hardest to write?

Mark Stevens: Can I get away with saying “all of it”? No? I guess writing from Harry Kugel’s point of view was the hardest thing to try and get right. A guy who was once evil but who stopped, cold. And reformed himself. Maybe? It was a challenge to make him somewhat likable and engaging and then watch him squirm as the pressure builds.

Steve Weddle: What surprised you the most about this book?

Mark Stevens: I’d have to say I was surprised at the role that Michael Martin plays. He’s Flynn’s father. A longtime former print reporter who has retired from the daily Denver newspaper but still works as a citizen journalist. I was surprised at their relationship, especially how they treated each other less like father-daughter and more like friends. If the sequel gets published, he plays a pretty strong role in the follow-up, too.

Steve Weddle: This book and your 2023 novel, The Fireballer, were both Amazon First Reads picks. How has that experience differed from publishing your earlier books?

Mark Stevens: Well, it’s tremendous exposure. To be included as one of seven or eight titles promoted all month long to Amazon’s vast readership? It’s pretty hard to beat. And everybody I know who has worked with the editors at both Thomas & Mercer and Lake Union has nothing but praise for their work. The marketing is fantastic. But the bottom line is that editors at both houses made The Fireballer and No Lie Lasts Forever better books. That’s worth more than anything else. Truly.

Steve Weddle: And speaking of your earlier books, you had five novels focused on Allison Coil, a hunting guide in Colorado. These were all pretty outdoorsy – wildfires, dead hunters, environmentalism, and more. Why did you move away from that series? Have you completely left that series behind?

Mark Stevens: I didn’t purposely move away from the Allison Coil series. The fifth book, The Melancholy Howl, ends with plenty of room to pick up various threads and write another. But now No Lie has sent me in a different direction. I’ve written a sequel and the plan is for a third in a tight trilogy about Flynn Martin. There are other projects in the works, too. But, never say never. I’d love to get back to Allison and see what trouble she can run into next.

Get Yours

***

“I never thought I’d be so invested in a serial killer. The PDQ murderer is a character for the ages—complex, calculating, at times sympathetic—and he makes the pages shudder and howl. His relationship with a disgraced reporter is the stuff of classic crime fiction. In No Lie Lasts Forever, Stevens breaks free of all the old tropes, crafting a tense, surprising, and gritty tale about our darkest impulses, our quest for truth and redemption, and the lengths we go for the people we love. I adored this book.” —I.S. Berry, author of The Peacock and the Sparrow

What If Anthony Bourdain Was a Spy?

by

Scott D. Parker

Every now and then, you hear a concept for a book and it instantly hooks you. This is one of those books. 

What if an Anthony Bourdain-type celebrity chef who hosts a TV travel show is also a CIA spy?

Hooked? Well, I was. You see, I really enjoyed Bourdain’s writings, his TV shows, and his way of seeing the world. His shows were appointment television. His books—always get the audio because he reads them—were bought on day one. So it should come as no surprise that when Tom Straw’s new book was announced, I got it on day one.

Prepare the Narrator

Sebastian Pike is the Bourdain stand-in in THE ACCIDENTAL JOE, the new novel by Tom Straw. In various interviews, podcasts, and his author event here in Houston, Straw talked about the genesis of the novel and how a tweak to the prose brought the novel to life. 

Originally he had written the book in third-person POV but had included various “voiceover” monologues by Pike. Early readers enjoyed the novel, but really enjoyed it when Pike spoke directly to the readers. So Straw revamped the entire novel and made Pike the narrator. 

That proved to be the secret ingredient. Pike speaks in the same type of wise-cracking, acerbic, snarky language Bourdain used to engross his audiences. I’ll be honest: when I was reading my hardcopy of the novel, it was Bourdain’s voice I heard in my mind. Later, as I listened to Straw narrate his own novel, he puts just enough of a tonality that you could basically hear Bourdain’s voice. It was pretty magical.

Add an Extra Spicy Co-Star

As the story opens, Pike is in need of a new producer. His last one took some “personal time.” In walks uber-fan Cameron Nova, a person who loves and has seemingly memorized every episode of “Hangry Globe,” Pike’s show. She’s the perfect fit and sparks instantly ignite.

