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In this Month’s Issue:
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- VANISHED Nominated for a Thriller Award!
- Out of Africa . . .
- The Next Nick Heller: BURIED SECRETS
- And in My Spare Time . . . WATCHLIST and AGENTS OF TREACHERY
- VANISHED Hasn't Vanished Yet - Win a UK Paperback!
- Where I've Been, Where I'll Be
- Trivia Winners, and a New Question
- Keep in Touch!
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VANISHED Nominated for a Thriller Award!
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This just in: VANISHED is on the short list of nominees for the 2010 Thriller Awards!
A group of judges from the International Thriller Writers association has named VANISHED one of the five best hardcover thrillers of the past year. The nominees are:
VANISHED by Joseph Finder
LONG LOST by Harlan Coben
FEAR THE WORST by Linwood Barclay
THE NEIGHBOR by Lisa Gardner
THE RENEGADES by T. Jefferson Parker
Distinguished company, for sure, including some good friends, and I congratulate all the other nominees. I'm immensely honored and flattered . . . and the nice thing is, if I lose, it'll be to someone I both like and admire a whole lot. The winner, along with winners of the Best Paperback, Best First Novel, and Best Short Story categories, will be announced at ThrillerFest in New York in July.
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Out of Africa...
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Four-wheeling in Namibia. Do I look like I'm having fun?
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I've just returned from an amazing trip to Africa - to Namibia, which is the most beautiful country I've ever visited. We were fortunate to have a guide who's widely considered the finest in Africa - Bruno Nebe (you can find out more about him at www.turnstone-tours.com).
In addition to climbing the tallest dunes in the world and seeing some amazing wildlife (like a lion skulking around about 8 feet away from our bed, with only a flap of canvas separating him, or her, from us) we visited Swakopmund, the seaside resort in Namibia that was used as The Village in the recent remake of "The Prisoner" - and where Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had their baby, Shiloh (no connection) - and the site where Mel Gibson and Charlize Theron filmed "Mad Max 4" (which was never finished).
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The Next Nick Heller: BURIED SECRETS
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We're well into the new year, but I wish you a happy one anyway, as I raise my head from my desk for the first time in what seems like months. The second Nick Heller novel, BURIED SECRETS, is now with my editor, and I feel as if I'm returning from Nick's imaginary world into this one.
What's BURIED SECRETS about? Well, it's about 400 pages . . . no, sorry. I'm still a little jet-lagged. BURIED SECRETS finds Nick moving to Boston, the city where he grew up. He gets an urgent call from an old family friend, Marshall Marcus, a billionaire whose hedge fund has just collapsed. Wealthy investors around the world - some of them some very bad guys - have lost their entire fortunes. And Marcus now has a lot of very dangerous enemies. Was he running a Ponzi scheme, a la Bernard Madoff? But suddenly Marcus' teenage daughter, Alexa - whom Nick has known since she was a baby - is kidnapped. Horrifyingly, she's been buried alive, a video camera trained on her, streaming her nightmare, live, over the Internet. As Nick desperately tries to save her, he learns that her father . . . well, you'll have to read it. But trust me, it's the most intense, nonstop novel I've ever written. And a lot of you will be pleased that Nick reunites with an old lover, Diana Madigan, who's now with the FBI in Boston and is the one woman he's never gotten over. (Nor has she gotten over him . . .)
The great pleasure of writing BURIED SECRETS was the extra time I had to spend with the characters I love - Nick, Gabe, Dorothy - and I hope you'll be just as glad to see them again. Over the next several months I'll be posting excerpts and more information about the book, so stay tuned. Look for BURIED SECRETS in bookstores in August!
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And in My Spare Time . . . WATCHLIST and AGENTS OF TREACHERY
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If you can’t wait until August for new Finder reading material, pick up a copy of WATCHLIST (Vanguard, $25.95), a serial thriller based on an idea by Jeffery Deaver, and organized under the auspices of the International Thriller Writers. WATCHLIST is the printed version of the two serial audio thrillers I contributed to in 2008 and 2009, THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT and THE COPPER BRACELET. Both books tell the story of Harold Middleton, a former U.S. military intelligence officer who thought he was out of the game until circumstances forced him back in. It was fun to be part of such a great group of authors; other contributors included Linda Barnes, Lee Child, Jim Fusilli, David Hewson, David Liss, Lisa Scottoline, Jenny Siler and more. The audiobooks are available separately from Audible, and Alfred Molina’s reading of THE COPPER BRACELET has been nominated for an Audie award by the Audio Publishers Association. NPR ran a terrific story about the book last week; you can read and listen to it here.
I was also delighted to contribute my first short story to AGENTS OF TREACHERY, a collection of new spy fiction compiled by the legendary Otto Penzler, editor and proprietor of New York’s Mysterious Bookshop. My story’s called “Neighbors,” and I’m actually quite happy with the way it came out. Hope you enjoy it. I’m in the best possible company; the book’s other contributors include the great spy novelist Charles McCarry (The Tears of Autumn), Stephen Hunter (Point of Impact), David Morrell (First Blood), Lee Child (61 Hours), Andrew Klavan (Don’t Say a Word), Dan Fesperman (The Small Boat of Great Sorrows), James Grady (Six Days of the Condor), Gayle Lynds (The Book of Spies), Olen Steinhauer (The Tourist) and the wonderful British crime writer Robert Wilson (The Blind Man of Seville), among others. Random House will be publishing this book in trade paperback (perfect for beach reading!) on June 1.
