Features

Illustration Credit: Molly Stone

By Nancy Gaines

It was a dark and stormy night. We knocked back whisky to quell the tremors in our quaking limbs. The air in Paradise, the rock club, not the hereafter, was redolent with the heady scent of blood, or spilled beer. We leered at each other across the loud and crowded room, milky with stage lights usually reserved for rock stars. It was coming: the mayhem, the suspense... if we didn’t first crash headlong into the venue’s infamous pole.

The scene had been set for the city’s top thriller writers—who don’t write utter tripe like the above—to meet for a night of cross-promotion and hijinks. But more about that later.

At a time when bookstores and book-books are slouching toward extinction, seven of the city’s best-selling authors have sold a whopping 85 million copies—not counting e-books—between them. Make that 85 million and counting, since most of these scribes are still in their prime. Despite their staggering success, Gary Braver, Joseph Finder, Lisa Gardner, Tess Gerritsen, Chuck Hogan, William Martin and Michael Palmer aren’t household names like John Grisham, yet they pen sophisticated characters and plot page-turning action, often based in our own neighborhoods. That’s one uncommon denominator they share. Another is that they actually like each other.

Beloved by fans, slighted by mystery novelists, spurned by bellelettrists (“They’re backbiters,” sniffed one author), these seven hugely commercial writers have made Boston the hub of their universe. They form a virtual salon where they share gripes, sources, cheer and counsel. In this under-the-radar book club, they kvell and cavil easily with one another because they speak the same language, and swap notes by e-mail and at bars, restaurants, seminars, fund-raisers and one another’s homes.

“Famous to some, infamous to others, unknown to the rest,” is how Martin, author of Back Bay and eight other self-styled “historical thrillers,” sums up the group. Adds Gardner, author of 30 novels that have sold some 20 million copies, “We’re a collegial bunch. We value time with kindred spirits because the rest of the time we’re a focus group of one.”

Explains Gerritsen, a Stanford-educated physician who’s authored 23 books that have sold 25 million copies, including the Boston-based Rizzoli & Isles series (now a hit cable-TV show): “We write very scary books, but we really play well with others.” She’s been friends for years with Gary Braver, who sold about a million copies of his series of eight biotech thrillers. And they’re all pals with Martin, who they often meet at Grafton Street in Cambridge, which has a cameo in Braver’s latest book, Tunnel Vision. “It’s a fellowship that’s grown out of conferences,” says Martin, who’s finishing his 10th novel. “I just had lunch with Joe [Finder] the other day at Stephanie’s. We talked about works in progress and sourcing.” 

Another connection: Martin and Finder, who’s cornered the private-spy niche, are close friends with Palmer, who pens popular medical-political novels (his Extreme Measures became a film with Hugh Grant and Gene Hackman). Like Gerritsen, he’s a physician-turned-multimillion-selling author. Together, the two docs cohost seminars for physicians aspiring to write thrillers in their spare time. “There’s no question we cheer each other on,” says Palmer. When he organized a fund-raiser at the Paradise Rock Club to benefit post-traumatic stress syndrome, it drew pretty much the whole gang.

The event included a book signing. “So we’d talk and drink and then shout at each other from the signing tables,” recalls Finder. “I’d sign books saying, ‘I’m Michael Palmer,’ and we’d pose with each others’ fans.”

This brainy bunch—apart from the two physicians, there are three Ivy Leaguers, plus a PhD—also hangs out at ThrillerFest, an annual promotional event in New York where they “go to dinner at the Grand Central Oyster Bar, or hang out at the bar at the Grand Hyatt until two or three in the morning,” says Finder, who’s frequently the ringleader. 

He adds, “The conceit is that we’re all viciously competitive, but in reality, it’s not that way.”

Adds Palmer, “There’s definitely a special connection among Boston writers. And as others move in, we connect even more.”

The new kid on the block is Chuck Hogan, whose 2004 heist thriller, Prince of Thieves, was a big hit that got even bigger after Ben Affleck directed his adaptation, The Town. Hogan has published eight books, and is currently working on a vampire trilogy (with director Guillermo del Toro). Finder introduced him to the rest of the group. “There’s definitely a shorthand among us,” he notes.

