On the heels of the bestseller Choose Me comes the “unpredictable whodunit” (Publishers Weekly) Rumor of Evil by Gary Braver.
Gary Braver has been touted as one of the best thriller writers in America. His novels have been translated into 17 languages, and three have been optioned for movies, including Elixir by director Ridley Scott. He’s the only author to have three books listed on the top 10 highest customer-rated thrillers on Amazon at the same time.
As detectives Kirk and Mandy investigate bizarre rumors about a girl’s “gypsy powers,” they discover a cauldron of dark secrets. Will they uncover the true cause of a web of deaths and horrors before they spiral out of control? Find out in Rumor of Evil — and listen to our interview!
Rumor of Evil by Gary Braver is the latest book by the award-winning, international bestselling author of nine critically acclaimed medical thrillers and mysteries.
Detectives Kirk Lucian and Mandy Wing investigate a reported suicide of a Cambridge, Massachusetts, woman. After further investigation, the hanging appears staged, and clues begin to connect the murder to the decades-old mysterious death of a beautiful 16-year-old Romany exchange student who perished in a fire. The girl, Vadima Lupescu, had done “odd” things among her American peers that stirred up prejudices and suspicions, leading to her brutal death and cover-up.
As Kirk and Mandy investigate bizarre rumors about Vadima’s “gypsy powers,” they discover a cauldron of dark secrets. Will they uncover the true cause of this tangled web of deaths and horrors before they spiral out of control? Find out in Gary Braver’s Rumor of Evil — and listen to the podcast interview!
Gary’s novels have been celebrated for their high-concepts, careful craftsmanship, well-rounded characters, and page-turning momentum. His novel Flashback received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and is the only thriller to have won a Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction. His previous book Choose Me (co-authored with Tess Gerritsen) was a #1 bestseller on Kindle and a bestseller in several foreign countries.
Under his own name, Gary Goshgarian is an award-winning Professor Emeritus of English at Northeastern University where he taught Fiction Writing, Science Fiction, Horror Fiction, and Bestsellers. He has also taught fiction-writing workshops throughout the United States and Europe and was founder of the London Writers Workshop. He is the author of six popular college writing textbooks.
Goshgarian holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in physics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, an MA in English from the University of Connecticut, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin. He lives in Arlington, MA, with his family.
Rumor of Evil by Gary Braver — Topics for Discussion:
Remembering the Slender Man case.
Why the case led Gary to research bullies – and what he learned.
How this research informed the character development process for Rumor of Evil by Gary Braver.
The role teenage paranoia played in Gary’s inspiration for Rumor of Evil.
How some of society’s most disturbing trends, such as scapegoating and prejudice, have become fodder for Gary’s books.
Why it’s the detective, not the detective work, that pulls readers into a thriller or mystery.
Marriage as two people forming a “composite being” with their own patois. And the ways the death of a child destabilizes that composite, sometimes irrevocably.
The book is filled with literary references, which I love. Talk a bit about Wallace Stevens’ poem “The Snowman,” about the idea of having a heart and mind of snow.
In what ways does a rumor of evil grow more dangerous when the rumor is about an “Other”?
Tips for Mystery and Thriller Writers:
1) Why the best way to sell a book can be to make it into a series.
2) Keeping your target audience in mind as you write your characters.
3) Why in mysteries it is important to write some characters that your readers would like to “have a beer with.”
4) Understanding the difference between a thriller and a mystery—a mystery tries to solve a puzzle while a thriller is driven by dread.
5) How using what disturbs you from your own life, your friends’ lives and the news can and should inform your writing.
6) Why it is important to read those authors that you would like to emulate. See how their characters get in and out of problems, how they write dialogue, describe settings, etc.
Listen to the Tea, Tonic & Toxin podcast episode on Rumor of Evil by Gary Braver!
Tell us what you think about Rumor of Evil by Gary Braver, and we may share your thoughts in our next episode and send you a fabulous sticker! (It really is a pretty awesome sticker.)
Tea, Tonic, and Toxin is a book club and podcast for people who love mysteries, thrillers, introspection, and good conversation. Each month, your hosts, Sarah Harrison and Carolyn Daughters, will discuss a game-changing mystery or thriller from the 19th and 20th centuries. Together, we’ll see firsthand how the genre evolved.
Along the way, we’ll entertain ideas, prospects, theories, doubts, and grudges, along with the occasional guest. And we hope to entertain you, dear friend. We want you to experience the joys of reading some of the best mysteries and thrillers ever written.
Teasers & Tidbits
Dashiell Hammett’s crime novel Red Harvest is more than just a gripping detective story. It’s also a political statement, inspired
When Dorothy L. Sayers wrote Whose Body? (her debut novel, published in 1923), she introduced a detective who would go
If you’re a fan of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, I’m sure you’re already familiar with Hercule Poirot, the eccentric Belgian
This detective novel introduces readers to a British mining engineer – Richard Hannay – who has just returned to London
Even though the name of this book is Trent’s Last Case, the novel is actually about the FIRST detective case
Long before he started writing his own detective stories, Gilbert Keith (G.K.) Chesterton was already a fan of the genre.
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