Thrills and Chills! Meg Gardiner and UNSUB

INGRID THOFT

When the planets align, and you find a fantastic book written by a wonderful author and person, that is a day worth celebrating.  That's what we're doing today, on the release day of Meg Gardiner's heart pounding page-turner, UNSUB.

Meg is an Edgar Award-winning author of international bestselling thrillers that have been translated into twenty languages.  She's a graduate of Stanford Law, a three-time Jeopardy champion, and her books have been lauded by USA Today, O, the Oprah Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, and the Guardian to name just a few.  Stephen King said about Meg's Evan Delaney series “simply put, the finest crime-suspense series I’ve come across in the last twenty years.”  And if that weren't enough, she is hilarious, gracious, and generous.

Meg was kind enough to send me an advance copy of UNSUB, and it's a nail biter.  I couldn't put it down!  I'm so thrilled she's stopping by JRW today.

INGRID THOFT: Tell us about UNSUB, the first installment in your new series.

MEG GARDINER: UNSUB is a psychological thriller about a young cop hunting a legendary killer. The UNSUB—an unknown subject in a criminal investigation—begins killing again after a twenty-year break, and Detective Caitlin Hendrix must decipher his coded plan before he wreaks more havoc. 

The novel was sparked by the Zodiac killings. That unsolved case has haunted California for decades, and me since childhood. The Zodiac killed and injured seven people in the San Francisco Bay Area, and taunted the police and press with dozens of messages, including cryptograms that have never been broken. The killer has never been caught.

In UNSUB, Caitlin Hendrix is drawn into the chilling world of the Prophet, who marked his victims’ bodies with the ancient sign for Mercury. The Prophet is Caitlin’s living nightmare. Her father, Mack, was the lead detective on the original case. The investigation shattered Mack emotionally and tore his family apart.

The Prophet is a master of mind games. To stop him, Caitlin must do what her father couldn’t. She must decipher both the Prophet’s old, taunting messages and his strange new rhymes. What does the Mercury sign mean? What’s the Prophet’s end game?


IPT: The main character, Caitlin Hendrix, is cop, as was her dad, and their relationship is pivotal to the story.  What made you tackle a father/daughter relationship?

MG: The action in the novel unfolds over ten days. But the case spans twenty-five years, and affects two generations. I wanted to tell it from the perspective of the cops working the case—who thread the line between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession. The most affecting way to do that was to make those cops father and daughter.

Mack knows the case better than anyone, but is a broken man. Caitlin desperately needs his help, but knows that drawing him back into the world of the Prophet could endanger them all.
I’m a sucker for family stories. What can I say?

 IPT: UNSUB is so suspenseful that, at one point, I was curled on the couch practically in the fetal position while reading it.  How do you get the rhythm and pacing right?

I plan. I rewrite. Then I add a countdown clock. I want my novels to be fast-paced. Action and accelerating momentum help put the thrill in thriller. But the action can’t be unrelenting.

In UNSUB, Caitlin runs 5K with friends, plays My Little Pony with a four-year-old, and gets a night of romance. I love it when readers tell me they find my books suspenseful. That’s not just because the pace is quick, or because the action is nonstop. The books can seem relentless because, even when the action stops, unanswered questions lurk in the background. The pace might let up, but the suspense never does.  

Each of the novel’s lighter scenes feed into the main plot. While Caitlin runs 5K, she talks about psychopathology. The My Little Pony playdate is interrupted when the Prophet delivers a video to a TV station. Caitlin’s night of romance starts out with a discussion of bomb making techniques. (Caitlin’s boyfriend, Sean, is an ATF Certified Explosives Specialist.) These scenes let the characters enjoy a moment of Zen, or ecstasy, or tequila. But unsettled issues continue to churn. Mysteries remain unsolved. Clocks tick down. The bad guy schemes, and sharpens his knives.


 IPT; Anyone who knows you, knows that you are a kind, thoughtful, funny (you have to follow Meg on twitter at @meggardiner1) person, but UNSUB has some dark, disturbing images in it.  How do you keep that stuff from seeping into your otherwise sunny personality?  Or is the sunny personality a ruse?!

MG: Aww, thanks. It’s a balancing act. I write about what scares me, because I figure it will also scare readers. But I keep emotional distance from what’s happening on the page. At some point, I have to throw myself fully into the scene—to feel what the characters are feeling, so I can express that—but I do compartmentalize. As a writer, I take what frightens me and turn it into gripping fiction. I put my demons on the page, and turn them loose for readers to experience in the most exciting and suspenseful ways I can create.