But she’s not all that she seems. Turns out she works for the CIA and there’s a top vital mission for which Pike is an essential ingredient. She wants Pike to use his show to lure in an Eastern European strongman and exfiltrate a compromised CIA asset. Contrarian that he is, Pike initially refuses, but Cammie dangles an enticing carrot: if he helps the CIA, she’ll give him info on his dead fiance, killed in an explosion a year prior.

What’s a celebrity chef to do? 

Apply Heat That Really Hurts

When you hear a premise like this one, you might think that our hero narrator might just float above the story and not really do anything. Well, I’m here to tell you Pike is an active participant in this adventure, and it's not without genuine peril. It surprised me, a happy surprise because it made the stakes that much higher. 

Sprinkle in the Narrative Accents

Tom Straw ghostwrote the first seven Richard Castle novels and I fell in love with his style when I didn’t even know his name. He brings a lot of that narrative swagger with him to the antics of Pike and Nova, especially the slow burn of their relationship. It is organic, taking slow, small steps, and it boils over as the story progresses. Oh, please don’t tell me this is a spoiler. It’s baked into the premise.

He also does this thing where certain words stand in for a greater description. One example is a description of plants climbing up wooden latticework. Some writers might spend a sentence or two describing how the plants intertwine with the wooden slats. Instead, Straw uses the verb “latticed” and that’s it. But that’s all you need. We readers fill in the rest. Look, I know this isn’t some major revelation—pulp writers did it all the time back in the day—but I really took notice of it in the Castle books and Straw does it here in THE ACCIDENTAL JOE. I almost want to scan the book again and just take note of the verbs he uses.

Why would I read this book again?

Because Sebastian Pike is one of my favorite new amateur detectives. I love stories where a non-detective becomes embodied in a larger, dangerous story. I love it when what this non-detective brings to the table—cooking and TV production in this case—actually helps solve the case. I love it when we meet a character that just feels like you’ve watched every episode of his fictional TV show for years. 

You know what’s also fun about THE ACCIDENTAL JOE? All the little in-jokes Straw throws into the mix. There is one super-obvious character name—complete with the character’s nickname—that’ll have you chuckling. IYKYK. 

THE ACCIDENTAL JOE is a fantastic book. Highly recommended.

An Introduction to Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar in Deal Breaker

by

Scott D. Parker

Where has this book been all my life? 

On the bookshelf of your local store, just waiting to be read. 

We’ve Only Just Met After All This Time

Harlan Coben has been writing professionally since 1990 but he really became famous for the Myron Bolitar series, starting in 1995. I’ve known about Coben for a long time. Multiple best-sellers every time he publishes a book. Multiple adaptations of his stories on TV. And, recently, the professor of a BBC Maestro online class that helps writers craft thrillers. I’m always game to learn—especially from an acknowledged veteran of the genre—so I bought the class.

While listening to Coben talk in the class’s introduction, it dawned on me that I might want to see how he actually writes by actually reading one of his books. Why not start at the beginning?

Myron Bolitar: Not Your Typical Detective

For the uninitiated, Bolitar is a sports agent who could have made it big in the NBA were it not for a severe injury. He returned to college, earned a law degree, and spent time working as an investigator before becoming a sports agent. 

A sports agent? How might he be involved in a mystery? Well, it’s not that hard, really.

The Twisty Setup

When we meet Bolitar, he is in the middle of negotiations with the New York “Giants” (Titans in the book, ironic since the Tennessee Oilers (formerly from my hometown of Houston) would change their name to the Titans in 1999) on behalf of phenom Christian Steele. He’s a rookie quarterback and he sought out Bolitar for representation, but the not-quite-gangsters running the football team want to reduce the kid’s asking price.

Complicating everything is a phone call Christian received. It’s from his girlfriend, Kathy Culver. That would be his missing girlfriend whom everyone presumes is dead. Know who’s also dead? Kathy’s dad, a medical examiner, who was killed during a mugging. 

If that wasn’t enough, there’s one more thing. Christian received a manila envelope. Inside is a porn magazine (how quaint, huh?) but that’s not what gets Christian’s attention. No, that would be the advertisements in the back for a 1-900 number. One in particular has a photo of none other than Kathy Culver.

