For readers who love forensic minds, damaged heroes, dastardly villains, isolated settings, and the kind of suspense that makes you check the locks twice. Where the Night Takes Usis waiting in the darkness. I hope you’ll find it the best psychological thriller you’ve read in a long time.
What do you want to know about my new suspense novel?
There is a particular kind of fear at the heart of psychological thrillers: the fear that escape is an illusion.
In Where the Night Takes Us, Dr. Simon Fethullah tries to step away from the violent world he knows. As a forensic psychiatrist working with the FBI, he used his expertise to understand dangerous minds. Simon’s testimony helped convict the Rainy Day Cannibal, but the victory came at a terrible cost. After taking a bullet, Simon retreats to Montana with his wife, Carla, and their enormous dog, Stefano.
Montana seems like the perfect place to begin again. But can physical isolation ever provide emotional safety? Simon is far from the courtroom and the FBI, but he is not free from memory. The people he studied — and the consequences of helping put them away — haunt him. This thriller explores the weaponization of knowledge. Simon’s mind made him valuable in the fight against criminals, but it is also his torment. Knowledge offers little comfort when it confirms your worst fears.
The big bad is the Rainy Day Cannibal. Though in prison, he is not powerless. His loyal followers have become eager accomplices. A prison cell may hold a body, but it cannot necessarily contain an idea or curb a vendetta.
For readers drawn to stories about damaged minds, moral uncertainty, and the long shadow of violence, Where the Night Takes Us offers unsettling questions: Are you safe? Is anyone? And what are you willing to do when danger comes knocking on your front door?
This month I’m promoting books, and not just my own. Kerrie, at Booklinker, set up a promotion for a bunch of sci-fi and fantasy books. We can all slide into fall at a steep discount and build our TBR piles. (One person reading this is asking, so let me soothe that person right now. TBR means To Be Read.)
My contribution is to set the price for This Plague of Days, Season One, at just 99¢! That’ll give you a great start to my bestselling trilogy. When a bioterrorist’s killer virus turns most survivors into a zombie horde, one mute boy on the spectrum is humanity’s only hope. The battle of Good versus Evil begins here. If you enjoyed The Stand, you’ll love This Plague of Days.
Dr. Simon Fethullah testified against Roderick Shane, the Rainy Day Cannibal. Shot on the witness stand, the brilliant forensic psychiatrist retired to the remote woods of Montana. For years, the good doctor thought he and his family were safe. Then the threatening postcards arrive.
The Rainy Day Cannibal is still in prison, but his madness reaches far beyond the walls of his cell. And he’s coming for Simon.
We are always scanning the horizon for what’s new. Last night, I rediscovered a gem at the bottom of the jewelry box. I found the answer to my question there, too.
A cop once asked me, how can you write crime thrillers without a cop as the central character?
“Easily,” I replied. “A team of crack investigators with all the power and authority of the badge is playing on god mode. I write about underdogs. The police may show up in my fiction, but they’re only batting cleanup after some crazed characters do the interesting things crazed characters do.”
The protagonist of my new release is a former FBI profiler, but he’s got PTSD, a bum hip, and a slippery grip on reality. Dr. Simon Fethullah relies much more on his wits than his gun.
In Where the Night Takes Us, all the action takes place at Dr. Simon Fethullah’s hideaway in Montana. He thought he was safe there. He was mistaken.
The second book in the Fear-Death Series is titled When the Night Finds Us. The novel is in the editorial pipeline. (I’m going over edits and suggestions today.) The story is set in Texas.
How the Night Claims Us is a pile of notes, character descriptions, and plot points at the moment. But what setting will be best for the third in this series?
This is not my first foray into crime fiction.
My backlist includes the four books in the Hit Man Series, The Night Man, Brooklyn in the Mean Time, Vengeance Is Hers, Murders Among Dead Trees, and Sometime Soon, Somewhere Close. (Ahem! See the sales links to the right.) Most are set in the United States.
Initially, When the Night Finds Us was going to be set in Florida. As a proud and thankful Canadian (and a member of the Crime Writers of Canada) I reconsidered. I grew up in Nova Scotia. It’s not an exotic destination to me, but it is unfamiliar or much loved by many. Dad always referred to the Annapolis Valley as “God’s Country” and, though he’d traveled the world, he couldn’t imagine the allure of living anywhere else.
Where the Night Takes Us is set in a fictional, rural area of Montana. When the Night Finds Us is set in Defiant, Texas. (That name sounds redundant, doesn’t it?) Is it time to add an international flavor to my forensic psychiatrist’s investigations? Would a Canadian setting hurt sales with my American readers?
Retrieving the Forgotten: In Praise of the Backlist
To taste that Nova Scotian flavor again, I revisited an anthology I published in 2019. Sometime Soon, Somewhere Close explores the minds and methodologies of some messed-up people. The first story is set in Port George, Nova Scotia. When I was a kid, my parents often drove the few miles up the mountain and to the shore there to take in the sunset over the Bay of Fundy. (Motto: Highest Tides in the World!)
