May 20 – 26: “How much leeway do authors have when playing with historic facts and characters?

ITW Members Meghan Holloway, Ronan Frost, R. G. Belsky, Heather Gudenkauf, Jon Land, Carole Lawrence and Anne Louise Bannon are here this week discussing historical thrillers. How much leeway do authors have when playing with historic facts and characters? Find out by scrolling down to the “comments” section. You won’t want to miss this!

R. G. Belsky is an author of crime fiction and a journalist in New York City. His latest thriller BELOW THE FOLD, releases on may 7th. Two of Belsky’s thrillers from the ‘90s – LOVERBOY and PLAYING DEAD – are also being re-released by HarperCollins in December and January 2018. His book BLONDE ICE (Atria- 2016), part of the Gil Malloy series – featuring a New York City newspaper reporter, was a Finalist for the David Award and a Silver Falchion nominee this past year. Belsky himself is a former managing editor at the Daily News and writes about the media from an extensive background in newspapers, magazines and TV/digital news. He was metropolitan editor of the New York Post; news editor at Star magazine; and most recently managing editor at NBCNews.com.

Heather Gudenkauf is the critically acclaimed author of several novels, including the New York Times bestseller The Weight of Silence. She lives in Iowa with her family.

Jon Land is the award-winning, USA Today bestselling author of 50 books, including ten titles in the critically acclaimed Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong series, the most recent of which, STRONG AS STEEL, was called “what might be the best novel of 2019” by Suspense Magazine. MURDER IN RED marks his third effort writing as Jessica Fletchr for the MURDER, SHE WROTE series, and he’s also teamed with Heather Graham for a new sci-fi series starting with THE RISING.

Meghan Holloway found her first Nancy Drew mystery in a sun-dappled attic at the age of eight and subsequently fell in love with the grip and tautness of a well-told mystery. She flew an airplane before she learned how to drive a car, did her undergrad work in Creative Writing in the sweltering south, and finished a Masters of Library and Information Science in the blustery north. She spent a summer and fall in Maine picking peaches and apples, traveled the world for a few years, and did a stint fighting crime in the records section of a police department. She now lives in the foothills of the Appalachians with her standard poodle and spends her days as a scientist with the requisite glasses but minus the lab coat.

Ronan Frost worked for the British Ministry of Defence where he was a liaison with intelligence operatives working behind the Iron Curtain during the last year of the Cold War. During the first Gulf War, he worked with the Royal Navy. And then, he developed a plan with economic experts for the rationalization and centralization of the British Royal Navy which was presented to the House of Commons. Now retired from that life, he lives in Europe with his wife and dog. White Peak is Ronan Frost’s first novel.

Carole Lawrence (C. E. Lawrence, Carole Bugge, Elizabeth Blake) is the author of twelve published novels, award-winning plays, musicals, poetry and short fiction.  Her most recent novel is the historical thriller Edinburgh Dusk, the second book in the Ian Hamilton Mysteries series.  Her “Silent” series (Silent Screams and its sequels) follows NYPD profiler Lee Campbell in his pursuit of serial killers. Pride, Prejudice and Poison, under the pen name Elizabeth Blake, will be released in August, followed by Edinburgh Midnight in June of 2020.  Her most recent musical is Murder on Bond Street, based on a true story.  A self-described science geek, she likes to hunt wild mushrooms.

Anne Louise Bannon has made not one, but two careers out of her passion for storytelling. Both a novelist and a journalist, she has an insatiable curiosity. In addition to her mystery novels, she has written a nonfiction book about poisons, freelanced for such diverse publications as the Los Angeles Times, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Backstage West, and edits the wine blog OddBallGrape.com. On the fiction side, she writes a romantic serial, a spy series, and her Kathy and Freddy 1920s mystery series. Her most recent title is Death of the City Marshal, set in Los Angeles, 1870. She and her husband live in Southern California with an assortment of critters.