Frederick Forsyth’s Edgar Award-winning thriller, The Day of the Jackal, inspired me to write. The jackal, a fictional assassin based loosely on a real bad guy, plots to kill France’s president, Charles de Gaulle. Readers at the time didn’t need to guess the outcome—they would know de Gaulle died of an aneurism in 1970, not an assassin’s bullet, a year before Forsyth published his book. That knowledge didn’t matter. I sat on the edge of my seat, rushing through the novel to reach the end.
Most authors of mysteries and thrillers establish suspense by holding the reveal until the last chapter, or, for those authors who favor an extra little surprise, holding the reveal until the penultimate chapter. The reader can’t stop until learning the identity of the murderer, or the success or failure of a scheme. So how did Forsyth create suspense when the conclusion was never in doubt? I tried what is now known as reverse engineering as I tried to understand his craft.
Book reviewers helped me. They understood that the path to the outcome established suspense, rather than the outcome itself. One emphasized that how the pieces fell into place created tension. Another emphasized that the twists along the way spurred readers on. For my part, I saw that Forsyth highlighted what we might call the process, as in a procedural mystery.
I knew I could never write like Forsyth, but I began to imagine a similar plot for my own novel. I wanted to write a thriller centered around President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1906 visit to the site of the Panama Canal, where I imagined several assassins plotted his demise. Again, readers would know that Roosevelt did not die from an assassin’s bullet.
I wrote Path of Peril from multiple points of view, portraying, sometimes minute by minute, the actions and thoughts of characters in Roosevelt’s entourage as they learned of danger, and the actions and thoughts of assassins as they schemed. I chose the word path in the title intentionally, anticipating that the process was more important than the conclusion. I focused on portraying the backstories and motivations of the would-be assassins, explaining each stage of their planning and each practice run. To put this another way, to drive suspense I relied on characters at least as much as the overarching plot. One of my shooters changes his ethnic identity, changes his profession, studies the range he needs for his rifle, seeks funding from a titan of industry, finds an accomplice no one would suspect, and rents a room overlooking a plaza where Roosevelt will speak. Another shooter also changes his profession, steals a uniform as a disguise, meticulously cleans his revolver, and seeks funding from a stranger with a grudge against Roosevelt. As we follow these detailed plans, we share the assassins’ nervousness and insecurities.
Undoubtedly some crimes occur as a single action, with no motivation, no planning, and no twists. Others—I believe the crimes ones we care to read about the most—have backstories that engage us as much as the denouement.
Marlie Wasserman writes historical crime fiction.
Her debut novel, THE MURDERESS MUST DIE, tells the story of Martha Place, the first woman to die in the electric chair. Her second novel, PATH OF PREY, is a twisty tale of multiple assassins scheming to murder Teddy Roosevelt in 1906 at the Panama Canal. Her forthcoming novel, INFERNO ON FIFTH, is based on the true story of a deadly hotel fire in Manhattan in 1899. Before she turned to novels, Marlie ran a university press specializing in nonfiction books in the social sciences and humanities.
When she is not writing, Marlie sketches and travels. Topping her bucket list is a visit to each of the United States’ sixty-two national parks. She has visited forty-two to date.
Marlie and her husband Mark live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
