The Man of Twists and Turns

Any writer knows that things can go wrong sometimes. Characters start to get wooden. Scenes won’t come alive. But the slipperiest dilemma of all –– because it’s the one least likely to be obvious when you’re re-reading the manuscript –– is when certain words turn out to have unintended consequences. A fine example of this [...]

Elmore Leonard has 10 rules for writing. They don’t cover most of the important points of writing. They could really be called: Ten Rules for Writing That Isn’t So Bad, Even if You’re Not Much of Writer. Still the rules have been turned into a book and are quoted with something a little more mystical [...]

Writers usually decide to be writers before they know what they might write about. In my case, a journey from teenage isolation in Britain to the violence of the Middle East led me to the elements of my fiction which could be true — not just based on reality, but in the sense that they [...]

As an award-winning crime writer, I’ve studied the greats of the genre and lectured about how they do what they do. Here I take my three favorite openings to crime novels — “Red Harvest” by Dashiell Hammett, “The Little Sister” by Raymond Chandler, and “The Saint-Fiacre Affair” by Georges Simenon — and examine what makes [...]

Last night my dream was a really terrific thriller plot. Naturally, because I thought I was watching a thriller unfold in images before me, I don’t remember much of what happened (do YOU remember what happens in a thriller after you’ve read it?) However, it included a number of details which I find encouraging. First, [...]

It’s hard to tell them apart, Wolfgang Mozart and the great composer’s sister Nannerl. Both had prominent noses, mischievous eyes, and a certain naiveté to their gaze. But there was a difference. Nannerl was a girl, and that decided which of these fabulous musical talents would be remembered. Until now. My novel MOZART’S LAST ARIA [...]

Georges Simenon wrote “L’Affaire Saint Fiacre” (“Maigret Goes Home”) in 1932. It’s one of the first of the 103 novels involved Inspector Jules Maigret. You can tell from books like this that the writer was a bit of a bastard. And we ought to be grateful for that. The opening of “Saint Fiacre” (I’m going [...]

I’ve a guest post on the Fresh Fiction blog and also there’s an interview with me on the CBS columnist Jeff Glor’s blog about my new novel Mozart’s Last Aria. Read the Fresh Fiction post to find out why I don’t think Mozart was an idiot. Read the CBS post to see why I think [...]

I’m writing this in a plain office in the corner of a building that was described by the realtor as “exclusive,” though it doesn’t exclude despondent ultra-Orthodox Jews panhandling for cash, plumbers who break all the pipes you hadn’t called them to fix, or the cheerful lady who lets her dog pee in the elevator. [...]

A very nice review of my new novel Mozart’s Last Aria on Bookreporter.com has this to say, among other amusing and insightful observations: Music is notoriously difficult to capture in prose; Matt Rees tries valiantly, elegantly, and for the most part successfully to do justice to a composer who is regarded — and not just [...]