Plum Island, by Nelson DeMille

The book was billed as very suspenseful, so I read it to learn how it was done. The book is a basic murder mystery with the added suspense of Plum Island, an island off of New York used for biological warfare research. The book was a good story with a good deal of suspense, but it wasn't quite the page-turner that I had hoped for--maybe my expectations were too high.

Here's what I learned about plotting out a suspenseful novel:

• Reveal the information little by little; DeMille did this at the beginning with one clue per chapter.
• If it's necessary to set up an event in the middle to make the ending work, make that event part of a different story-line so it fits in and doesn't draw too much attention to itself.
  
• When DeMille introduced a minor question (like the significance of a clue), he answered the question a chapter or two later.
• For major questions (motive for murder, who dunnit), the action was tied into those questions. He also had the main character thinking about the questions and considering possible answers.
• After things go well for the characters, have something bad happen quickly to rebuild suspense. Happy, contented characters are boring.
• DeMille used only a little bit of foreshadowing. However, he was limited because the book was first-person and so we only knew what the main character knew.
• Pure action is boring. The only part that was boring to me was a boat chase chapter that was all action with no character development or mysteries introduced/revealed.