The sunsets were lovely, especially that sumer the dust from Chinese nuclear tests colored the sky. (Not kidding.) We could see the lights of New Brunswick across the waves. It looks closer than it really is, but it would not be an easy swim. It was cooler on the shore, so while descending the South Mountain back down into the Valley’s summer heat, all the car windows would fog up in a flash. The fogged windows hit about the same moment your ears would pop from the change in elevation.
It’s the sort of drive you take with your parents when you’re little, and if you’re good, you might get ice cream in Margaretsville. Later, after you get your driver’s license, you take your girlfriend on those same forays to the Bay of Fundy to see the sunset and wait for the stars to come out.
Revisiting old work can produce a very particular anxiety: Is this how I finally discover a typo previously missed?
However, thankfully, no typos! Rereading that story after all this time was wonderful. And it pulled me into the next short story, and the next, and the next! It wasn’t mere nostalgia. Details I’d forgotten came flooding back. Not to toot my own horn too hard, but damn, that Robert in 2019 turned some good phrases and added clever twists. I’d like to think I’ve only improved, of course, but time and distance from a previously published title added to my appreciation of what I was doing with that book. I’ve had time, and many books since. I was nice to come at it anew.
There are logistics to consider, and a few minor adjustments. I think I can get Dr. Simon Fethullah, his driver Paloma, and Simon’s enormous dog, Stephano, up into the Great White North. There are rich settings in Nova Scotia, and I know them well, so why not? My impulse for the change started with an Elbows Up attitude, but the place will serve the story well, too.
But a haunting question chewed at the back of my brain. Most of my readers are US citizens. Will they be interested in a setting outside the United States?
After graduating from journalism school, I got my first training in publishing at the Banff Publishing Workshop decades ago. I remember two lessons from that bootcamp experience:
1. Unless it’s a book about golf or gardening, green covers don’t sell. 2. American readers want American settings (not North American settings).
I’m not sure about #1, but #2 has changed. For those who disagree, maybe I’ll change their minds.
Last weekend I visited a very small but very well-curated bookstore. Scanning the Mystery/Thriller/Suspense sections, it was remarkable how many vicars in Yorkshire are sticking their big noses into murder investigations. Book clubs across the UK are embarrassing Scotland Yard with their amateur sleuthing. The lessons I learned at the Banff School of Fine Arts was a wonderful introduction to publishing (and got me jobs in book publishing the moment I moved to Toronto). But some stale advice has become old tattered hat, ready for the bin.
People want a good, well-written story that keeps them up at night turning pages. I can deliver that, no matter where Dr. Simon Fethullah hunts serial killers.
~ I am Robert Chazz Chute. I write suspenseful novels about evildoers now and at the end of the world. Or is “now” and “the end of the world” redundant?
A particular kind of fear lies at the heart of psychological thrillers: the fear that escape is an illusion.
In Where the Night Takes Us, Dr. Simon Fethullah tries to step away from the violent world he knows. As a forensic psychiatrist working with the FBI, Simon used his expertise to understand dangerous minds. His testimony helped convict the Rainy Day Cannibal, but the victory came at a terrible cost. After taking a bullet, Simon retreats to Montana with his wife, Carla, and their enormous dog, Stefano.
Montana seems like the perfect place to begin again. The landscape offers distance, quiet, and the promise of a life untouched by Simon’s former work. Yet the novel steadily questions whether physical isolation can ever provide emotional safety. Simon may be far from the courtroom and the FBI, but he is not free from memory. The people he studied—and the consequences of helping put them away—remain part of him.
That tension between peace and threat drives the story forward. The quieter Simon’s new life appears, the more unsettling each intrusion becomes. When threatening postcards arrive, they transform the landscape around him. A remote home is no longer a refuge. Every road, window, and distant sound can become part of the danger.
The book also explores the weaponization of knowledge. Simon’s mind made him valuable in the fight against criminals, but it is also his torment. He understands how predators think, which means he can recognize the implications of a threat before anyone else. That insight may help him survive, but it also prevents him from dismissing the danger.
Then there is the Rainy Day Cannibal’s influence. Though imprisoned, he is not powerless. His loyal following allows his ambitions to travel beyond the walls meant to contain him. The novel’s most chilling idea is that a person can remain dangerous without direct access to the outside world. A prison cell may hold a body, but it cannot necessarily contain an idea, a grudge, or a devoted accomplice.
For readers drawn to stories about damaged minds, moral uncertainty, and the long shadow of violence, Where the Night Takes Us will be your binge read this September.
Where the Night Takes Us launches on Amazon for just 99 cents for a limited time.