An Entertaining Detective

Now, I don’t know about you, but I was hooked pretty fast with this set of circumstances. Plus there’s football talk, so that’s just gravy. But if the person with whom you are experiencing this tale of mystery isn’t fun to be with, the reading will be a slog.

Of course it wasn’t. Myron Bolitar comes from a long line of wise-cracking detectives going back a century. He gives as good as he gets. He’s 31 at the publication date of 1995, so he’s just slightly older than I was at the time. I thoroughly enjoyed all the references that I got here in 2024—and probably wouldn’t have even thought twice about in 1995. 

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator, Jonathan Marosz, did a fantastic job. He got Bolitar’s snark down pat, and when he narrated scenes with actual criminals and miscreants from the New York area, those characters practically jumped out in front of me.

An Even More Entertaining Co-Star

Ironically, it was his reading of a co-star where he knocked it out of the park. Windsor Horne Lockwood III is Bolitar’s old college roommate, friend, and “partner.” Bolitar’s office is in a rented space in Lockwood’s office building, but Win, as he is commonly known, pretty much helps Bolitar throughout the entire case. 

In the novel, Coben writes the following when we first meet Win:

People often said that Myron looked nothing like his name—an observation Myron took as high praise; Windsor Horne Lockwood III, however, looked exactly like his name. Blond hair, perfect length, parted on the right side. His features were classical patrician, almost too handsome, like something crafted in porcelain. [...] Win even had that creepy accent, the one that did not originate from any particular geographical location as much as from certain prep school like Andover and Exeter. (Win had gone to Exeter.)

Now, with that name and that description, you *know* how Win sounds. And Marosz does exACTly that kind of line reading for Win’s dialogue. Pitch perfect.

The Mystery Itself

The one thing I knew about Coben before reading this book is that his stories include twists upon twists. That’s evident from the TV shows I’ve seen. But was that baked into his first major book?

Yup. Deliciously so. I honestly didn’t see the ending coming…which makes for a wonderful reading experience. 

I haven’t enjoyed a book this much in a long time, and by “a long time,” I mean since last week’s book. Seriously, Myron Bolitar is quite an engaging character, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this book. How much do you ask? I’ve already downloaded the second book in the series, Drop Shot.

I know I’m late to the Myron Bolitar party, so what are some of your favorite books in the series? And let me know your favorite standalone Coben books. 

Tom Straw Imagines if Anthony Bourdain Worked for the CIA in The Accidental Joe

by

Scott D. Parker

Every now and then, you hear a concept for a book and it instantly hooks you. This is one of those books. 

What if an Anthony Bourdain-type celebrity chef who hosts a TV travel show is also a CIA spy?

Hooked? Well, I was. You see, I really enjoyed Bourdain’s writings, his TV shows, and his way of seeing the world. His shows were appointment television. His books—always get the audio because he reads them—were bought on day one. So it should come as no surprise that when Tom Straw’s new book was announced, I got it on day one.

Prepare the Narrator

Sebastian Pike is the Bourdain stand-in in THE ACCIDENTAL JOE, the new novel by Tom Straw. In various interviews, podcasts, and his author event here in Houston, Straw talked about the genesis of the novel and how a tweak to the prose brought the novel to life. 

Originally he had written the book in third-person POV but had included various “voiceover” monologues by Pike. Early readers enjoyed the novel, but really enjoyed it when Pike spoke directly to the readers. So Straw revamped the entire novel and made Pike the narrator. 

That proved to be the secret ingredient. Pike speaks in the same type of wise-cracking, acerbic, snarky language Bourdain used to engross his audiences. I’ll be honest: when I was reading my hardcopy of the novel, it was Bourdain’s voice I heard in my mind. Later, as I listened to Straw narrate his own novel, he puts just enough of a tonality that you could basically hear Bourdain’s voice. It was pretty magical.

Add an Extra Spicy Co-Star

As the story opens, Pike is in need of a new producer. His last one took some “personal time.” In walks uber-fan Cameron Nova, a person who loves and has seemingly memorized every episode of “Hangry Globe,” Pike’s show. She’s the perfect fit and sparks instantly ignite.

