Suspense, Mystery, Horror and Thriller Fiction FALL 2019 Beware: The Frightening Fall CHRIS BAUER KAREN KATCHUR ADRIAN McKINTY LESLIE MEIER KARIN SLAUGHTER DAVID BALDACCI IRIS JOHANSEN DOUGLAS PRESTON & On Writing LINCOLN CHILD DARYL WOOD GERBER & Meet Debut Authors Enough! EVE CALDER DENNIS PALUMBO DEBORAH GOODRICH ROYCE Don’t miss this new from bestselling author Talia Inger is a rookie CIA case offi cer assigned not to the Moscow desk as she had hoped but to the forgotten backwaters of Eastern Europe—a department only known as “Other.” When she is tasked with helping a young, charming Moldovan executive secure his designs for a revolutionary defense technology, she fi gures she’ll be back in DC within a few days. But that’s before she knows where the designs are stored—and who’s after them. With her shady civilian partner, Adam Tyler, Talia takes a deep dive into a world where criminal minds and unlikely strategies compete for access to the Gryphon, a high-altitude data vault that hovers in the mesosphere. But is Tyler actually helping her? Or is he using her for his own dark purposes? | To learn more, visit JamesRHannibal.com | pm Available Wherever Books and eBooks Are Sold From the Editor We write this letter with a very heavy heart. Author Mark Sadler, a Suspense CREDITS John Raab Magazine family member, suddenly President & Chairman passed away on August 24, 2019. Mark Shannon Raab was the author of “Blood on His Hands” Creative Director and “Kettle of Vultures.” Romaine Reeves We all go through our days hoping to CFO meet people who have a positive impact on our lives. When we find them, we cherish those relationships and feel blessed to Amy Lignor Editor experience them. Mark Sadler was a man who, when you needed a smile, you called him. Mark was a very talented man. Not just an author, many things you’ve enjoyed in Contributors Mark P. Sadler this magazine over the years came from Mark’s brain. When we began the magazine Susan Santangelo over ten years ago, we were lucky enough to run into Mark very early on. He was one Kaye George Weldon Burge of the first authors we published; he intrigued us with his passion for writing, and his Ashley Wintters incredibly positive attitude. Mark will he missed by many. His impact on the writing D.P. Lyle M.D. Andrew MacRae community will be felt for many years to come. J.M. LeDuc We were and are truly very lucky to call Mark Sadler our friend. Holly Price Kari Wainwright As we continue the magazine this month, we keep Mark and his family in our David Ingram Anthony J. Franze thoughts and prayers. As you navigate through the suspense ‘doors’ and ‘windows’ Barry Lancet where we offer up both entertaining and interesting information, we ask you to take Leslie Borghini Mary Lignor just a moment to remember all the authors in this issue, and embrace their work. Julie Whiteley The “cozy” mystery community also lost a great writer with the passing of Lea Jeff Ayers Elise Cooper Wait. Lea was the author of the Mainely Needlepoint Mystery series, and her next Joseph Badal book, “Thread and Buried,” will be released November 26, 2019. Dennis Palumbo Lauren Brabrook As this magazine takes you through Halloween and Thanksgiving, it’s never too Robert Allen Papinchak early to give thanks to everything and everyone in your life. So please know, we at John Valeri Patrick Whitehurst Suspense Magazine thank all of you from the bottom of our hearts for taking the time Kirsche Romo to read what we put together. Without Customer Service and you, there would be no magazine. Keep an Subscriptions: For 24/7 service, please use our website, eye out for the big year end issue, where www.suspensemagazine.com or write to: we will release our Crimson Scribe award SUSPENSE MAGAZINE at 26500 Agoura Road, #102-474 winner, along with all the winners in Calabasas, CA 91302 individual categories. Suspense Magazine does not share our magazine subscriber list with third-party Until next time, stay safe and be happy. companies. Rates: $24.00 (Electronic Subscrip- John and Shannon Raab tion) per year. All foreign subscrip- Suspense Magazine ■ tions must be payable in U.S. funds. Model/Photographer Credit: Rob (vanner), Kuschelirmel- stock, Steffi (Twins72-Stocks), Mark Douglas (markopolio- stock), Sabrina T. (S-T-A-R-gazer) “Reviews within this magazine are the opinions of the individual reviewers and are provided solely for the purpose of assisting readers in determining another's thoughts on the book under discussion and shall not be interpreted as professional advice or the opinion of any other than the individual reviewer. The following contributors who may appear in this magazine are also individual clients of Suspense Publishing, an imprint of Suspense Magazine: J.M. LeDuc, Leslie Borghini, Susan Santangelo, Jeff Ayers, Joseph Badal, and Amy Lignor.” SuspenseMagazine.com 1 CONTENT SUSPENSE MAGAZINE July / August / September 2019 / Vol. 086 If Only a Heart By Caleb Stephens . 