Mark Rubinstein Blog

Just another WordPress site

  • Home
  • Books
    • Mad Dog House
    • Love Gone Mad
    • The Foot Soldier
    • Mad Dog Justice
    • Return to Sandara
    • The Lovers’ Tango
  • Meet Mark
  • FAQS
  • News & Reviews
  • Media Room
  • Blog
  • Book Clubs
    • Mad Dog House Reading Group Guide
    • Love Gone Mad Reading Group Guide
    • The Foot Soldier Reading Group Guide
    • Mad Dog Justice Reading Group Guide
    • The Lovers’ Tango Reading Group Guide
  • Contact

‘The Conversation,” A Talk with Robert Crais

November 12, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Robert Crais, Exley FotoRobert Crais, known to lovers of suspense and crime novels for having written many New York Times bestsellers, including Suspect and Taken, has just completed The Promise, his twentieth novel and the latest in his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series.

He began his career by writing television scripts for shows such as Quincy, Miami Vice, and LA Law.

He credits Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker, and John Steinbeck for influencing his writing style.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein, On Writing Tagged With: column, Huffington Post, HuffPo, Mark Rubinstein, writing

‘Depraved Heart,’ A Conversation with Patricia Cornwell

October 31, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

PCORNWELL photo credit PatrickEcclesinePatricia Cornwell is known to millions of readers worldwide. She has won nearly every literary award for popular fiction and has authored 29 New York Times bestsellers. Her novels center primarily on medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, along with her tech-savvy niece Lucy and investigator Pete Marino.

In her newest novel, Depraved Heart, we find Kay Scarpetta working on a highly suspicious death, when an emergency alert sounds on her cell phone. It seems to be coming in on a secure line from her niece, Lucy; and a video link plays a surveillance tape of Lucy taken almost 20 years earlier. Additional video clips follow, along with a strange series of incidents involving Lucy, the suspicious death of a Hollywood mogul’s daughter, the FBI, and the unseen presence of a “depraved heart” behind these mysterious events.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein, On Writing Tagged With: column, detective work, fiction, Huffington Post, HuffPo, Mark Rubinstein, writing

‘Pretty Girls,” A Conversation with Karin Slaughter

October 22, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Karin Slaughter Credit Alison RosaKarin Slaughter’s first book, Blindsighted, became an international success published in 30 languages, and made the Crime Writer’s Association’s Dagger Award shortlist for “Best Thriller Debut” of 2001. More than 30 million copies of her books have been sold in 32 languages. Her Grant County series has been very popular, as has her Will Trent series of novels. She’s also written standalone novels.

Pretty Girls, a standalone novel, focuses on two sisters, Claire and Lydia, who haven’t spoken for more than twenty years. Claire is the glamorous wife of an Atlanta millionaire; Lydia is a single mother dating an ex-con and is struggling financially. Neither has recovered from the disappearance of their sister, Julia, two decades earlier. When Claire’s husband is murdered, the horror of the past invades both their lives. Is there a connection between these two events separated by more than twenty years? The sisters form a truce and struggle to unearth the secrets that destroyed their family years ago.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

 

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein, On Writing Tagged With: column, Huffington Post, HuffPo, Mark Rubinstein, writing

‘The Searcher,’ A Conversation with Simon Toyne

October 6, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Simon ToyneSimon Toyne left a successful television career as a writer, director, and producer to take a gamble on novel-writing. The risk paid off, resulting in his penning the internationally bestselling Sanctus trilogy. Sanctus, The Key, and The Tower have been translated into dozens of languages.

 The Searcher is the first book in what will be his new series featuring Solomon Creed, a man with no memory of his past. In the novel, set in the small Arizona town of Redemption, Solomon must save a lost soul scheduled for burial that morning.  While the townspeople of Redemption are gathered at the cemetery, they are interrupted by a thunderous plane crash in the distant desert. A pillar of black smoke blankets the air.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein, On Writing Tagged With: column, Huffington Post, HuffPo, Mark Rubinstein, writing

Where the Bodies Were Buried: Whitey Bulger and the World That Made Him: A Talk With T.J. English

September 21, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

whitey bolgerT.J. English is a noted journalist, screenwriter, and author of the New York Times bestsellers Havana Nocturne and Paddy Whacked, as well as The Westies, a national bestseller. His true-crime book, Born to Kill, was nominated for an Edgar Award. His screenwriting credits include episodes for the television crime dramas NYPD Blue and Homicide. He has written about the New England Irish mob, and covered the July 2013 trial of Whitey Bulger, Boston’s most notorious native son and iconic Irish American gangster.

Where the Bodies Were Buried details the career of James “Whitey” Bulger, who in his day, was one of the most vicious and feared killers in America. Ironically, while he was the de facto Irish mob boss of New England, Bulger was also a Top Echelon (TE) informant for the FBI. He covertly fed local prosecutors information about rival mob figures, using the agency to eliminate them and reinforce his own power. He was protected by people in the Department of Justice who also told him where to find people he planned to murder.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, creativity, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein Tagged With: authors, books, Huffington Post, novels, writing

Acclaimed Authors Tell It Like It Is

September 1, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune to interview many acclaimed authors. They aOnce Upon A Timenswer questions with refreshing candor. Here are some of the most successful writers telling it like it is.

You left your day job to write full-time. What’s surprised you about the writing life?

