Posted by Elizabeth on September 1, 2010 at 11:30 pm
It is known that Frederick Forsyth’s thrillers are avidly read by the senior hierarchs of the KGB in Moscow (now the SVR) , and also by the gentlemen of the CIA outside Washington and the British SIS in London.
But what is not known is that he is also a linguist, a bull fighter and a pilot… read on to find out 5 extraordinary things you didn’t know about bestselling author Frederick Forsyth.
5 things you didn’t know about author Frederick Forsyth:
1. At 17 years old, Freddie qualified for a pilot’s licence and gained his wings at only 19 years old thus becoming the youngest pilot in the Airforce.
2. Freddie can speak French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian. He has also visited around 70 countries on 5 continents.
3. In all, his ten published novels, together with the Shepherd and his two short story collections, have sold over 70 million copies in over thirty languages across the world.
4. At school, Freddie would disappear from organised sports to ride a forbidden motorcycle to Rochester Flying Club for lessons
5. Freddie has a passion for bull fighting and when living in Southern Spain in his youth, he spent months frequenting the bullrings and practicing capework in the arena of Malaga with other aspirants.
THE COBRA is the stunning new thriller from the grandmaster of international intrigue. It is now available to buy in hardback. To read an excerpt from The Cobra, click here.
Today, Freddie lives with his second wife Sandy at his farm in Hertfordshire, diving his time between seeing his two some from his first marriage, writing and raising prize-winning lambs. After trying riding and parachuting, he has settle for swimming, scuba diving, game-fishing, travelling and reading. Frederick Forsyth was awarded a CBE in 1997.
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Posted by Kate on August 27, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Tess Gerritsen and her editor Selina Walker at the Transworld offices
Tess Gerritsen talking at Rainham library 19th August
Tess signing at Rainham Library
Tess signing at Bishopswood House supported by Rossiter Books
Tess signing stock at Waterstone’s Shrewsbury
Tess signing for a long queue of avid fans in Waterstone’s Chester
The Bloomin’ Good Books Festival in Southport supported by SilverDell Books
Tess signing copies of The Killing Place at Southport Flower Festival
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Posted by Kate on August 27, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Thursday 19th saw Tess visit Rainham Library to talk about her upcoming book The Killing Place to a packed room of avid fans. When asked, “what do you do when you get writers block?” Tess said “it happens with every book” and that it’s normally because she puts something in that doesn’t feel quite right. Tess never plans her books in advance but puts pen to paper and handwrites them before typing the script up on to the computer when finished. Consequently, the first draft often looks nothing like the finished book. To combat writers block she goes for long drives, sometimes 2 or 3 hours mentally ticking off the options for what her characters should do next.
Tess then went on to talk about her inspiration revealing that her ideas come from thoughts that she can’t shake or that she finds disturbing. For example for Harvest she read a story about children in Russia who were suddenly disappearing at just the age when they could be used for adult organ donation. The subsequent thought was so horrible that two weeks later she was still thinking about it. Her background in medicine lead her to know about the practice of donating organs and Harvest was born.
On Friday 20th Tess travelled to the Welsh border to talk at Bishopswood House, just outside Ross-on-Wye. In this remote location Tess brought up a thought that partially inspired the beginning of The Killing Place. We all blindly follow our GPS or Sat Nav gadgets trusting that they’ll get us where we want to go but this can lead to disaster as Tess found out when researching the book. Apparently there have been over 300,000 sat-nav disasters or accidents in the UK in the past year! So if people follow their sat nav into empty fields, off cliffs or even into lakes it would be very possible for Maura Isles to get stranded on a long snowy road in the middle of nowhere due to the sat nav in her car.
It seems that Tess also may have been inspired to write grisly crime novels from a very young age by being brought up on horror films. Her mother was a big horror movie fan and Tess always writes remembering herself as a child sitting in the movie theatre feeling scared. She wondered whether she’d have become a different writer if she’d watched romantic comedies…
Sunday 22nd - Bloomin’ Good Books Festival at Southport Flower festival
You can definitely say it was a Bloomin’ Good Books festival as the sun can out of the clouds for Tess’s last UK event on the Sunday. After wandering around, buying a few flowers, admiring the show gardens and basking in the sun, the main marquee filled with fans to hear Tess talk of the filming of her Rizzoli & Isles series over in America. The series was filmed in LA, although being originally set in Boston, and real homes were used for filming. To make sure that the setting was authentic for Boston in the Autumn and to the horror of the flower enthusiasts listening to Tess she said that it was ordered that the large rose bushes surrounding the houses being filmed were to be destroyed, a fair sacrifice for the series.
Tess was asked the question “Do you ever feel as if you become the characters in the book when writing?”. Tess replied saying that these characters, both good and bad, vividly materialise in her mind. This was most scarily true when she was writing The Surgeon as she felt she had no trouble knowing how he would react in situations or what the character would say. So much so that the police even approached her regarding a case in the 1970s in America that echoed many of the traits of The Surgeon. They were sure that she had been in touch with him, a very chilling scenario to be confronted with!
