Jeffery Deaver - Watchlist

A book in the Harold Middleton series, 2010

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to come up with an innovative idea to help put a brand new writers’ organization on the map and then convince top thriller writers to donate their ideas and their time to make it work.

That was my main job when International Thriller Writers (ITW) was formed in October 2004 and I joined the founding board of directors.

As a thriller writer myself and owner of a marketing company for authors and publishers, the part of ITW’s mission statement that was closest to my heart was: “To bestow recognition and promote the thriller genre at an innovative and superior level.”

We came up with lists of ideas. Some fizzled right away. Others took a while to crash and burn. A few had some game and looked like they might actually come to fruition.

Of all possible projects, the idea of a serialized novel written by some of the genre’s best writers-to be released first in audio-chapter by chapter over 8 weeks-was one of the most unusual and the one I was the most involved in coming up with and excited about.

Steve Feldberg, director of content at Audible.com, and I hashed out the idea over the phone first and then over coffee in person. A few months later Audible gave the idea the green light and the ITW board announced it was on board.

That’s when the impossible mission really started. How could I convince dozens of writers to donate their ideas and their time to a collaborative project that was different than anything done before?

Take a look at the cover of this book. We weren’t just talking about writers… but wonderful writers, successful writers, writers who are used to actually getting paid (a lot of money) for their ideas, whose books are on national and international best-seller lists. Writers who are household names, who have sold millions of books. Writers who are all on deadline with their own books and who have commitments to their fans, publishers, and families.

How do you get Lee Child to abandon Jack Reacher? Get Jeff Deaver to write about someone other than Lincoln Rhyme? To get Lisa Scottoline to leave her beloved Philly? To get Jim Fusilli not only to write a chapter but take on the Herculean task of herding these big cats and running the show? And on and on with everyone one of the eleven other authors.

Turns out you pick up the phone and just ask.

Amazingly every author I asked to be part of this ground-breaking project said yes. Amazingly. Eagerly. In fact so many said yes, I actually lost my own place in the book because I couldn’t possibly take a spot that one of these luminaries was willing to fill.

The Chopin Manuscript-part one of The Watchlist -was the first ever audio serial thriller. It won the Audiobook of the Year and was an unqualified best-seller.

It was a unique collaboration among fifteen distinguished international thriller writers who came together with a single goal. To help establish ITW as a viable, valuable, important organization for its authors.

Jeffery Deaver conceived the characters and the setting and put the plot in motion with the first chapter. From there the story was turned over to fourteen authors who each wrote a chapter that propelled the story along. Along the way the plot took twists and turns as each author lent his or her own imprint on the tale. Characters were added as the action moved around the world-and the stakes got higher and higher. The book wrapped with Deaver writing the final two chapters, bringing The Chopin Manuscript to its explosive conclusion.

And then two years later everyone did it again (with a few new authors coming on board and a few who had prior commitments stepping out) with The Copper Bracelet.

Once again Deaver started it, a host of brilliant writers kept the story spinning and twisting and turning, and then Deaver finished it.

What you’re holding in your hands is above all proof of how generous and talented the writers are who make up ITW. All of whom I want to thank for being part of a marvelous project that I hope you, dear reader, find as entertaining, breathtaking, thrilling, and un-put-down-able as I do.

M. J. Rose

July 2009

The piano tuner ran through ascending chords, enjoying the resistance of the heavy ivory keys. His balding head was bent forward, his eyes closed as he listened. The notes rose to the darkened ceiling of the recital hall near Warsaw’s Old Market Square, then dissipated like smoke.

Satisfied with his work, the tuner replaced the temperament strips and his well-worn extension-tuning lever in their velvet case and indulged himself by playing a few minutes of Mozart, A Little Night Music, an ebullient piece that was one of his favorites.

Just as he concluded, the crisp sound of clapping palms echoed behind him and he spun around. Twenty feet away stood a man nodding and smiling. Stocky, with a flop of brown hair, broad of face. Southern Slavic, the tuner thought. He’d traveled in Yugoslavia many years ago.

“Lovely. Ah, my. So beautiful. Do you speak English?” the man asked with a thick accent.

“I do.”

“Are you a performer here? You must be. You are so talented.”

“Me? No, I simply tune pianos. But a tuner must know his way about the keyboard too… Can I help you, sir? The recital hall is closed.”

“Still, such a passion for music. I could hear it. Have you never desired to perform?”

The piano tuner didn’t particularly care to talk about himself, but he could discuss music all night long. He was, in addition to being perhaps the best piano tuner in Warsaw if not all of central Poland, an avid collector of recordings and original music manuscripts. If he’d had the means, he would collect instruments too. He had once played a Chopin polonaise at the very keyboard the composer had used; he considered it one of the highpoints of his life.

“I used to. But only in my youth.” He told the man of his sweep through Eastern Europe with the Warsaw Youth Orchestra, with which he’d been second-chair cello.

He stared at the man, who in turn was examining the piano. “As I say, the hall is closed. But perhaps you’re looking for someone?”

“I am, yes.” The Slav walked closer and looked down. “Ah, a Bosendorfer. One of Germany’s great contributions to culture.”

“Oh, yes,” the slight man said, caressing the black lacquer and gothic type of the company’s name. “It’s perfection. It truly is. Would you like to try it? Do you play?”

“Not like you. I wouldn’t presume to even touch a single key after hearing your performance.”

“You’re too kind. You say you’re looking for someone. You mean Anna? The French horn student? She was here earlier but I believe she’s left. There’s no one else, except the cleaning woman. But I can get a message to anyone in the orchestra or the administration, if you like.”

The visitor stepped closer yet and gently brushed a key-true ivory, the piano having been made before the ban. “You, sir,” he said, “are the one I came to see.”