Don’t Mess with Me : Emily Kenyon as Depicted in a Doubleday Book Club Ad

It’s Good to Be Number One

Gregg Olsen’s A COLD DARK PLACE was the number one bestselling mass market paperback at Seattle Mystery Bookshop for the month of April (OK, tied with Lee Child!). The photo at right was taken by Fran and it clearly proves that Gregg and readers all got the “wear orange/red” memo.

The book was also number one over at Whodunit? Books in Olympia. Nice!

Many thanks to the independent booksellers!

Olsen’s Deep Dark Inspires Composer

Gregg Olsen’s award-winning book about the Sunshine Mine fire has inspired composer Nick Thorpe — and the music he created will debut next week. Here’s a snip from the Coeur d’Alene Press:

Now living in Coeur d’Alene with his wife and daughter, Thorpe is using his talents to reconnect with the past. Inspired by the book, “The Deep Dark,” by Gregg Olsen, Thorpe crafted a 12-minute composition about the Silver Valley mine disaster of 1972. After reading the book, Thorpe couldn’t get Olsen’s words out of his head.

“He did in-depth interviews with so many of the people involved,” Thorpe said. “The Silver Valley is just a unique place and he captured it so perfectly.”

Reviewers Agree: A Cold Dark Place Sizzles

Gregg Olsen’s A Cold Dark Place is drawing raves from early readers and reviewers. Here are a couple of reviews spreading the word:

Joe Hartlaub of Bookreporter.com wrote:

Gregg Olsen has made a name for himself as both an expert in the study of violent criminal behavior and as an author who gets into the psyche of an evildoer’s motivation. A COLD DARK PLACE, his latest work, is thriller fiction but reads with an immediacy and vividness that makes it seem as if it was ripped off of a police report.

The story begins with a violent storm that at first hides an evil, unspeakable deed: the murder of three members of a model family. When Mark and Peg Martin and their son Donovan are found executed amidst the ruins of their home outside Cherrystone, Washington, suspicion turns almost immediately to the couple’s teenage son, Nick, a loner who has gone missing. Police detective Emily Kenyon is assigned to the case; the more she investigates, the more convinced she becomes that Nicholas, at the very least, knows what occurred on that fateful night. Emily’s stake in the case becomes personal when Jenna, her teenage daughter, disappears in Nick’s company. Her pursuit of Nick leads her back to Seattle, Washington, where a host of bad memories await.

Emily’s ex-husband and his (very pregnant) fiancée live in the area, and her history with the police department there ended with a tragedy that haunts her to this day. This is also the location, however, of a long-closed orphanage called Angel’s Nest, which has a tie to Nick and perhaps an answer to what occurred in the middle of a tornado on the night that his family was extinguished. A deranged killer named Dylan Walker, convicted of multiple murders some two decades previously, holds at least one key to the mystery, and possibly to some others as well.

Jenna, meanwhile, is convinced of Nick’s innocence and is willing to do anything she can to help him get the answers he needs regarding his past, in order to preserve his future. As Emily races to find her daughter and Nick, the answers they all seek will be found and a dramatic climax played out.

Olsen has a winning character with Emily Kenyon, a smart detective who is good at her job and with her child but is still paying for choices made in her personal life. She makes enough mistakes to stay credible and believable, and, if the excerpt from HEART OF ICE, contained in the back of A COLD DARK PLACE, is any indication, we will be seeing more of her. As with any good thriller, however, the villain of the piece defines the work, and Olsen has drawn a good one here. He also includes a variation on artificial insemination that has to be drawn from a real-world occurrence — either that, or the man is too clever for words — that will have readers talking for months.

If you want to be in on a new series that is a winner right out of the gate, jump on now.

And over at Bookhuntersblog, reviewer Mary Menzel wrote this:

It is generally accepted that fact is more compelling than fiction. But this book proves the exception to the rule. Gregg Olsen has the background of an experienced true crime author and the intimate knowledge of the criminal mind necessary to create characters that breathe on their own. The complex and interwoven plots, between crimes currently being committed and past crimes forgotten by everyone except the detectives that worked the cases, provide a tense and satisfying read that has all the hallmarks of a bestseller.