After a great week full of events Tess flew back home on Monday ready to start work on her next thriller set in Boston’s Chinatown called The Silent Girl. All I can say is that when Jane discovers a severed hand on a roof in Chinatown it contains the hairs of an ancient monkey, one linked to the legend of the Monkey King. Find out next year what happens but in the mean time get lost in the snowy mountains of Wyoming where Maura Isles discovers a dark secret in The Killing Place.
And finally, CONGRATULATIONS to the winners of the dedicated books:
Linda Abnett
Jennifer Rolfe
Paula Isaacs
Irene Jackson
Dawn W
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Posted by Kate on August 19, 2010 at 10:57 am
Bookstores and libraries are the usual venues for author events, but Tess Gerritsen isn’t your usual author. Not content with staging an event in a hospital on this UK tour to promote her latest bestseller The Killing Place, last evening she appeared in a double bill with acclaimed Dublin crime journalist and debut novelist Niamh O’Connor at the Movie House Cinema in Belfast.
In an inspired event arranged by Belfast bookseller No Alibis, Tess and Niamh shared with a packed screening room their separate experiences of novel writing, and talked about some of the grisly real life cases which informed their plotlines.
Her medical background equips Tess with an emotional detachment to her writing which enables her to tackle often scary and dark scenarios, she says. Niamh’s own experience of covering some of the most notorious crime stories for the Sunday World made her want to write fiction to offset her growing emotional attachment to these real cases, so both writers felt their original career has a huge impact on their books.
In a neat role reversal on stage, Tess posed several probing questions to Niamh, who is most accustomed to asking the questions herself.
Discussing wide-ranging issues such as criminal justice, women’s roles in the police, women in jeopardy, serial killers and TV adaptations, Tess and Niamh kept the audience so gripped they abandoned their popcorn.
Tess and Niamh signing books at the Movie House Cinema after their event, 18th August
Check out Tess and Niamh’s latest books:
The Killing Place - Tess Gerritsen available here
If I Never See You Again - Niamh O’Connor available here
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Posted by Kate on August 18, 2010 at 2:01 pm
In a first for a novelist event, bestselling author Tess Gerritsen today addressed a rapt audience of doctors, surgeons, nurses and medical staff at Royal Bolton Hospital as part of the Reading Agency’s Six Book Challenge.*
Tess talked about her own personal experiences as a physician in the US prior to her new career as internationally acclaimed author. Her history gives a depth of authenticity to her medical thrillers.
Paula Elliott, Library Services manager at the hospital said, “we are really pleased that Tess has come to the hospital. We have visiting speakers of course, but this has enlivened our staff library and encouraged all staff to read novels as well as their usual medical texts. “
Tess said “I’m really delighted to come to Royal Bolton Hospital. The Six Book Challenge is a fantastic initiative to bring the widest audience to books, and direct to their place of work too”
* The Six Book Challenge is a UK-wide annual incentive scheme for less confident adult readers – see www.sixbookchallenge.org.uk It was launched in 2008 by The Reading Agency, the charity which works to inspire more people to read more (www.readingagency.org.uk), and has attracted around 13,500 participants in 2010. The Royal Bolton Hospital has won this visit by top US crimewriter Tess Gerritsen through a prize draw offered by The Reading Agency in association with the Campaign for Learning and Transworld Publishers for participating in both the Six Book Challenge and the Campaign for Learning’s Learning at Work Day.
Alison Ling, Medical Illustration, takes a photo of Tess Gerritsen in the Royal Bolton Hospital library at her event today 17th Aug
Sarah Watkins, Pathology, Royal Bolton Hospital, gets her copy of The Killing Place signed at Tess Gerritsen’s event
Follow Tess on twitter @tessgerritsen and @transworldbooks
Visit our facebook page for more info on our other great crime authors -The Serial Thrillers
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Posted by Kate on August 18, 2010 at 10:35 am
Tess Gerritsen and Tom Cain appeared together in the rather incongruous surroundings of the Children’s department in Waterstone’s Manchester as the events room is currently being refurbished.
Tom opened proceedings with an introduction to his all action hero Sam Carver and a colourful trot through his own history as a journalist and profile writer. For the record, he’s particularly proud of his George Foreman autograph, but that’s another story…
With a brief and rather tantalising read from his latest bestseller, Assassin, and a searing snippet from his first hit The Accident Man, Tom won the audience over deftly before handing over to Tess Gerritsen.
Tess raised the extarordinary Dougrey incident (google it, but spoiler alert If you haven’t read the new book!) which partly inspired her new Rizzoli and Isles thriller. This incident details the freakish and widespread deaths of herds of sheep grazing on the fields in Wyoming, followed by the discovery of fields of dead horses, with no overt fatal symptoms. How did this happen? And what would be the consequence if people were struck down in the same way? Maura Isles is about to find out.
Tess is promoting her latest novel The Killing Place, but inevitably her fans were keen to know about her NEXT book. Exclusively, in Manchester, she was able to reveal the title for her forthcoming 2011 thriller - The Silent Girl - you read it here first! The opening scene is set in the mysterious and occasionally sinister world of downtown Chinatown. It’s about… AhA! But that’s another story, too!!