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VANISHED Hasn’t Vanished Yet — Win a UK Paperback!
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BURIED SECRETS has taken so much of my attention in the last few months that it's easy to forget that it's only been seven months since VANISHED made its debut. Late reviews are still trickling in, which was especially encouraging as I was writing the sequel. Michael Bonafield of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune, reviewing the book earlier this month, called it "rich with odd twists and gruesome crimes . . . a kind of sudoku for thriller connoisseurs. Wonderfully entertaining!"
If you live in the UK, you've already seen VANISHED in paperback, and my UK publishers put together a terrific trailer for it.
The U.S. paperback of VANISHED will go on sale on August 3 - but if you're an American fan who doesn't want to wait that long, I'm giving away a copy of the U.K. paperback! All you have to do is become a fan of the Joseph Finder page on Facebook before April 15. We'll choose the winner at random from all registered Facebook fans with U.S. mailing addresses then, so sign up now!
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Where I’ve Been, Where I’ll Be
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Last month I had the pleasure of participating in "Books & Bands," a literary fundraiser for the Home Base Program, which assists veterans and their families. My friend Michael Palmer launched his book THE LAST SURGEON, and the event included music from The James Montgomery Blues Band and the Thaddeus Hogarth Band. The all-star guest list included Tess Gerritsen, Andre Dubus III, William Martin, Lisa Gardner, Gary Braver, Mark Vonnegut, Sandra Lee, and the always elegant Hank Phillippi Ryan, who was kind enough to pose for this photo with me. (Everybody looks better standing next to Hank.)
I'm very excited about attending my first RT Booklovers Convention, April 28-May 2 at the Hyatt Regency Columbus in Columbus, Ohio. Author friends who have attended this event in past years tell me it's one of the best annual gatherings of enthusiastic readers. I'll be part of a Reader/Author Chat session at 2:45 p.m. on Thursday, April 29 with Catherine Asaro, Lisa Jackson, John Scalzi, and Kate White, and at 2:45 p.m. on Friday, April 30, I'll be on my own, talking about "Suspense Secrets: What I've Learned (And What I'm Still Learning)." Now I just need to figure out what to wear to that night's Faery Ball . . . if you're there, please make a point of finding me to say hi. I think you still have time to register; see details.
Closer to home, I'll be part of Grub Street's 9th annual Muse & the Marketplace conference at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, May 1-2. This meeting is a two-day symposium for aspiring writers, designed to help them not only improve their work but sell it. Authors, editors and agents give workshops on the nitty-gritty business of writing, and I recommend this program to anyone who wants to get serious about a writing career. My session is scheduled for Sunday, May 2nd, 2010, from 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., on "The Ten Elements of a Great Thriller." Sessions are already selling out, so if you're interested, register online.
And finally - for now - I'm looking forward to two big events in July. ThrillerFest in New York July 7-10, is the annual family reunion for thriller writers and fans, and one of the highlights of my year. I'm also thrilled to have been invited back to the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, better known as Harrogate, July 22-25 in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. I'll be moderating a panel on Friday, July 23 called "A Scotsman, an Englishman, an Irishman and a Welshman Walk Into a Bar . . ." about the noir tradition in the British Isles.
Links and additional information about all of these events will be updated on my website's News & Events page, so check for the latest if you're planning to attend any of these.
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Trivia Winners, and a New Question
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Congratulations to Charles Mann, of Hamilton Square, NJ; Doreen Montis, of Great Falls, VA; and Tamara Roberts, of Goodyear, AZ, who knew the answer to the February-March trivia question - the name of CIA Director Harrison Sinclair's executive assistant, Sheila McAdams. They all win signed copies of VANISHED.
Haven't won anything yet? The new contest starts today: What is the name of the powerful corporation Nick Heller's missing brother Roger worked for in VANISHED? Submit your answers, along with your full name and mailing address, between now and May 31 via the website's contact form for a chance to win a signed hardcover copy of PARANOIA. (As usual, I apologize, but we can ship books only to U.S. addresses.)
And as always, we give away a signed book every month at random to a newsletter subscriber in the United States - so if you're getting this newsletter as a forwarded email, please take a minute to subscribe. I'll never spam you or share your information with anyone else.
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Keep in Touch!
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On a final note, I want to thank all of you for your support, especially in these last few months when I haven't always been able to respond immediately. I've been rationing my time online, but your notes and good wishes have reached me, and I'm grateful. I'm always glad to hear from you, and I hope to be more active in the months ahead.
Look for another newsletter in June - but in the meantime, you can get the latest information from me on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. I hear rumors that Nick Heller might be on Twitter, too . . . that guy is everywhere.
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All the Best,
Joseph Finder
P.S. And please, spread the word by forwarding this newsletter to friends you think might be interested.
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