Crafting Mystery Novels without Outlining: Emphasizing Surprise and Satisfaction for Readers

Today's episode focuses on two summer reads trying to piece together some pretty big questions. First, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with J. Courtney Sullivan about The Cliffs, which follows an archivist digging through the history of a seaside Victorian house in Maine — and the generations of women who lived there — at the owner's concern that it's haunted. Then, NPR's Scott Simon asks Liz Moore about The God of the Woods, which grapples with the disappearance of a wealthy family's daughter from a summer camp in the Adirondacks in 1975.

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