The new book is DEEP FREEZE and here is the cover, which I think is pretty sensational.  It'll be in stores everywhere in June, and in the warehouse stores (Costco, Sam's Club and BJ's Wholesale) in an oversized trade paperback edition published only for those stores in July. 

 

This one is very different from all the thrillers that have come before it.  One reason is that it's a hybrid--a thriller, a caper, mystery, family saga and a disaster book in the entertaining tradition of The Towering Inferno and Earthquake.  It's about a snow storm that blankets Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego and even Palm Springs on the coldest winter California has ever known--echoes of these past months where we have had endless rain and lots of snow in areas of SoCal that never get that kind of stuff.  In fact, I tell people that all this nasty weather we've suffered through is simply a publicity stunt for my new book.

 

So, by June the sun will be out everwhere, making this the perfect beach read to cool you off.  But this book has a history...

 

It takes its inspiration from THE GREAT LOS ANGELES BLIZZARD, my first real novel under my own name, which was a great success all over the world back in the late 1970's.  It was bought for the movies by Irwin Allen, who did all the big disaster films back then, but was too expensive to film--they would have had to dump Ivory Snow all over Hollywood Boulevard.  So it became the next best thing, the basis for the Ice Princess story on General Hospital, which culminated with the wedding of Luke & Laura, the highest rated show in daytime history (I'm proud to say, because I wrote it!).  Snow on Port Charles came from snow on Los Angeles.  And then the years went on, the book went out of print, yet there was a cult following that never let it die.  And so, to please them, and the people who never read the original, it's back.

 

Update, revised, completely new in many respects--I mean, people drive SUVs now, not Ford Pintos.  And not everyone is married.  Honest, there wasn't a divorce in the book back then.  How times have changed.

 

But not good edgy seat-of-your pants entertainment, which is what this book is.  Recently, I was the guest speaker at the Placentia Library Foundation, a wonderful group of warm and fun-loving people supporting literacy.  After a terrific luncheon, Eleanore Rankin, who is president of Friends of the Placentia Library, introduced me and told everyone that she had read Blizzard last summer.  "It was hot outside, but the book was so real that I had to keep looking out the window to be sure it wasn't snowing."  Well, DEEP FREEZE does that even better. 

 

It's got a core family at the center of the survival story, a young weatherman named Michael Hanwell, his wife and little daughter, and family of friends in a typical L.A. apartment house.  His brother, Harry, is a hotshot agent married to a woman much older, a former famous singer in the Connie Stevens mode named Dee, who will tear your heart out with her talent, her sadness, her recollections of the good times with her pal Dusty Springfield, and the demons that haunt her today.  The snow is greeted with delight at first, people make snowmen and sled down Doheny Boulevard.  But the city quickly freezes with fear as the West Coast becomes a frigid wasteland.  Pools turn to solid blocks of ice, roofs collapse from the weight, fires rage when apartment furnaces explode, and in the midst of it all, a madman who worships one of the most horrific names in Los Angeles History, Charles Manson, sees the blizzard as a catalyst for a New Order, the ultimate Helter Skelter.  The Hanwell boys fight the elements as they make their way across town to their parents' home in Los Feliz, hoping to save their gravely ill little sister by getting her out by helicopter from the Griffith Park Observatory.  But when the warm winds come, all that snow starts to melt, bringing even more horror: unprecedented flooding.  Will they survive?  You'll know in June.

 

So, this Summer, Think Snow!  Enjoy my latest.

 

Want to thank everyone who cheered me along in my home town of Kenosha, Wisconsin, last Thanksgiving.  It was great to be back after a long absence, and even more thrilling to have so many wonderful old friends and new fans show up at the Racine Barnes & Noble.  Doing NPR at Gateway was a real thrill, and seeing two people who were mentors to me at the signing really thrilled me: Dolores Gapanowicz and Joyce Gyurina.  Without their early encouragement, I would not have followed the career path I went down.  And thanks most of all to the first love of my life, my dear Marybeth Zuhlke, for making it all happen. 

 

                                                        My gratitude to everyone who reads me,

 

                                                                                        Thom

 May 21st, a booksigning in Norco, California

 

June 17-18 is the Deadly Ink conference at the Parsippany Sheraton in Parsippany, NJ.  Kelly Lange and I will both be there.  Patti Biringer is the host, and she does a terrific job

every year. 

 

June 4th (my birthday!) is the Alameda Writer's Group in Glendale, CA.

 

September 10th, speaking to the Palm Springs chapter of Women In Film at the Parker Hotel.

 

November 5th, the Men of Mystery annual luncheon at the Irvine Marriott.  This is every male mystery writer's favorite event of the year, and Joan Hansen does an amazing job by creating a conference that is truly unique. 

 

Also, as usual, I'm out in front of Celebrity Books at the Palm Springs VillageFest every Thursday night, at our street fair held year round.  I'm there from 6 to 10 PM signing books, it's a joyous evening and lots of fun.  Dates I will NOT be there are: April 14, June 16, July 7, Aug 4 & 11, Sept 29, Oct 6.  Mexico, New York, Ireland and Spain are calling those weeks.  Hey, I need a break too!

 

REMEMBER: YOU CAN PURCHASE AUTOGRAPHED COPIES OF ANY OF MY BOOKS THROUGH THE LINK BELOW.  JUST INDICATE ON THE ORDER FORM FROM CELEBRITY BOOKS ANY SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS ON SIGNING, LIKE BIRTHDAY OR SPECIFIC NAMES, ETC.