But she’s not all that she seems. Turns out she works for the CIA and there’s a top vital mission for which Pike is an essential ingredient. She wants Pike to use his show to lure in an Eastern European strongman and exfiltrate a compromised CIA asset. Contrarian that he is, Pike initially refuses, but Cammie dangles an enticing carrot: if he helps the CIA, she’ll give him info on his dead fiance, killed in an explosion a year prior.

What’s a celebrity chef to do? 

Apply Heat That Really Hurts

When you hear a premise like this one, you might think that our hero narrator might just float above the story and not really do anything. Well, I’m here to tell you Pike is an active participant in this adventure, and it's not without genuine peril. It surprised me, a happy surprise because it made the stakes that much higher. 

Sprinkle in the Narrative Accents

Tom Straw ghostwrote the first seven Richard Castle novels and I fell in love with his style when I didn’t even know his name. He brings a lot of that narrative swagger with him to the antics of Pike and Nova, especially the slow burn of their relationship. It is organic, taking slow, small steps, and it boils over as the story progresses. Oh, please don’t tell me this is a spoiler. It’s baked into the premise.

He also does this thing where certain words stand in for a greater description. One example is a description of plants climbing up wooden latticework. Some writers might spend a sentence or two describing how the plants intertwine with the wooden slats. Instead, Straw uses the verb “latticed” and that’s it. But that’s all you need. We readers fill in the rest. Look, I know this isn’t some major revelation—pulp writers did it all the time back in the day—but I really took notice of it in the Castle books and Straw does it here in THE ACCIDENTAL JOE. I almost want to scan the book again and just take note of the verbs he uses.

Why would I read this book again?

Because Sebastian Pike is one of my favorite new amateur detectives. I love stories where a non-detective becomes embodied in a larger, dangerous story. I love it when what this non-detective brings to the table—cooking and TV production in this case—actually helps solve the case. I love it when we meet a character that just feels like you’ve watched every episode of his fictional TV show for years. 

You know what’s also fun about THE ACCIDENTAL JOE? All the little in-jokes Straw throws into the mix. There is one super-obvious character name—complete with the character’s nickname—that’ll have you chuckling. IYKYK. 

THE ACCIDENTAL JOE is a fantastic book. Highly recommended.

Grocery Store Books and My First Stuart Woods Novel

By

Scott D. Parker

We’re all book nerds here, right? 

Do you know where all bookstores in your town are located? Do you frequent independent bookstores where the folks see you and greet you by name? When you travel, do you plan on visiting bookstores in other towns? Do you sign up for newsletters from your favorite authors? Do you know publication dates of books by your favorite authors and clear your reading schedule so you’ll be able to start reading the day that book is released? Do you max out your allowable checkouts at your local library? Do you have more books in your house than you’ll ever be able to read in your lifetime…and yet still buy more?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you, my friend, are a book nerd. We love reading and books. They are a part of our lives.

But what about folks who are not book nerds? Where do they get their books? Yes, they can go to a bookstore but there is another place they go where they can find books. 

Grocery stores

Hurricane Beryl disrupted the lives of a lot of people, including me. A week without power compelled me to get ice and gas from places I don’t normally go to, namely Texas-based HEB grocery stores. They really came through with the ice and gas that week. And, as I am unfamiliar with the layout of the closest one to me, I had to wander the aisles.

This was the book section of one HEB store.

My local Kroger has barely a quarter of this amount. Not sure how and who orders books for HEB but at least there is a decent variety. I snapped this photo for my own sake. I wanted to study which books and authors were available. The standard ones are there that I see in nearly every grocery or drug store: King, Roberts, Patterson, Coben, Steel, Child. There are a few new-to-me folks: Heather Graham, Laura Griffin,  Brad Taylor.

The more I studied the photo at home, the more I was curious. What kinds of books were stocked at a grocery store? I know King and Grisham and Roberts. I’ve read some books by Patterson and Rollins. I resolved to take the books in this photo and actually read some of them. Being paperbacks, I knew they were at least a year old (or in the case of Stephen King’s Dead Zone, forty-five years old). But, being a devoted fan of my local libraries, I searched the Libby app, found a handful, and selected one.

