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Suspense, Mystery, Horror and Thriller Fiction JULY 2013 A Summertime Cornucopia with James Rollins Tami Hoag BRad TayloR RicHaRd godwin maTTHew dunn Lisa Gardner Continues her 10-Part Series On COnquering the DreaDeD SynOPSiS Peek Inside Stranger Than Fiction “The eye of god” & Beware! “The Poisoned Pilgrim” The Vampire hunTer #1 Internat I onal Bestseller “SIMON KERNICK writes great plots, great characters, great action.” —Lee ChiLd Available in paperback and ebook Available as an ebook Available as an ebook “Simon Kernick writes with his foot pressed hard on the pedal. hang on tight!” —harLan Coben “Kernick is no longer a writer to watch; he’s an author to be reckoned with.” —MarK biLLinghaM ATRIA INTERNATIONAL BOOKS OF MYSTERY YOUR PASSPORT TO A WORLD OF MURDER AND MAYHEM Proudly Published by Facebook.com/AtriaBooks Twitter.com/AtriaBooks AtriaInternationalMysteries.com PICK UP OR DOWNLOAD YOUR COPIES TODAY C r e di t s From the Editor John Raab President & Chairman What makes a great villain? Shannon Raab Creative Director When authors write a series, the focus is Romaine Reeves CFO generally on the heroes—their family and lives, and the people that touch them every day. Starr Gardinier Reina But what about the villain? That character Executive Editor usually changes from book to book since the hero Jim Thomsen saves the day and in the end the villain is generally Copy Editor killed off. The readers rarely get to know the villain Contributors since their life is so short, but that doesn’t mean the Donald Allen Kirch author can simply write about a really bad person that does bad things and then loses in Mark P. Sadler the end. Susan Santangelo DJ Weaver Why? Because the number-one rule that every author should follow is to never write CK Webb a character that is forgettable. The most famous villains get that status because of the Kiki Howell Kaye George depth of character the author was able to create. While it’s difficult for an author to get Weldon Burge that in-depth with a certain character in one book, it can be done. Ashley Wintters Scott Pearson When you start thinking of your fictional world and the characters that will live in D.P. Lyle M.D. it, pay close attention to the characters that you know will only be around for one book. Claudia Mosley Christopher Nadeau You have time to build characters that will continue on from book to book and bring Kathleen Heady them along with the reader. Stephen Brayton Brian Blocker Let’s take a series, more than three books that are not tied together. When you Andrew MacRae first introduce the hero and the characters that will interact with them throughout the Val Conrad series, you can slowly bring them along through all three books, talking about their past, Laura Alden Melissa Dalton present, and future. Creating a villain in each book and having depth to them will bring Elliott Capon the reader back to book two and book three and so on. J.M. LeDuc Holly Price Thrillers—particularly military and political ones—constitute one genre that seem Kari Wainwright to have the same exact hero or cast of heroes facing new challenges each time. In some of David Ingram Jodi Hanson these books, the villain is simply a character that is placed in the pages to give the heroes Amy Lignor some sort of challenge, and never really touch the reader with any emotion. Susan May J.S. McCormick Even though “The Joker” has been around for a very long time, Heath Ledger created Kestrel T. Andersen a version of that character that is seen as one of the best film villains ever. Within the Cassandra McNeil Jenny Hilborne pages of a book, given that it takes a lot longer than two Tanya Contois hours to read, the author should have no excuse not to Sharon Salonen Anthony J. Franze create a formidable foe for the hero to encounter. This Jeanine Elizalde basic rule of character development is what separates Kristin Centorcelli Jerry Zavada the good authors from the great ones. Ray Palen This rule also works with secondary characters, S.L. Menear which fill the world of a book up into much more Drake Morgan Sherri Nemick than just words on a page. The reader will not only Customer Service and be entertained but have an experience that will keep Subscriptions: them coming back to see what you have in store for For 24/7 service, please use our website, them next. www.suspensemagazine.com or write to: SUSPENSE MAGAZINE at 26500 Agoura Road, #102-474 John Raab Calabasas, CA 91302 Suspense Magazine does not share our CEO/Publisher Photo Credit: Model: http://l6visyda.deviantart.com, magazine