Last night I had the pleasure of acting as the emcee of a panel held at The Writing Center of Hunter College featuring The Kings and Queens of Suspense, where I tossed questions to the 
best-selling authors Carol Higgins Clark, Mary Higgins Clark, Lawrence Block and one of my particular favorites, Alan Furst (above). Some nuggets: Carol believes that the scariest sound to hear in a house thought to be empty is a flushing toilet. Mary said that the first forty or fifty pages of her novels were all “dreadful,” but at that point the characters stand on their own and start surprising her. Alan said that people would be shocked if they knew how little time he spent in some of the locations he writes about; for example, only 48 hours in Salonika for Spies of the Balkans. None of them had read anyof the novels of Stieg Larsson. Alan also said that one thing he always works out in advance is when his characters will eat at Heininger brasserie “just off the Place de Bastille”, a secret treat for his faithful readers. Thanks to my friend Lewis Burke Frumkes (left) for inviting me. Over the summer Lewis moved his operation from Marymount Manhattan to Hunter–I hope this was the first of many happy visits there.