My First Stuart Woods

I’ve known of Stuart Woods for decades but never read any of his books. In fact, the one time a book of his even landed on my radar was a few years ago when fellow author and DoSomeDamage member, Bryon Quertermous, co-wrote a book with Woods. Knowing zero about any of Woods’s characters, I selected Obsession and downloaded both the audio and ebook.

One of the first things that’ll strike you if you pick up a Woods book is the sheer volume of books he’s written. It covered nearly three pages and came with a number of superscripts so you’ll know which character is featured. Obsession is marketed as “A Teddy Fay Novel Featuring Stone Barrington.” Barrington is, according to the list, Woods’s prime character and is in a vast majority of the books. But in Obsession, he plays a supporting role.

Obsession’s main character is Teddy Fay, an actor and former CIA agent. (And, in researching Woods on the internet, Fay has a different origin altogether.) What makes him a fun character is that he has other, very public aliases: Mark Weldon, Oscar-winning actor, and Billy Barnett, movie producer. 

Now, as the creator of the Calvin Carter series—a former actor turned railroad detective in the old west who always operates in disguise—I very much enjoyed Fay’s various scenes when he donned the makeup and did his thing. And co-author Brett Battles did a great job at reminding the reader which alias Fay was sporting and which alias certain characters knew Fay as. 

What I also liked was how Stone Barrington was integrated into the story. He’s a lawyer, an “expert at handling difficult situations” (how’s that for an advertisement for the Barrington series?), and part of the board of directors of the movie studio Fay works for. 

The A Plot involves Carl Novak, a tech billionaire, who wants to partner with Barrington’s movie studio. No sooner do he and Fay meet the man than they learn his wife, Rebecca, has been kidnapped and held for ransom. Here, Fay (in disguise as Billy Barnett) gets to take on the job of finding Rebecca and returning her safely home. You have those “wink at the camera” moments the old Superman TV used to have when “Billy” gets to say things like “I’ll talk to my contact and see if he can help.”

Matthew Wagner is the center of the B Plot. He’s a man obsessed with the lead actress in the movie being filmed. He goes to great length to map out his plan to take out the actress’s husband and make her love him…just like he loves her.

Now, I’ll admit the plot is fairly standard, but what makes it really fun is Fay’s disguises. And Battles does a great job at telling the story from the POV of different characters. I especially enjoyed Fay using his knowledge of certain characters to his advantage (and the disadvantage of others). 

The Verdict

What surprised me a little was how effortless the story actually was. It was like Fay barely broke a sweat doing what he did. He, his team, and their abilities were so far above the bad guys they had to deal with that the bad guys didn’t stand a chance.

If I had to characterize at least this one Grocery Store book, it would be the equivalent of a network TV series. I’m perfectly fine with that, seeing as I continue to watch and enjoy network television. 

And, for the folks who shop at HEB for their weekly groceries and linger on the book aisle and pick up this novel, I think they’d be entertained for a few hours and enjoy themselves. 

The best thing? They will have read a book. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll read another one. Because you can’t have too many readers in the world. 

It’s an Easy Choice: Don’t Wait a Year to Read Falling by T.J. Newman

By Scott D. Parker

Look at that cover. How cool is that? For me, it stopped me in my tracks last year when I saw it for the first time. Isn’t that what a cover’s supposed to do? Well, mission accomplished. I promptly put that book on my To Be Read list.

And a year later, finally got to it.

When I finished the debut novel by former flight attendant T. J. Newman, I chastised myself. Why did it take so long to pick up the book because it was a good one.

The premise is a great example of an elevator pitch: on a transcontinental flight from LA to New York, veteran pilot Bill Hoffman is given a choice: Crash the plane or his family back in LA will die. The proof: a live video feed of his two kids and his wife held hostage in his own house. Both his wife, Carrie, and the kidnapper/terrorist wear bomb vests.

Oh, and if Bill does not make a choice, well, there’s someone on the plane that will force him to choose. Needless to say, the terrorist commands Bill to tell no one about the situation because if he does, his family dies.

You get all of this by the time Chapter 3 is over and there are still 39 chapters left to go.

