Michael Jackson album inspires new mystery anthology ‘Thriller’

Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is the best-selling album of all time, having sold a reported 70 million copies. Sarasota mystery writer Don Bruns would be happy with a fraction of that success for the new anthology he put together inspired by the album.

As he did with last year’s hit “Hotel California,” Bruns has edited and written a story for the collection based off titles from Jackson’s album.

“When we started ‘Hotel California’ I thought I was calling in favors from the writers. Instead, every writer I talked to said, ‘Oh, my God. I want to be part of this.”

The book features nine short stories that use the song titles, but nothing else from the songs or lyrics.

Jeffery Deaver, author of “The Bone Collector,” which is being adapted into a new TV series,  chose “The Lady in My Life,’ and Heather Graham picked the album’s title song for their projects. Bruns himself wrote a story titled “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.”

Bruns said Deaver was his first call for the book. “I thought if I can get somebody of that calibre it would make it easy. But it all came together. Heather, (William) Kent Krueger and all the rest, and then some of them said, ‘what’s next.”

The book also features stories by David R. Slayton, Jennifer Graeser Dornbush, Neil S. Plakcy, Dahlia Rose and Rick Bleiweiss.

“Often, the hardest part of writing a song or story is coming up with a grabber title, and these songs are all familiar titles, just like with ‘Hotel California’,” Bruns said.

But the authors had to come up with their own story ideas.

“They don’t write stories about the song. We don’t want any copyright infringement issues. We can use the titles but if we write stories based on the theme of a song, that’s a problem,” he said.

He was surprised that “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” was still available for him to use after he let the other writers pick first. “It was a big song. I thought this is a great title because it could be about anything.”

He ended up creating a story about a young girl and an older woman who become friends walking dogs. “It sounds almost like a cozy story but it is a mystery,” he said.

It was inspired by the 14-year-old daughter of a family friend who “asked if we could put her in the book. She finds this older woman is in a romance scam and some guy is trying to get her fortune.”

He said Graham created a story that really uses the idea of thriller, but Deaver’s story tied into the title only because “he uses a woman in his life.”

Mystery writers tackle short stories in different ways. Deaver told Bruns that he wrote his in three days. Bruns said if he were more disciplined, he might have finished in a week, but it took longer.

Only one writer turned him down, Bruns said. “He told me it takes him longer to write a short story than a full novel.”

Bruns, who always has two or three books in development, is now on the fourth book in his New Orleans series that began with “Casting Bones.” and next summer a third anthology will be released based on the AC/DC album “Back in Black.”

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ inspires new mystery anthology collection