To check out more of our crime fiction writers go to our facebook page The Serial Thrillers and visit www.transworldcrime.co.uk to be in with a chance of winning a year’s supply of killer crime!
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Posted by Kate on August 17, 2010 at 10:30 am
Tess was greeted by a sell out event in Waterstone’s Newcastle last night.
Acclaimed as a writer of chilling, often grisly thrillers Tess confessed to her audience in Waterstone’s Newcastle:
“There things that I won’t write about. I won’t create a scene where a child is hurt. That’s something I wouldn’t do. I’m a mother. But why do so many of my books have female victims? It’s because I am more engaged in a story if a woman is in peril. This is true I hear for many of my female readers. It doesn’t necessarily apply to male readers. I’ve always thought that most would like to be James Bond. They want to be the hero, but many women enjoy the feeling of fear, but with a positive outcome.
What do I like to read? Actually, for pleasure I like historical fiction. I read Robert Harris and Philippa Gregory. Of course I read crime too. I’m a fan of Jeffery Deaver. As a child I grew up Reading Nancy Drew mysteries.”
Tess will be in Waterstone’s Deansgate in Manchester at 7pm tonight along with thriller writer Tom Cain. For more details visit www.tessgerritsen.co.uk
Follow Tess on twitter @tessgerritsen and @transworldbooks
Visit our facebook page for more info on our other great crime authors -The Serial Thrillers
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Posted by Kate on August 16, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen arrived into the UK this weekend to start a jam packed week of events around the UK.
It all started at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Sunday where Tess talked, amongst other things, about the new Rizzoli & Isles TV show running in the US. She likes the actresses playing lead parts and is hopeful that the TNT series will have a UK airing next year but reasured readers that in future books, Rizzoli and Isles will remain true to their established personalities and won’t be compromised by the TV adaptations.
In the US Tess toured with actress Angie Harmon, and got a red-carpet taste of the life of a Hollywood star. In a prediction of the future for books, Tess said that she was convinced that ebooks would replace traditional books in the affections of her own readers. In fact, she reported, 40% of the sales her latest book The Killing Place (Ice Cold in the US) have been in ebook format in the US. In the UK ebooks comprise about 2% of all new title sales across the board.
Tess will be in at Waterstone’s Newcastle Monday 16th at 6.30pm but if you can’t get there make sure you check out Tess’s website www.tessgerritsen.co.uk for more details of where she will be appearing this week.
Look in our archives for a sneak peak at the new Rizzoli & Isles series and watch this space for more infomation, photos and competitions from Tess’s tour.
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Posted by Elizabeth on August 11, 2010 at 10:37 am
Transworld are thrilled to announce an exciting new feature created especially for our Between the Lines readers. Every week we will be revealing FIVE things you didn’t know about our authors allowing you to get up close and personal with the people behind the fantastic books you read…
First up is the very brave SEAN BLACK, author of the Ryan Lock thrillers LOCKDOWN and DEADLOCK.
Sean Black grew up in Scotland, studied film in New York and has written the screenplays for many of Britain’s best-known TV dramas. His latest novel DEADLOCK (now available in hardback) is a high concept race-against-time thriller set in Pelican Bay High Security Prison. As some of you will know from previous posts, Sean ‘did time’ as research for DEADLOCK but as we see below, even the hardest men can’t help shed tears occasionally…
FIVE THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT AUTHOR SEAN BLACK:
1. Sean had a very brief appearance in Spike Lee’s biopic of Malcolm X.
2. His father-in-law ran Ronald Reagan’s Presidential campaigns on the west coast of the United States.
3. The last time he cried was reading the end of Marley and Me.
4. His best man when he got married wedding was Eric Da Re who played crazed wife-beater Leo Johnson in the TV show Twin Peaks.
5. Duncan Bannatyne got his big TV break in a pilot for a TV drama that Sean wrote.
To read more about Sean and his Ryan Lock thrillers, click here to view his superb website and blog and to get a sneaky peek inside DEADLOCK, click here.
Between the Lines readers: we hope you enjoyed your first instalment in this feature; don’t forget to log on next week to see who is in the hot seat!
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Posted by Lynsey on August 11, 2010 at 9:45 am
The finalists have been announced this week for the 2010 Crime Writers Association Daggers, and I’m thrilled to report that Transworld has two authors on the Gold Dagger list!
CWA GOLD DAGGER FINALISTS 2010:
Blacklands Belinda Bauer Corgi/Transworld
Blood Harvest S J Bolton Bantam Press/Transworld
Shadowplay Karen Campbell Hodder & Stoughton
The Way Home George Pelecanos Orion
The 2010 Awards - the third annual event filmed by Cactus TV for ITV3, and the second annual event sponsored by Specsavers and in conjunction with the Crime Writers’ Association - will take place on the evening of Friday 8th October and the Awards will be screened on ITV3 the following week. We’ll be watching with bated breath to see if one of our Queens of crime will scoop the gold!
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