Normal People in Unusual Circumstances

It is a hallmark of thriller and suspense stories to have a common main character just going about his or her life and then is broadsided by outside events. That fits this story to a T. It naturally makes you ask what you would do in a similar situation. What I particularly enjoyed about Falling is how logical (given his predicament) his choices are. The same could be said for his allies (come on; that’s not a spoiler). Given Newman’s background as a flight attendant you didn’t think they wouldn’t play a role is how this story plays out, did you? Of course not.

Flashbacks Deployed Judiciously

I listened to this book as narrated by Stephen Weber and the story just flew by. The rare pauses occurred when Newman would give us a flashback to an earlier scene in order to given Bill’s actions greater context. It’s a time-honored trope as well but it is a trope for a reason, and they work here. They didn’t bother me a bit and, just as Newman wanted, it deepened Bill and the choices he was being forced to make.

The Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and the ending actually sparked an emotional response. I rarely get those from books. In fact, the most recent one was 19 years ago with John Scalzi’s Redshirts. Newman may be a debut author but she knows how to spin a yarn. Her latest book, Drowning will be published this month and you can be sure I won’t wait a year to read it.

T. J. Newman's Encouraging Open Letter

In reading about Newman, I discovered her recently published open letter to fellow storytellers over at Deadline. It's a Must Read.

Orphan X: Not Your Typical Thriller

by

Scott D. Parker

(Well, I had a good post but it's stuck in my 2007-era MacBook Pro. And the Mac is dead at the moment, the victim of a power adapter that's finally called it quits. I've ordered another and it should be here today (as you read this) but it also means I have to do a rerun. Originally published 5 Feb 2020 on my blog. So, enjoy. And let's hope the new power adapter works.)

For a few years now, the Orphan X series by Gregg Hurwitz, has been circling my radar. I'd download a sample onto my Kindle, but never get around to it. I'd see the second, third, and fourth books in the series be published, but still I didn't move off high center.

Until late last month.

In that timeless week between Christmas and New Year's Day, I was at the paperback racks at a Barnes and Noble in far west Houston and saw OUT OF THE DARK, the fourth volume in the series. My new standard for reading books is to read the book that captured my attention, no matter what number it is in the series. But when I realized it was an Orphan X novel, I was reminded that this series is one I should try.

From the beginning.

Evan Smoak - Not Your Typical Action Hero

If you read ten thrillers, how many of them open with the main character--or a side character--running? Seven? Eight? It's a perfectly acceptable trope for the genre, but I was happily surprised ORPHAN X didn't begin that way. True, Evan is bleeding from a knife wound and he's trying to get back to his apartment in Los Angeles, but there are no bad guys chasing him. Instead, we get a domestic scene with Evan trying not to show fellow tenants of his high-rise apartment he's bleeding. Not the nosy old lady nor the single mom who lives a few floors below. But her son suspects the truth. The entire tension of chapter one is whether or not Evan can make it up to his apartment without anyone noticing he's bleeding.

That is how ORPHAN X starts, and it makes all the difference.

It tells you that you're in for a different type of thriller, one I couldn't put my finger on until I saw Gregg Hurwitz at Houston's Murder by the Book on Monday.

A Normal Situation

Another thing Hurwitz does well is showing you what Evan's typical life is like. As an orphan, he was taken out of foster care and trained to be an off-the-books assassin. The kind with complete deniability. The only contact he has is his father-figure/trainer/teacher Jack Johns. For years, Jack trained Evan until--as we learn in the middle of the book--an even takes place that causes Evan to leave that life and disappear.

Now, he's the Nowhere Man, a man hiding in plain sight. Like the A-Team, if there's a person who needs help, all they have to do is call the special number: 1-855-2NOWHERE. Evan will help you. The only payment: pass his number--once--to another person who needs help.

Thus, the opening section of the book, we get an example of this "normal" life Evan has made for himself. You see him plan how he's going to help teenaged Morena, the terrible situation in which she and her younger sister find themselves, and how he goes about solving her problem. Intricate detail that reads fast and swift, never losing tension and anticipation.

It's when the next person calls--presumably Morena's pay-it-forward charge--that things really kick into a higher gear.

The Layers Unravel

Interspersed throughout the novel are flashbacks to Evan's training days and his early assignments. You get a deeper sense of what kind of man he is, what kind of person Jack Johns is, and how the two ultimately bring out nuances in each other both probably didn't expect.