3 Crime & Science Radio: The Body Tells the Tale By D .P . Lyle, MD . & Jan Burke . 9 Debut Author: Eve Calder “Cooks” Up a New Cozy Series . 15 Author Chris Bauer Shares Thoughts on Horror/Thriller Fiction . 19 Debut Author: Deborah Goodrich Royce on “Finding Mrs Ford” . 24 Inside the Pages: Suspense Magazine Book Reviews . 29 Movies with Jeff Ayers . 41 Featured Artist: Anne Wipf Shares Her Love of Life . 44 Staking Territory: Meet Karen Katchur . 49 Adrian McKinty on “The Chain” . 53 The Challenge of Writing in Two Genres By Daryl Wood Gerber . 59 Enough! (Or . Please Stop Over-Writing) By Dennis Palumbo . 60 Holiday Hijinks: Leslie Meier on the Evolution of Lucy Stone . 63 Apartment Games By Elijah Hubbard . 88 If Only a HEART By Caleb Stephens THE FROST HIT HIM FIRST—A COLD ETHER THAT WOKE HIM STIFF, HEAD TO TOE. Paul cracked his eyes open to the weak, pre-dawn light of the tent and rolled toward his daughter, toward the bloom of cinnamon hair so like Catherine’s. Coffee and milk. His hand drifted for her shoulder. “Morning. How’d you—” The word died on his tongue. Her sleeping bag was empty, the red nylon wrinkled and overturned. He sat up, his gaze now falling on the open tent flap and the gray wash of sky beyond. A sliver of purple bruised mountain in the distance. She must be up already, he thought, unzipping himself and standing to stretch. He got dressed, fumbled a hoodie from his pack and pushed out to a mix of wet earth and fog. Paul glanced around the campsite for Olivia, saw only the pair of logs they’d dragged next to the fire last night and miles of dense thicket stretched out beneath a gray-dome sky. Off the beaten path. It’s where Olivia had wanted to go. Somewhere she—they—could get away from the pain. Pain that hung on them both like thousand-pound anchors, the two of them casting about on a dead sea in broken ships. No wind. No motion. Just empty black water and despair threatening to pull them down, down, down… Paul cupped his hands to his mouth and blew, turned to look at the wall of greenery behind him where she must have slipped off to pee. Off the beaten path. And they were. Sidetracked by at least a quarter-mile. Maybe more, diverted last night by a stray deer trail and the fading light. It had nearly grown dark by the time he’d realized his error and brought them to a halt. Too late to turn around. Best to break for camp and find their way back in the morning. Morning. Silence. Too much of it. He should have heard something of her by now. A rustling through the brush. Her twelve-year-old feet on the wet leaves. Anything. But there was nothing. No breeze. No birds. Too quiet. Something was wrong. A jangly flutter of nerves, and he walked to the edge of camp and called for her, brought his hands up and yelled: “Liv- vie, it’s time for breakfast.” Nothing. And somehow, he knew there’d be nothing. A chill spread through him, a cool slick of it pooling in his chest. His limbs. That familiar anxious knife of dread at losing her as he’d lost Catherine. He yelled again, louder this time, his voice taking on the tone that always brought her running. “Livvie!” His voice echoed back faintly, swallowed by all the brush. He circled the camp, calling out and looking for footprints, for any sign of her, of which there was none. Just the forest floor rich with pine needles and drifts of shed bark. Witch Hazel. Then he spotted it. A carving in the trunk of a sapling maple at the edge of camp. The shavings fresh. SuspenseMagazine.com 3 A heart. dirt and branches slapping at the glass before an expanse of But not the ubiquitous curve of love he’d seen etched into cold, dead air and the sensation of falling. the bark of so many neighborhood trees. This heart was an actual…heart, so lifelike he practically expected it to start # beating. Two atria. Two ventricles. Veins cutting exquisitely through muscle. How is it so detailed? Paul wondered. He The bracken thickened around him, became so dense he knew no blade could have carved this. It was far too intri- wondered how he’d ever work through it. Branches tore at cate for someone to hack into the tree with a Swiss Army his throat, his arms, etched red tracks across his skin.