And we all have a shadow side. I follow Stephen King’s advice: “Go down to the basement.” Haul everything up. How else are you going to find depth?

IPT: You clearly know your stuff when it comes to law enforcement.  Whether it’s tactical strategy, explosives, or how various agencies interact with one another, it all rings true.  Do you do a lot of research? 

MG: I do. I love research. To write UNSUB, I delved into the digitized files from the Zodiac case. I read books by former FBI agents on criminal profiling. I rode along on patrol with the Austin Police Department. If I couldn’t learn something first hand, I watched videos. (Want to breach a building with a tactical team? Find training videos online.) Whenever possible, I talk to the people who do the job I’m writing about. There’s no better way to get things right, and—as important—to get a feel for what their lives are like.


IPT: CBS is developing UNSUB into a TV series, and you’re going to be a producer.  Can you tell us about that process?

MG: I’ll be involved behind the scenes. CBS and the production company, Timberman-Beverly (which also produced "Justified," and produces "Elementary") are putting things together. More details to come!

So readers, what really scares you?  Do serial killers make the list?  Meg is giving away a copy of UNSUB.  Just comment to enter!

UNSUB
Caitlin Hendrix has been a Narcotics detective for six months when the killer at the heart of all her childhood nightmares reemerges: the Prophet. An UNSUB—what the FBI calls an unknown subject—the Prophet terrorized the Bay Area in the 1990s and nearly destroyed her father, the lead investigator on the case.

The Prophet’s cryptic messages and mind games drove Detective Mack Hendrix to the brink of madness, and Mack’s failure to solve the series of ritualized murders—eleven seemingly unconnected victims left with the ancient sign for Mercury etched into their flesh—was the final nail in the coffin for a once promising career.

Twenty years later, two bodies are found bearing the haunting signature of the Prophet. Caitlin Hendrix has never escaped the shadow of her father’s failure to protect their city. But now the ruthless madman is killing again and has set his sights on her, threatening to undermine the fragile barrier she rigidly maintains for her own protection, between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession.

Determined to decipher his twisted messages and stop the carnage, Caitlin ignores her father’s warnings as she draws closer to the killer with each new gruesome murder. Is it a copycat, or can this really be the same Prophet who haunted her childhood? Will Caitlin avoid repeating her father’s mistakes and redeem her family name, or will chasing the Prophet drag her and everyone she loves into the depths of the abyss?

Edgar-winning novelist Meg Gardiner writes thrillers. Fast-paced and full of twists, her books have been called “Hitchcockian” (USA Today) and “nailbiting and moving” (Guardian). They have been bestsellers in the U.S. and internationally and have been translated into more than 20 languages.

The Evan Delaney novels feature a feisty freelance journalist from Santa Barbara, California. Stephen King calls them “simply put, the finest crime-suspense series I’ve come across in the last twenty years.” China Lake won the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original. Later it was a finalist for NPR’s 100 Best Thrillers Ever. The Jo Beckett series features a San Francisco forensic psychiatrist. It includes The Liar’s Lullaby, The Memory Collector, and The Dirty Secrets Club, which was chosen one of the Top Ten thrillers of 2008 by Amazon and won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Procedural Novel of the year.

The Nightmare Thief, featuring both Jo Beckett and Evan Delaney, won the 2012 Audie Award for Thriller/Suspense audiobook of the year. Meg’s stand alone novel The Shadow Tracer was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2013. Her current title, Phantom Instinct, was chosen one of “The Best Books of Summer” by O, the Oprah magazine.

Meg was born in Oklahoma City and raised in Santa Barbara, California. She graduated from Stanford University, where she lettered in varsity cross country and earned a B.A. in Economics. She went on to graduate from Stanford Law School. She practiced law in Los Angeles and taught in the Writing Program at the University of California Santa Barbara. Later she moved with her husband and three young children to London. There she began writing mysteries set in the California she loves. She hasn’t stopped. Writing thrillers is job she’s immensely lucky to have.

In addition to her twelve novels, Meg has published short stories in American and British magazines. She’s contributed essays to anthologies including Now, Write! Mysteries, The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook, and the Anthony Award winning Books to Die For.

Beyond writing, Meg is a three time Jeopardy! champion and a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. She lives in Austin, Texas.