I’ve always been interested in how people change, and how trauma and difficulties hasten change. After all, if we have to grow and gain new skills to stay alive, we find a way. Originally, personal transformation was a priority because I was terribly unhappy, scared, and had shielded myself from direct contact with the world around me in an effort to stay “safe.” Don’t do this. It doesn’t work. So I asked myself, as an author, how would murders, deception, and sanity-threatening events affect a depressed therapist? Murder For Liar is the product of exploring this.
Private investigator-turned-psychotherapist Tom Dashiel doesn’t know it yet, but he’s hurtling towards discovering where his threshold lies—the point of no return for his sanity. So begins a surreal spiral when George Arundel enters Tom’s Santa Cruz office on a Tuesday afternoon in April.
How is Arundel related to the uncanny coincidences Tom begins to encounter? Are these mere coincidences…or something else? Could a young woman named Zig-Zag really be an angel? How could a dog—a rather cute one at that—reveal one of the most important clues? What’s the deal with that alluring, albeit mercurial, woman named Dizzy? And what’s Arundel’s connection to the escalating spate of unsolved murders plaguing the typically calm but always colorful Santa Cruz community?
I found this book deeply disturbing, despite the seemingly normal content of the story.
Like the protagonist, I could never tell what was real, what was paranoia, and what the hell might happen next. We’re inside the head of a confused, scared man dealing with disturbed characters who hide in plain sight as mere neighbors.
I relate to this, as does the protagonist in my book.
Decades ago, I was seduced by a guru to become the first disciple of a small, relatively benign cult. Serving as an assistant guru of sorts—manning a branch office of our organization, so to speak, I experienced both sides of the coin—being manipulated by someone with confounding abilities, as well as manipulating others myself.
NEIGHBORS is a black comedy about Earl Keese, a regular suburbanite whose world is overturned when Harry and Ramona move into the house next door. Harry and Ramona instantly unsettle the staid Earl with their abrupt mannerisms, their disturbing wolfhound and their dangerous schemes. Earl's suspicions about the couple's lack of stability and normalcy are ignored by his wife, Enid, and his daughter, Elaine, even while he is concerned that they are all being negatively affected by their relationships with the neighbours. Ramona is by turns seductive and manipulative with Earl while Harry is threatening and confrontational, upending Earl's carefully…
Carroll is simply a great writer—more on the literature end of the book spectrum.
Nonetheless, this book gripped me as if it were a best-selling thriller. Sleeping in Flame confounded my expectations at every turn, and at times it seemed as though it couldn’t possibly end with any sort of resolution. But it does—in mind-expanding fashion.
I also try to take readers on the same sort of mysterious journey that Carroll’s protagonist hazards. Sometimes it’s challenging to imagine what would be a realistic reaction to a truly extraordinary event. Then I remember some of the stories I’ve heard in sessions as a psychotherapist.
Confused by his past, actor Walker Easterling falls in love with model Maris York, but his past lives threaten their safety and that of their unborn son
Westlake gets into the head of a successful career criminal, making available the kind of attitude and thinking that most readers would normally abhor.
Somehow, we don’t in the Parker series. Even as the clever, convoluted plot unfolds, we never stop caring what happens to Parker and we root for him against creepier crooks.
I especially like the authentic feel of the techniques and procedures Parker employs. It’s almost as though Westlake was a criminal himself. His work inspired me to write about what I don’t think most authors have directly experienced—what happens in a therapist’s head.
You probably haven't ever noticed them. But they've noticed you. They notice everything. That's their job. Sitting quietly in a nondescript car outside a bank making note of the tellers' work habits, the positions of the security guards. Lagging a few car lengths behind the Brinks truck on its daily rounds. Surreptitiously jiggling the handle of an unmarked service door at the racetrack.They're thieves. Heisters, to be precise. They're pros, and Parker is far and away the best of them. If you're planning a job, you want him in. Tough, smart, hardworking, and relentlessly focused on his trade, he is…
I’ve been recommending books that readers may not already be familiar with, but I can’t leave out the mistress of puzzling mysteries.
In this one, it seems as though there can be no solution to the murders, although there’s no shortage of suspects until they start getting killed off, one by one.
Christie maintains suspense continuously, which made it hard for me to put the book down. The complex plot always hangs together and the denouement is thoroughly satisfying.
As a writer, I can only aspire to what Christie created—and not just in this one book. Her craft amazes me.
Agatha Christie's world-famous mystery thriller, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.
Ten strangers, apparently with little in common, are lured to an island mansion off the coast of Devon by the mysterious U.N.Owen. Over dinner, a record begins to play, and the voice of an unseen host accuses each person of hiding a guilty secret. That evening, former reckless driver Tony Marston is found murdered by a deadly dose of cyanide.
The tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them but…
Leonard taught me that writing spare prose, and depicting a likable protagonist who isn’t clearly moral or immoral could be made to work.
Before I read this fun, somewhat satirical novel, I felt that I needed to make my characters likable by infusing them with salutary traits or making them funny. Leonard opened my eyes to what was possible, which made this novel quite entertaining for me.
As with Westlake, the author gets in the head of the protagonist, explaining his internal process in a way that doesn’t alienate the reader, even as his enforcer is slugging someone. This isn’t an easy trick.
A thriller filled with Leonard's signatures - scathing wit, crackling dialogue, twisted plot, mad scams - and set in the drug sodden world of Hollywood.
Too often, I find that novelists force the endings of their books in ways that aren’t true to their characters, the stories, or their settings. Often, they do so to provide the Hollywood ending that many readers crave. That always leaves me cold. I love novels whose characters are complex, human, and believable and interact with their setting and the story in ways that do not stretch credulity. This is how I try to approach my own writing and was foremost in my mind as I set out to write my own book.
The Oracle of Spring Garden Road explores the life and singular worldview of “Crazy Eddie,” a brilliant, highly-educated homeless man who panhandles in front of a downtown bank in a coastal town.
Eddie is a local enigma. Who is he? Where did he come from? What brought him to a life on the streets? A dizzying ride between past and present, the novel unravels these mysteries, just as Eddie has decided to return to society after two decades on the streets, with the help of Jane, a woman whose intelligence and integrity rival his own. Will he succeed, or is it too late?
In the tradition of Graham Greene, this is a book about love, betrayal, and life’s heavenly music
“Crazy Eddie” is a homeless man who inhabits two squares of pavement in front of a bank in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia. In this makeshift office, he panhandles and dispenses his peerless wisdom. Well-educated, fiercely intelligent with a passionate interest in philosophy and a profound love of nature, Eddie is an enigma for the locals. Who is he? Where did he come from? What brought him to a life on the streets? Though rumors abound, none capture the unique worldview and singular character that led him to withdraw from the perfidy and corruption of human beings. Just as Eddie has…
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