The authors share a bond in that they’re lumped under the label of “thriller writers.” “We were tired of being marginalized at mystery writers’ conferences and by awards,” recalls Braver, who teaches writing at Northeastern under his given name, Gary Goshgarian. “Mysteries are whodunits, and thrillers are driven by dread. Mysteries were considered more ‘literate,’ and we were dismissed as gore and sensationalism. So we got close as friends, and in 2004, as the International Thriller Writers, we became an entity unto ourselves. Now we’re a big deal. There are more thrillers on the best-seller list than mysteries.”

Within the thriller genre, these writers have their specialties: spycraft (Finder), police procedure (Gardner), violent crime (Gerritsen), science (Braver), conspiracy (Palmer), history (Martin) and picaresque (Hogan). Of course, there’s sex and gore aplenty in many of these books, a topic the group often discusses.

“We’re suspense novelists but we’re also parents and children,” says Gardner, whose grandmother underlines, in red ink, every offensive passage in her manuscripts. “We talk about how and when our kids, or grandkids, can read our books. We commiserate about having to talk about the sex and violence when your parents are in the audience.”

They also turn to each other for expert advice. Gardner goes to Finder for guidance on Massachusetts guns laws and ballistics, one of his fortes. Braver calls on Gerritsen and Palmer for, natch, medical information. 

When Martin gets together with the group, a prime topic, he says, is “the faster spin of the hamster wheel: the increasing pressure from New York, from corporate, to speed up output.” Best-selling authors are now being asked to produce a book a year. “I move like a glacier,” admits Martin. “But I’ve lasted longer than just about anybody at this point.” When he gets frustrated by the demands of commercialism, he turns to his fellow writers. As Martin tells it, Palmer likes to remind him, “You’re writing books people will remember. And I say, ‘But your sales top mine.’” Even so, Martin adds, “It’s always more fun to be going through a challenging week with a friend.”

If there’s any ribbing among these comrades-in-pens, it’s of the “collegial complaint” ilk, says Braver. This can, indeed, turn bitchy. “If you were a fly on the wall, what you might hear us grouse about is another author’s work and why the hell it became an international best seller,” Gerritsen wrote in an e-mail from Istanbul, Turkey, where she was researching a new book. “And I won’t name names!”

Whereas the petite and gracious Gerritsen runs contrary to character as probably the most violent and gory of the writers, Finder, a Russian scholar (summa cum laude from Yale, recruited by the CIA), is “perhaps the lead player in the corporate thriller genre,” according to The New York Times Book Review. With about 15 million books in print, including High Crimes (turned into a movie starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd), Finder (pronounced like fin, not fine) set his 11th and latest, Buried Secrets, in Boston. It features a U.S. senator who lives in Louisburg Square. “I never met John Kerry,” he says, “but a mutual friend sent him a copy of the book.”

There are other writers on the periphery of the core, like Dennis Lehane, whom Finder recently dined with at No. 9 Park. It’s a playful dynamic. “Dennis told this perfect story at the Boston Book Festival about some guy shouting at him in Charlestown,” says Finder. “And I e-mailed him after, saying, ‘Great story, even though it’s not true.’ He sent back, ‘F*** you. Of course it’s true.’”

Of course, there’s nothing like professional interest to keep a friendship alive. Says Gardner, “Who else am I going to talk to about visiting the Body Farm?” the notorious University of Tennessee research site used to teach crime-scene skills. “My husband doesn’t want to hear about decomposing remains.” 

Gerritsen values shoptalk with Palmer, her partner in writing seminars. “We’ve debated the pros of planning versus plunging when it comes to writing (he’s a planner and I’m a plunger),” she says, referring to the outlining process. “Mostly, though, what we do in private is whine about how hard this is! How much we sweat and fret over whether we’ve got a disaster in the works. Whether we know what we’re doing. Whether anyone will read this turkey.”

That’s the real benefit of having such a close, connected network, says Palmer. “You realize everybody is fighting the same battle, even though you feel like you’re fighting it alone. It’s lonely there. But it beats real work.”

Top Thriller Titles

Tunnel Vision by Gary Braver
A grad student’s near-death experience leads to violence.

High Crimes by Joseph Finder
A law professor defends her husband in a court martial.

Hide by Lisa Gardner
Boston detective D.D. Warren races to stop a killer.

The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerritsen
A detective and a medical examiner uncover a fiendish cabal.

Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan
Charlestown criminals pull a fateful heist.

Back Bay by William Martin
Six generations of a Boston family obsess over a lost treasure.

Extreme Measures by Michael Palmer
A young doctor uncovers an evil, bloody plot.