subscriber list to third-party Suspense Magazine ■ Photographer: http://iardacil-stock.deviantart.com companies. “Reviews within this magazine are the opinions of the individual reviewers and are provided solely to provide readers assistance Rates: $24.00 (Electronic Subscrip- in determining another's thoughts on the book under discussion and shall not be interpreted as professional advice or the opin- tion) per year. All foreign subscrip- ion of any other than the individual reviewer. The following reviewers who may appear in this magazine are also individual cli- tions must be payable in U.S. funds. ents of Suspense Publishing, an imprint of Suspense Magazine: Mark P. Sadler, Starr Gardinier Reina, Ashley Dawn (Wintters), DJ Weaver, CK Webb, Elliott Capon, J.M. LeDuc, S.L. Menear, and Amy Lignor.” SuspenseMagazine.com 1 CONTENT Su Sp E n se M ag a z i n E July 2013 / Vol. 049 Excerpt of “The Poisoned Pilgrim” By Oliver Pötzsch . .3 Rules of Fiction: The Seven (Bad) Habits By Anthony J . Franze . .7 Lisa Gardner on Conquering the Dreaded Synopsis: Part Six . 14 The Hilcrove Atrocity By Justin Guleserian . 18 From Their Pen . to the Silver Screen By CK Webb . 22 Getting Into Your Historical Characters POV By Ric Wasley . 24 The Sidewalk Ends By Thomas Scopel . 26 Inside the Pages: Suspense Magazine Book Reviews . 32 Suspense Magazine Movie Reviews . 44 Featured Artist: Taire Lilith Morrigan . 46 Excerpt of “The Eye of God” By James Rollins . 54 Stranger Than Fiction: The Vampire Hunter By Donald Allen Kirch . 63 Diving to Depth By Joe Becker . 75 Special Preview from Oliver Pötzsch The Poisoned Pilgrim A Hangman’s Daughter Tale By Oliver Pötzsch Prologue Erling, near andechs Saturday, June 12, 1666 aD, Evening Dark thunderclouds hung overhead as the novitiate Coelestin, with a curse on his lips, marched toward his imminent death. In the west, beyond Lake Ammer, swirling clouds towered up, the first flashes of lightning appeared, and a distant rumble of thunder could be heard. When Coelestin squinted, he could make out gray rain clouds over the monastery in dießen, five miles away. In only a matter of minutes the storm would be raging over the Holy Mountain, and now, of all times, the fat monk of an apothecary had sent him to fetch a carp from the monastery pond for supper. Coelestin cursed again and pulled the cape of his black robe farther down over his face. What could he do? Obedience was one of the three vows of the Benedictine order, and Brother Johannes was his superior—it was that simple. An occasionally hot- tempered, often enigmatic, and above all gluttonous lay brother, but nevertheless his superior. “Porca miseria!” As so often when he was in a bad mood, Coelestin switched to his mother tongue. He had grown up in an Italian village on the other side of the Alps, but in the turmoil of the war, his father had become a mercenary and his mother a whore who followed army camps. Here in the monastery on the Holy Mountain, Coelestin had found a home in the pharmacy at Andechs. Even though the incessant litanies and nightly prayers sometimes got on his nerves, he felt safe here. Three times a day he got a good meal; he had a warm, dry place to sleep, and the Andechs beer was said to be one of the best in the entire Electorate of Bavaria. In these hard times, one could have it much worse. Nevertheless, the spindly little novitiate cursed under his breath, and not just because he would soon be as wet as the carp in the pond of the Erling Monastery. Coelestin was afraid. Ever since the discovery he made three days ago, fear had been eating at him like a rabid beast. What he saw was so horrible that his blood almost froze in his veins. It still followed him at night in his dreams, when he woke up screaming and bathed in sweat. God would never allow such a crime to go unpunished; that much was certain. To Coelestin, the dark clouds and the flashes of lightning in the sky seemed like the first harbingers of an Old Testament revenge that would soon be visited on the monastery. Even more threatening than the heresy, actually, was the man’s hateful gaze. The man had recognized Coelestin when the novitiate tried to make a hasty escape—at least that’s what Coelestin thought. And the look on the novitiate’s face said more than a thousand words. In recent days they had reached out to him, prodding, as if checking that Coelestin hadn’t betrayed the secret. Coelestin knew that the other one had powerful advocates. Why would they believe him, the little novitiate? The accusation was so monstrous that he could be considered insane. Or even worse, a character assassin.