News On Upcoming Book

For all of you fans who have been asking, I wanted to the name of the new book is called The Killing House.  It features Malcolm Fletcher in the lead role.  I'm planning on doing a series with him.  I'll be posting the cover art soon along with a publishing date, but for now, I wanted to give you what they call the jacket blurb from the upcoming U.K. edition:

RULE #1: DON'T SCREAM

Four years ago, Theresa Herrera's ten-year-old-son Rico was abducted from his home.  The police found little evidence and the case went cold.  Theresa's husband has told her to move on, but she won't give up hope.

RULE #2: DON'T CALL THE POLICE

Today a mysterious woman invaded Theresa's home and told her that Rico is alive.  Theresa talks on the phone to a young man who is, without question, her son.

RULE #3: DON'T RUN.  DON'T FIGHT

The woman promises to reunite Theresa with Rico only if she will follow the rules.  But it is the last rule that fills Theresa with horror ...

RULE #4: KILL YOUR HUSBAND AND YOUR SON WILL LIVE ...

Malcolm Fletcher - a former FBI profiler and now the nation's Most Wanted fugitive - arrives in Colorado to help Theresa and her husband find their son.  But his arrival coincides with a dangerous and shocking twist in the case.

Barely surviving his first encounter with a suspect, Fletcher embarks on his own secret investigation, with the police just behind him every step of the way.

Stephen King's 11/22/63

So glad to see that my favorite author, the man who not only inspired me to want to become a writer but also inspired a whole generation of writers, is still riding high in the #1 spot, after seven weeks, on the New York Times' bestseller list.  I going to dive into it right after I finish Mike Connelly's The Drop (I can't put it down).  Has anyone else read King's new book?   

My Year of Reading: 2011

I want to thank all of your for another year of amazing support.  2011 was a very busy year, having worked on a new book featuring Malcolm Fletcher (readers familiar with my earlier work will recognize Fletcher from Deviant Ways and the second Darby McCormick book, The Secret Friend).  The book is called The Killing House and it features Fletcher in the lead role.  I'll be posting more information shortly, but it looks like it will appear this fall in the UK.

A friend once asked me how many books I've read over a given year.  I didn't have an answer.  Two dozen?  More?  I honestly didn't know.  So I thought it would be interesting to track the books I've read during 2011, and was surprised to find I read sixty-two books.  The number surprised me because I consider myself a notoriously slow reader.

In any event, I wanted to share with you the books I read and throughly enjoyed.  The list is a mix of fiction and non-fiction titles, listed in the order I've read them.  My favorites - the ones that blew me away and, well, made me jealous that I didn't write them - were The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow, You're Next by Gregg Hurwitz, The Passage by Justin Cronin, A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes, and Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith.

• The Passage by Justin Cronin
• Henry's Demons: Living with Schizophrenia, A Father and Son's Story by Patrick Cockburn
• The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy by Bill Carter
• Tick, Tock by James Patterson
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
• Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult
• The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly
• The Reversal by Michael Connelly
• Townie by Andre Dubus III
• Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris
• Sixkill by Robert B. Parker (last Spenser book)
• Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
• A Visit From the Good Squad by Jennifer Eagan
• You're Next by Gregg Hurwitz
• The Signal by Ron Carlson
• SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper by Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin
• The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly
• Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
• Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky 
• Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes 
• Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson
• Robopocalypse: A Novel by Daniel H. Wilson
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• One Day by David Nicholls
• A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
• Adrenaline by Jeff Abbott
• Now You See Her by James Patterson
• Portrait of a Spy by Daniel Silva
• Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion by Janet Reitman
• Catching Fire: Hunger Games, Book #2 by Suzanne Collins
• Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
• Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave us Nightmares, Conqured Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror by Jason Zinoman
• Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground by Kevin Poulsen
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett 
• Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan 
• Nothing to Lose by Lee Child
• The Art of Breaking Glass by Matthew Hall
• American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
• The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson
• The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach 
• The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
• The Affair by Lee Child
• The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
• God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked: Tales of Stand-Up, Saturday Night Live, and Other Mind-Altering Mayhem by Darrell Hammond 
• Portrait of an Adddict as a Young Man by Bill Clegg