In the NYT “Arts Beat” blog today, publishing reporter Alexandra Alter runs down the impressive sales figures for The Girl on the Train. Noting that author Paula Hawkins is “wrestling with her next novel,” Alter adds, “Judging by a remark she posted on Twitter recently, the new book promises to be equally dark.”

Really struggling with writing today, so am watching Psycho to cheer myself up. Anthony Perkins was so very pretty.

— Paula Hawkins (@PaulaHWrites) August 7, 2015

Like the book that made her famous, the next one will also be a psychological thriller, this time about two sisters, states the Guardian in an interview with the author in mid-July. Hawkins adds,

The new book will have a very different feel in some ways, and similar in others. I’d like to carry over some of that air of paranoia but it’s got a much larger cast of characters, and will be a less claustrophobic book, I think.

Publication date has not yet been announced. In an interview with The Daily Beast in April, she said she plans “to finish over the summer so that it hopefully will be out summer or autumn of next year.”

“The smart summer thriller you’ve been waiting for. The black and harmful little book you want in your carry-on. The novel you should be reading tonight.” WOW — that’s what NPR’s Jason Sheehan says of Christopher Yates debut novel Black Chalk (Macmillan/Picador; OverDrive Sample).

In a review any writer would kill for, Sheehan reports that Yates “writes like he has 30 books behind him; like he’s been doing this so long that lit games and deviltry come to him as natural as breathing… I don’t want to say a word. And not because I don’t love the book (I do, deeply and weirdly), but because I want you to go into it cold, knowing nothing and expecting nothing, like I did. I want you to suck it down in one breath, like a lungful of dark water. For it to hit you the same way it did me: like a sucker punch delivered slowly and with exquisite precision.”

It’s also an IndieNext pick:

In Black Chalk, Yates has taken the traditional novel and tweaked it to create something very special. In Thatcher-era England, six first-year Oxford University students have come together as friends. As they get to know each other, an idea forms and quickly gains traction: they should play a ‘game,’ with the loser facing a consequence. All six agree, and the dares begin as innocuous fun. As time goes on, however, something shifts within the group and the stakes become much higher — even deadly. Fourteen years later, the remaining players meet in New York City to finish the ‘game,’ but what has transpired for them in the interim? And is winning worth the price? A gripping, sinister, and suspenseful read.”—Peggy Elefteriades, R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, CT.

Jamie Lubin of The Huffington Post gets in on the game too, saying the novel “reminds me of a Hitchcock film: multiple twists and reveals, the suspenseful IV drip of information Yates doles out to the reader with a master hand, the shadowy yet intense secrets locked inside the characters while they struggle to maintain composure, the ominous atmospheres of Oxford and New York — so seemingly opposite but equally threatening.”

Debut novels can sometimes slip out of mind. The next time a reader asks for a twisty clever thriller and has exhausted the usual suspects, try to remember Black Chalk.

Looking for a new suspense author to suggest? Take a look at Mary Kubica who appears on the verge of a breakout.

Following her debut The Good Girl, which was very positively received, her second novel Pretty Baby (Harlequin/MIRA; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample) proves she is a name to know.

The L.A. Times recently gave it a strong review saying “It is rare that a novel of what has come to be called domestic suspense is thrilling and illuminating, but Pretty Baby manages to be both without overtly showing the hard work that has gone into striking the right balance. In doing so, it raises the ante on the genre and announces the welcome second coming of a talent well worth watching.”

New York magazine lists it as one of “8 Books You Need Read This July” and the reviewer for the web site Smart Bitches Trashy Books gave it an A, saying “Pretty Baby is Kubica’s second book, and her sophomore novel is even better than its predecessor, The Good Girl. That’s saying a lot because I loved The Good Girl like whoa.”  NPR also gives it a big thumbs up.

A People pick, we highlighted it in our Titles to Know for the week.

What challenge will super-hacker Lisbeth Salander, the main character in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series, take on next?

