About The Author: Peter Abrahams ..... "And still do (read a lot), but I became much more demanding in my reading. Besides all the usual things - depth of characterization, atmosphere, the telling details--I grew to want that extra something that's so hard to pin down, related to the voice of the writer and the resonance of the story, which I think of as the spirit of the book. So many novels have none at all, but the great ones--Pale Fire, The Comedians, Crime and Punishment to name a few that affected me--glow with it.
Nabokov is one of my favorites. The sheer brilliance! He makes it look so easy. I wonder what writers he read after the age of forty, say. Any writers at all, other than himself? Why bother?
Closer to my own field, I've been influenced by Graham Greene. I refer especially to what he called his entertainments. They are crime novels as far as I'm concerned (A Gun for Sale, Stamboul Train, Brighton Rock), and that's what I do. One of the problems in crime fiction is the evanescence of the reading experience, how light these stories--no matter how crammed with noir--really are. Greene's are weighty, and what momentum he establishes when they get going! With Greene, there's also the voice, so sympathetic at times, at other times off-putting, often both at once. I love how he does that.

Awards
Edgar Awards Best Novel nominee (1995) : Lights Out
Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (2006) : Oblivion

Echo Falls
1. Down the Rabbit Hole (2005)
2. Behind the Curtain (2006)
3. Into the Dark (2008)