It’s much easier to lie on the couch and eat potato chips or watch Better Call Saul than sit down and write another paragraph. I’ve had to relearn self-discipline in writing these books. Alex Grecian, talking about The Harvest Man

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

 

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein, On Writing Tagged With: column, Huffington Post, HuffPo, Mark Rubinstein, writing

“X,” A Conversation with Sue Grafton

August 27, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Sue Grafton (c) Laurie Roberts PorterSue Grafton is best known for her alphabet mystery series (A is for Alibi, etc.), with her feisty protagonist Kinsey Millhone. NPR’s Maureen Corrigan said the forthcoming conclusion of the alphabet series “makes me wish there were more than twenty-six letters at her disposal.”

Sue has won nearly every award in the crime-mystery lexicon, and her bestselling novels are published in 28 countries and in 26 languages.

Breaking with the tradition of summing up each novel’s storyline by use of a letter and accompanying word, in Sue’s latest release, X represents the “unknown.” Within its pages are three separate mysteries: an art theft; an elderly couple involved in graft; and a sociopathic serial killer on the loose who is zeroing in on Kinsey as she struggles to unravel and resolve these cases without becoming the next victim of this ruthless killer.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein, On Writing Tagged With: advice to beginners, closed mystery, column, Hollywood, Huffington Post, HuffPo, Mark Rubinstein, open mystery, Writer's Block, writing, writing from the soul

‘Protocol Zero,’ A Conversation With James Abel

August 12, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

2015-08-12-1439374068-5514893-JamesAbelPhotoBillSchmoker-thumb

James Abel is a pseudonym for Bob Reiss, the bestselling author of more than 20 books. He is a former Chicago Tribune reporter and previously was a correspondent for Outside Magazine. His works have been published in many national publications and have been included in the collections of “the best of the Washington Post.” Bob’s new series of science-based thriller novels launched with the publication of White Plague, a novel about a US submarine trapped in the Arctic.

Protocol Zero, the second in this series, concerns U.S. Marine bioterror expert Col. Joe Rush. In the remote town of Barrow, Alaska, Rush is investigating the death of a researcher and his family. Rush suspects foul play, and stumbles upon a deadly virus slated for use in biological warfare. It’s a race against the clock to find out who’s behind this potential plague, as Rush tries to untangle the mystery behind the mounting deaths, while the army quarantines the town. Why are his superiors in Washington threatening to end the investigation; and who is behind the clandestine plans connected to the deadly virus? With his life in danger, and so much at stake, Rush presses to find answers and to stay alive.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, creativity, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein Tagged With: authors, books, Huffington Post, novels, writing

Tom Clancy “Under Fire” A Conversation with Grant Blackwood

June 15, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Grant Blackwood co-authored Dead or Alive with Tom Clancy, The Kill Switch with JGrant Blackwood-jpegames Rollins, and The Fargo Adventure Series with Clive Cussler. He’s also the author of the Briggs Tanner series, among other novels. A U. S. Navy veteran, Grant spent three years aboard a guided missile frigate as an Operations Specialist and a Pilot Rescue Swimmer.

Under Fire is Grant’s first solo Tom Clancy book in the Jack Ryan, Jr. series. Working alone for the first time on assignment for The Campus in Tehran, Jack shares lunch with an old friend, Seth Gregory, during which he’s given the key to Seth’s apartment, along with a cryptic message. Soon thereafter, Seth goes missing and Jack, doing his best to locate his friend, finds himself entangled in a web of espionage; global politics involving the CIA, Great Britain’s MI 6, Russian and Iranian intelligence; and a popular uprising in neighboring Dagestan.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein, On Writing Tagged With: column, Huffington Post, HuffPo, Mark Rubinstein, writing

“World Gone By” A Conversation with Dennis Lehane

May 18, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Dennis Lehane c Gaby Gerstner Diogenes, ZurichDennis Lehane is known to millions of readers. His novels Mystic River, Gone, Baby, Gone, and Shutter Island became blockbuster movies, with the most recent film being The Drop, which is based on his short story, Animal Rescue.

A Drink Before the War won the Shamus Award. Mystic River won both the Anthony and the Barry Awards for Best Novel, and the Massachusetts Award in Fiction. Live by Night won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and the Florida Book Award Gold Medal for Fiction.

Read more on the Huffington Post >>

Please share...Share on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInPin on Pinterest

Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein, On Writing Tagged With: column, Huffington Post, HuffPo, Mark Rubinstein, writing

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Next Page »

Connect:

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on LinkedInFollow Us on GoodreadsFollow Us on Scribd

Recent Posts

  • Adrian McKinty Had Given Up On Writing: A Late Night Phone Call Changed Everything
  • David Morrell: Finding Inspiration, Transcending Genres, and Going the Distance
  • Don Winslow and the Making of a Drug War Epic
  • My talk with Lee Child about his “contract” with readers
  • C.J. Box on the Modern Western & Crime Thrillers

Archives

  • August 2019
  • June 2019
  • February 2019
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012

Categories

  • About Books
  • Aging
  • Awards
  • book launch
  • bookstores
  • courtroom drama
  • creativity
  • crime
  • doctor
  • Dog Tales
  • health
  • Huffington Post Column
  • Interviews
  • library
  • Love Gone Mad
  • Mark Rubinstein
  • medial thriller
  • novel
  • On Writing
  • Podcast
  • psychological thriller
  • Psychology Today Columns
  • Reviews
  • The Foot Soldier
  • thriller
  • Uncategorized
  • war

Copyright © 2015 Mark Rubinstein