Welcome to my website …
There’s really nothing quite like a story with a powerful mix of suspense and mystery. It grips us and as part of the human condition we have that almost unbearable desire to see the conclusion and discover the truth. The need to know the answer is a price we pay for intelligence.
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.”
Albert Einstein
Through my books, I’m trying to utilise elements like plot, character and themes to play with this and other human attributes that the reader possesses. To appreciate the stories, you may wish to consider how I might approach storytelling and attempt to mix ‘suspense’ with ‘mystery’. To do this you’ll want to understand, ‘what’s the distinction between these two techniques?’.
Alfred Hitchcock was known as the “Master of Suspense”. Hitchcock explained the key difference between ‘suspense’ and ‘mystery’ in the simplest way …
“Mystery is when the spectator knows less than the characters in the movie. Suspense is when the spectator knows more than the characters in the movie.” Alfred Hitchcock
Hitchcock called ‘mystery’ an ‘intellectual process’ and ‘suspense’ an ‘emotional process’. He understood the strength of playing with the spectator’s emotions and created historic movie moments doing it.
I’ll attempt to weave these aspects with other open-ended concepts in the narrative, such as ethics. This will create opportunities to examine the nature of the characters or plots and allow you, the reader, to make decisions about them. There’ll be no right answer here … your decision is yours alone.
I’m trying to mix these and provide you with alternate perspectives on multiple elements of the story; sometimes I’ll give you information … sometimes not. It may not be obvious when or if this is the case. I might tell you things early in the series and other things will only become clear later. I’ll also leave certain plot elements to your imagination. Your mind will tell you the story you want to hear far better than I can.
What this all means is you may need to invest some brain cells in the tales to get the most from them. These are not cozy mysteries; at the most basic the stories are realistic high crime mysteries mixed with fast-paced international spy thrillers. Yes, this should mean I provide you with an intriguing page-turner. If this is what you want, I hope I can meet this demand. However, my aspirations are slightly higher; if I do my job, I’ll create varied themes and questions within the mystery; some will have answers and others you’ll need to answer yourself. Every now and then, we’ll see if I can provoke your emotions.
Enjoy.
Karl