The NSA, of course.

That’s one of the “key details” about the plot released today by British publisher MacLehose Press and reported in the Guardian.

Swedish writer David Lagercrantz was authorized by Larsson’s estate, managed by his father and brother, to write The Girl in the Spider’s Web as a sequel to the third title in the series, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, (2009).

Not everyone is happy about the publication. Larsson’s long-time domestic partner, Eva Gabrielsson who lost a bitter dispute over who would manage the writer’s estate, says this book titled That Which Does Not Kill Us in Swedish, would have made Larsson “furious. Who knows, maybe he’ll send a lightning bolt at the book launch.” She claims to have 200 pages of a fourth novel by Larsson and will never allow them to be published.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A Lisbeth Salander novel, continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series
David Lagercrantz
RH/Knopf; RH Audio; RH Large Print
September 1, 2015

Maggie Mitchell’s Pretty Is (Macmillan/Henry Holt; OverDrive Sample; July 7) gets a strong review in The New York Times.

The debut novel, a mix of literary fiction and crime story, received somewhat grudging praise from the trade reviewers (“Despite drawbacks here, Mitchell is on her way to a place at the femmes fatales fiction dais with Megan Abbott, Gillian Flynn, Tana French, and Sharon Bolton”). It comes across as much more intriguing in the hands of the NYT reviewer, Sarah Lyall who says “What a satisfying novel, with its shifting perspectives and competing stories and notion that our relationship to the truth changes with time and distance. And what a relief to read a kidnapping thriller that is not an extended piece of fetishistic torture porn, that does not end with some nice young woman lying dead and dismembered in a pit.”

The novel traces the history of two young girls who are kidnapped and held for weeks before rescue. Years later, as adults, they meet again after one of them has written a novel based on the story and the other is tapped to star in the book’s film adaptation.

Like the trade reviewers, Lyall compares  Pretty Is to books by another popular author, “Like Gillian Flynn’s spiky, damaged heroines — I’m thinking particularly of Camille in Sharp Objects and Libby in Dark Places — the girls, Lois and Chloe, have dry, self-aware senses of humor that make the book that much more fun to read.” Add this one to your RA file.

Holds are significant in some areas.

For some reason, the executive producer of the CBS series based on James Patterson’s Zoo, thinks the statement “We really want the whole world to fear their schnauzers,” is a good promo line.

That quote became the headline for Variety ‘s report on a press event to promote the series. The Hollywood Reporter chose to use a quote from master marketer Patterson instead, who said, “People always say the book is always better than the movie, In this case, I think the series is going to be better than the book.”

The actual tag line for the series is “Animals once ruled the Earth. What if they decided to take it back?”

The 13-episode series premieres on CBS at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, June 30.

Tie-ins:

Zoo

After several attempts to adapt it as a movie, Caleb Carr’s best selling 1994 psychological thriller set in gilded age era New York, The Alienist is now headed to the small screen, as an 8-part series for TNT with Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) attached to direct.

Deadline reports this is part of a shift in the focus for the network towards  “edgier original programming.”

The series still has to be cast and filmed, so it will be at least a year until it comes to fruition, depending on Fukunaga’s schedule. He just completed work on Beasts of No Nation, based on the novel by Uzodinma Iweala, for Netflix and is gearing up for an adaptation of Stephen King’s IT. Variety reports that Will Poulter is currently in negotiations to play the demonic clown Pennywise.

Word of mouth seems to growing for Jessica Knoll’s debut novel Luckiest Girl Alive (S&S; S&S Audio; OverDrive Sample). Based on its recent move up Amazon’s sales rankings, it is likely to hit best seller lists next week and may get an additional boost as  People‘s “Book of the Week” in the new issue, “the perfect page turner to start your summer.”

We named it a “Watch Title” for this week, based on reviews and GalleyChatters enthusiasm. Since then, holds have taken off with some libraries showing ratios as high as 9:1 on very light ordering.

Hollywood is also calling. Reese Witherspoon, who has developed an eye for domestic thrillers, having produced the film of Gone Girl, plans to adapt the novel for Lionsgate.

Calling it the “next True Detective,”  the Hollywood trades announce that HBO is set to adapt Liane Moriarty’s best seller Big Little Lies (Penguin/Putnam/Einhorn), winning it away from Netflix in a competitive auction. Niclole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon are producing and plan to star. They originally acquired the rights to the book, planning to adapt it as a feature film.

Like True Detective, which burnished the careers of its two stars, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, Hollywood watchers think this may do the same for Witherspoon and Kidman.

Both actress/producers have developed a taste for domestic thrillers. Kidman starred in Before I Go to Sleep, based on the novel by S.J. Watson (Harper, 2011). She’s also bought the rights to The Silent Wife, by A. S. A. Harrison (Penguin original trade pbk, 2013).

Reese Witherspoon recently optioned Watson’s upcoming mystery thriller Second Life (Harper; HarperAudio; HarperLuxe) and was a producer for Gone Girl, based on the novel by Gillian Flynn (RH/Crown, 2012).

After a long hiatus, the film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s second novel Dark Places has quietly been added to the domestic movie schedule, with a release date of August 8th.

Premiering in France earlier this year, it has a lot going for it, including the major success of the author’s previous adaptation, Gone Girl, and an A-list cast featuring Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, and Chloe Grace Moretz.

Theron worked to promote it, telling interviewers that she suffered a trauma similar to the one portrayed in the film, but trade reviews were not appreciative (The Hollywood Reporter was mixed but Variety was not).

Meanwhile, as we noted earlier, Flynn’s first novel, Sharp Objects, is being adapted as a TV series.

Flynn, who has a developing career in Hollywood, is now at work on an original script with 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen.

Tie-in:

Dark Places (Movie Tie-In Edition)
Gillian Flynn
RH/Broadway: June 2, 2015
9780553418484, 0553418483
Trade Paperback
$14.00 USD, $17.00 CAD

Speaking with simmering intensity in two exclusive videos on Entertainment Weekly‘s web site, David Lagercrantz, the author of The Girl in the Spider’s Web (RH/Knopf: RH Audio; RH Large Print, 9/1/15), the fourth book in Stieg Larsson’s  Millennium series, expresses his enthusiasm for main character, Lisbeth Salander.

The first book in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was made into a film directed by David Fincher in 2011. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Spider’s Web may bring renewed interest in developing the other titles in the series into English-language films (all three original titles were made into successful Swedish-language films).

The author of the uber-bestselling The Girl on the Train (Penguin/Riverhead), Paula Hawkins tells The Daily Beast that she is at work on another psychological thriller that she hopes “to finish over the summer so that it hopefully will be out summer or autumn of next year.”

She adds, “It also deals quite a lot with memory issues, but in a different way. It’s about the memories we have from childhood and how the stories that we tell about ourselves and our families shape who we are.”

She drops no hints about the title and admits she is feeling the pressure to try to live up to the success of GOTT, but says she is persevering because she doesn’t want to “leave too big a gap between the first book and the second, because the longer that gap, the more terrifying the publication of the second book becomes.”

UPDATE: The release date is now set for 8/7/15

The enormous success of the movie based on Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl leaves fans wondering what has happened to the adaptation of another Flynn novel, Dark Places with an A-list cast headed by Charlize Theron.

Originally scheduled for release on Sept. 1, that date has come and gone with no further news. The movie just premiered in Paris, complete with Theron dazzling in Dior, to a mixed, but mostly positive review from The Hollywood Reporter, and a more negative one from Variety, and the note it will be released in the U.S.  “later this year,”

Perhaps the tie-in, now scheduled for release in June, offers a clue that it will arrive in the fall.

Meanwhile, as we noted earlier, Flynn’s first novel, Sharp Objects, is being adapted as a TV series.

Flynn, who has a developing career in Hollywood, is now at work on an original script with 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen.

The star attraction of the RH/Knopf Fall 2015  catalog, posted on Friday, is the fourth title in The Millennium series, which began with Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Although Larsson reportedly left behind a manuscript for another title in the series when he died, this is an entirely new book, written by Swedish journalist David Lagercrantz, chosen by Larsson’s Swedish publisher, Norstedts with the approval of Larsson’s brother and father.

Another interested party is not happy about the forthcoming book. Larsson’s partner of 32 years, Eva Gabrielsson in an interview by Agence France-Presse, says this book’s release is not about continuing his legacy, “It’s about a publishing house [Norstedts] that needs money, (and) a writer who doesn’t have anything to write so he copies someone else.”

The title, translated from the Swedish, is That Which Does Not Kill.

UPDATE: The English-language title will be The Girl in the Spider’s Web, continuing the tradition of the others in the series, according to the Wall Street Journal, which also quotes Knopf’s Editor-in-Chief Sonny Mehta, who brought all three previous novels in the series to the U.S., “I think it has all the richness of the original sequence of novels. It’s got a whole chain of American characters in it, and American settings as well.”

Millennium Series: Book 4
David Lagercrantz
RH/Knopf: September 1, 2015
9780385354288, 0385354282
$27.95 USD

Attention to Paula Hawkins and her #1 bestseller The Girl on the Train (Penguin/Riverhead; OverDrive Sample) continues, indicating the novel’s popularity won’t peak soon. The New York Times devoted some of its Friday book coverage to the title again, publishing a profile of Hawkins and likening her to “a new generation of female suspense novelists — writers like Megan Abbott, Tana French, Harriet Lane and Gillian Flynn — who are redefining contemporary crime fiction with character-driven narratives that defy genre conventions. Their novels dig into social issues, feature complex women who aren’t purely victims or vixens, and create suspense with subtle psychological developments and shifts in relationships instead of procedural plot points and car chases.”

The Washington Post agrees, pairing GOTT with Harriet Lane’s Her (Hachette/Little, Brown; OverDrive Sample, Jan. 6) and pointing out that both feature “a troubled Englishwoman who takes an almost morbid interest in another person or persons. At first merely voyeurs, the two women soon become meddlers.” The Post reviewer, Dennis Drabelle, finds Her the better novel, deeming it “brilliant” while saying GOTT makes “the reader feel a bit manipulated.”

Another book published nearly at the same time as GOTT, Tim Johnston’s Descent, (Workman/Algonquin; OverDrive Sample, 12/10/14), is getting similar review attention as part of the newest Gone Girl crowd. As we reported earlier, both The Washington Post and NPR give it high praise. NPR went so far as to say that it makes Gone Girl “seem gimmicky and forced.”

Readers’ advisors looking for even more books to pair with GOTT might think back to the 2011 debut literary thriller, Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson (HarperCollins; OverDrive Sample) – another twisty and riveting novel about a woman with memory issues (the author’s next book, Second Life is coming in May from Harper). GalleyChatter Robin Beerbower predicts the next GOTT is the just-released The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson, (HarperCollins/Morrow), one of our Nine Titles to Know for the week.

Meanwhile, GOTT continues to gather steam on its own. The Los Angeles Review of Books, known for its literary bent, jumps on board combining an essay on artistic theory with a deep appreciation of the novel. Reviewer Kim Kankiewicz compares the book to Hitchcock, as many reviewers do, saying “nothing replicated my response to Rear Window until I read Paula Hawkins’ debut novel, The Girl on the Train … Hawkins writes as an astute reader of her own genre. She anticipates us as we anticipate her. She confirms our suspicions gradually, and our pleasure in the ending is heightened by what we saw coming.”

Fans of Hawkins can look forward to her next outing. The New York Times profile reports that Hawkins “has another book under contract, a Gothic-tinged psychological thriller about sisters that she says is now a month overdue. Like The Girl on the Train, it’s not a conventional crime story.”