Schedule of Appearances

Gregg Olsen will be making a number of appearances to promote A Cold Dark Place throughout the spring.

May 31, 4 p.m., Book Expo America, Los Angeles, signing.

Olsen Contributes to Lee Child-edited Killer Year Anthology

Gregg Olsen contributed a story to Killer Year: A Criminal Anthology edited by Lee Child. The collection includes stories from the Killer Year authors, plus contributions from Ken Bruen, Allison Brennan, Duane Swierczynski, MJ Rose and Laura Lippman.. Olsen’s short story is called THE CRIME OF MY LIFE.

Mystery Scene Magazine’s Review (by Betty Webb): This collection of short stories may feature known heavy hitters–Allison Brennan, Ken Bruen, and Duane Swierczynski–but it’s the new writers who hit it out of the park. In Brett Battles’ “Perfect Gentleman,” we are treated to the seedy life of an American ex-pat turned pimp in the Philippines. When one of his girls runs into trouble, he learns that patriotism can be used as an excuse for private terrorism. There’s less gloom in Toni McGee Causey’s hilarious “A Failure to Communicate” in which Bobbie Faye Sumrall, who works at CeCe’s Cajun Outfitters & Feng Shui Emporium, is taken hostage by several gunmen. This good ol’ girl is a force of Southern nature–smart, sassy, and really, really violent.

The stunner in this collection is “The Crime of My Life,” by true crime writer Gregg Olsen. This is an autobiographical story/essay by a man who collects murder memorabilia: sheet music signed by Charles Manson, a drawing by John Wayne Gacy, and–shockingly–blood from his own daughter’s Halloween costume. While discussing the ruin this particular murderer brought into his life, Olsen posits that while serial killers usually feel no remorse for their crimes, they do care a great deal about their self-image: they preen, they pose, they manipulate. And then he gives us an ending that fiction would be hard-pressed to match.

Next True Crime Nears Completion

Nick Hacheney, a youth pastor from a Bainbridge Island, Wash., church who was convicted of murdering his wife is Gregg Olsen’s newest nonfiction book project. The book will be published in hardcover by Saint Martins Press next year.

Says Gregg Olsen of the case: “The story is twisted and complicated and I’m grateful for all of the courageous women and men who’ve helped me sort things out over the past couple of years. I never could have written this book without so much help and trust.”

Hacheney won a legal challenge on his sentencing and will be back in court in late May. Read the update here.

A Wicked Snow — 2007 Bestseller at Seattle Mystery Bookshop

Gregg Olsen’s debut novel made the 2007 top ten list for bestselling mass market paperback books at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop. Here’s the year-end list:

1 - Jo Dereske, Catalogue of Death, Avon
2 - Mike Lawson, The Inside Ring, Vintage
3 - Gabriel Herkert, Catnapped, Signet
4 - Leigh Richards (Laurie R. King), Califia’s Daughter, Bantam
5 - (tie) Lee Child, Killing Floor, Jove
           Robert Dugoni, Jury Master, Warner
7 - Jo Dereske, Miss Zukas and the Library Murders, Avon
8 - Mike Lawson, The Second Perimeter, Vintage
9 - JA Jance, Edge of Evil, Pocket
10 - Gregg Olsen, A Wicked Snow, Kensington

Video Clips Now on YouTube

Gregg Olsen has several interview clips available on YouTube. These include interviews that appeared on CBS, the History Channel, and Anderson Cooper 360.

Gregg Olsen discusses Mary Kay Letourneau (If Loving You is Wrong) on the Early Show, on Anderson Cooper.

Gregg Olsen talks about Tanya Reid (Cruel Deception, Mockingbird) on the Women’s Entertainment Channel.

Gregg Olsen on the Stella Nickell (Bitter Almonds) murder case, History Channel.