Where the Night Takes Us is the first book in the Fear-Death Experiences series. It’s a thriller about Dr. Simon Fethullah, a retired FBI profiler stalked by the Rainy Day Cannibal. Rainy Day is in prison, but his reach goes far beyond the bars of his cell.
Early feedback has been great! The beta readers love it!
Yesterday, I passed a big milestone on the path to publication.
I completed the manuscript for the sequel: When the Night Finds Us. This mystery/thriller begins with Simon, suffering fallout from the events in Where the Night Takes Us. When a villain runs him off the road, the good doctor is injured but intent on finding new purpose. He buys a big RV, hires a driver, and heads off to Texas with his faithful dog Stefano.
His mission: A girl has gone missing from Defiant, Texas. Find Willy Dupree, dead or alive. As his perception of reality blurs, Simon will have to find his way through the darkness and, maybe, back to the light.
I’m so happy with the story. It has heart and thought, twists and turns. I love all the sassy banter with Simon’s driver, Paloma Garrido, too. There’s action and mystery, but room for plenty of jokes, too. My final draft is off to my editor, the great Gari Strawn. I’m aiming to release this sequel by the end of October.
Lessons learned
The previous two novels I’ve published, Vengeance Is Hersand Endemic, are big books. I wrote them that way because the stories I wanted to tell demanded room to move. Vengeance Is Hers, in particular, needed length because the instigating incident occurs when the heroine, Molly, is in high school. After a tragedy, she leaves the only home she’s ever known to try to leave her penchant for vengeance behind her. She grows up a little and tries to make a peaceful life. Her instinct to seek justice in her inimitable way leads her to lose her job in academia. With nowhere else to go, she returns to Poeticule Bay, Maine, after twelve years. When she discovers that the town has changed, but the villains haven’t, she slips back into revenge mode.
When I discussed the book with literary agents, they had two concerns:
(A) The age of the protagonist. Is this a young adult story? Is it contemporary women’s fiction? New adult? Molly goes from a teenager to twenty-nine, so what shelf in the bookstore is appropriate?
(B) The length. At 114,000 words. Was it too long for the usual genre expectations?
My answers: To point A, Vengeance Is Hers crosses genres. Point B, yeah, maybe so (but so what?)
If I had to pick one category for VIH, I’d say New Adult, but my primary market is not bookstores. My sales platforms are mostly digital. By not heeding the agents’ cautions, did I hurt my book sales? No. Online sales platforms are search engines. There is no shelf. There is metadata, keywords, descriptions, and the cover. That’s what sells it.
Besides, the VIH story I wanted to tell required that length. To serve readers best, a better story demanded I write against industry expectations.
Lessons learned: Not all advice is for everyone all the time. Consider good advice from well-meaning experts. Reject advice when it feels constrictive, dated, or simply not for you. Follow your heart. No regrets.
BONUS: And take heart! The publishing industry is, in many ways, a complete mess right now. If you’re forging your own path, you’re in great company.
2. Not fitting into a box is not what hurt the sales of Vengeance Is Hers. I did.
I focused on the writing, not the marketing. VIH is considered excellent by those few who have read it. However, I was impatient. It had been a long time since I’d published Endemic, and I was concerned I’d been forgotten by my readership. Too eager to hit the button, I basically tossed VIH out there without priming the pump by letting more people know it exists. There are so many books published each day that it’s very easy to disappear in the book marketplace. That’s more and more true each day with the flood of AI slop books.
Lesson learned: Hope, history, laurels, a few ads, social media posts, and newsletters are insufficient. We must advertise and nurture sales as if the book’s a flightless baby bird in the nest. I write great novels. (Hey, false modesty is false!) But anemic marketing is the equivalent of an opera singer belting out beautiful arias in a soundproof room.
So what’s next, Rob?
For Where the Night Takes Us, I’ve engaged BookSirens, Booksprout, and Itsy Bitsy Book Bits to find reviewers. I’ve sent out advance reader copies. I’ve completed fresh research, and there’s yet more to do. I’ve experimented with ads and taken more book marketing seminars. I have someone lined up to help me promote Whenthe Night Finds Us.
I’ve proven myself great at plotting. Now I have to engage in more planning. Do I enjoy the marketing end of the publishing business? Not really. I didn’t always enjoy selling other people’s books when I was a rep for several publishers. However, I sold millions of dollars’ worth of books to stock bookstores across Toronto and Cottage Country.
I love writing. I love entertaining readers. It’s unreasonable to expect to enjoy every aspect of your work. To find readers, I have to promote. I can’t hide in the blanket fort forever with only my keyboard to keep me warm. And so, to market, to market. (Hint: If you do enjoy every aspect of your work, keep it to your own damn self, weirdo!)
3. About Shiny Keys Syndrome Working on the Fear-Death Experiences Series, I got back in touch with an edict I’d almost forgotten: Commit to one path and don’t be too precious about getting the words down.
It is so easy to suffer Shiny Keys Syndrome. