After two decades of making our living as mystery authors, we thought, hey, we must have done something right. If you think so, too (or you're simply curious), read on. Just to be clear. This is not a list of mechanical techniques. Much has been written on genre tropes and tricks. This is a list of how we survived them.
Writing under a pseudonym
‘I was very aware that because the manuscript has my name on it, people would just publish it, however bad it was, and I wanted honest feedback. I wanted to know that someone believed in the book and I truly enjoyed getting unvarnished feedback through my agent. There was one editor who did not like Strike having a famous father and made that point. Read more