How to write a bestseller — by hit thriller writer Harlan Coben

The American thriller writer has published 35 books and sold 80 million copies in 46 languages since his debut, Play Dead, almost 30 years ago. Nine of his page-turners have been turned into Netflix series, with the latest, Fool Me Once, starring Joanna Lumley, Michelle Keegan and Richard Armitage.

So if you’re thinking of finally writing that thriller in 2024, who better to offer advice than the 62-year-old from New Jersey.

Work out what you want to write. When I was 15 my father gave me a copy of Marathon Man by William Goldman. You could have put a gun to my head and I wouldn’t have put it down. My first novel wasn’t very good — pretentious, pompous and self-absorbed. I realised