I never saw the twists coming, which made for an even more entertaining read. It's no surprise--it's on the dust jacket--that some of the people after Evan are fellow Orphans, so he's not going up against run-of-the-mill thugs, but highly trained adversaries. Hurwitz, I learned on Monday night when I attended his author event, has done his research. But I already knew that. The details not only of the fighting but the weapons and accouterments are rich and descriptive.

Why is This Book So Good?

I knew going into the book the action would be good and thrilling. What surprised me, however, were the character moments. The time in the elevator I just mentioned. The times when he's having to worry about the bad guys and some busybody confronts him about not attending the HOA meeting. In addition, seeing Evan at home, in his apartment, what he did, what he drank, how he ate, all of that is there. I gravitated toward those moments just as much, if not more, than the action.

Why?

Well, on Monday night, Hurwitz commented that part of the genesis of Evan Smoak was the idea that you never saw James Bond go home.* You never saw Jason Bourne have an awkward conversation with regular folks.

That was the key to why I enjoyed ORPHAN X so much. That's why I'll keep reading the series.



*In the novel MOONRAKER (1954)--which is nothing like the 1979 movie--Ian Fleming writes a lot about Bond in the office, in his house, and playing cards. Not exactly pulse-pounding excitement, but wonderful to read. But the point Hurwitz is probably making is that none of the films show Bond in a normal setting. Not coincidentally, it is these scenes in MOONRAKER I remember well and hardly any of the larger plot. But hardly anyone remembers the original novel. You see? Hurwitz was onto something.

On rediscovering the joy of reading.

Jenny Bowen is going home. Boarding the Caledonian Sleeper, all she wants to do is forget about her upcoming divorce and relax on the ten-hour journey through the night.

In her search for her cabin, Jenny helps a panicked woman with a young girl she assumes to be her daughter. Then she finds her compartment and falls straight to sleep.

Waking in the night, Jenny discovers the woman dead in her cabin ... but there's no sign of the little girl. The train company have no record of a child being booked on the train, and CCTV shows the dead woman boarding alone.

I spent most of my childhood and teen years escaping from the world in fiction, and it feels like it’s been a while since I did so with any regularity. Oh, there are still writers who I will devour, into whose worlds I’ll happily bury myself, but a sense of professional obligation – you have, says the prevalent wisdom, to keep abreast of what’s current if you want to be a writer of commercial fiction – can sometimes suck the joy out of the act, make it more work than pleasure.

What She Saw Last Night (or, from here on in, WSSLN) is one of those books whose premise you’ve seen before. It’s “The Lady Vanishes” on a contemporary train, crossed with elements of the Jodie Foster movie “Flightplan.”

But it’s in the execution that the book soars, and in the sheer rollercoaster exhilaration of the plotting that I forgot I was a crime writer and remembered how amazing it can be when a book just grabs you like quicksand and won’t let go.

Saying anything much about the plot will inevitably involve spoilers, so let me avoid this by stating simply that the initial premise is swiftly subverted: The whole thing doesn’t take place on board the train and so the claustrophobia of the previously noted pieces is discarded and replaced, instead with a classic paranoid chase thriller.

There was a girl. And there are some very – and I mean very – bad dudes who want to stop anyone asking questions about her.

In Jenny we get a classic everywoman hero: Someone who’s out of her depth but uses her real-life skills (she’s a wonderfully prosaic IT project manager) to attack the puzzle logically, and the couple of references to Agile (a project management approach that basically seems to boil down to ‘poke it with a stick and, if it hisses at you, back off and try poking another part’) made me chuckle heartily, while allowing Jenny to steadily unpick the mystery, unknowingly getting closer and closer to the very bad dudes running the show.

WSSLN is a perfect beach read, a perfect commute read, a proper page-turner thriller and one that reminded me of how much joy there is in a story that you can’t wait to get back to. Highly recommended.

***

Derek Farrell is the author of Death of an Angel and three other Danny Bird Mysteries.

The books have been described as "Like the Thin Man meets Will & Grace," like MC Beaton on MDMA," and - by no less an expert than Eric Idle - as "Quite Fun."

Farrell is married and lives with his husband in West Sussex.

They have no goats chickens, children or pets, but they do have every Kylie Minogue record ever made.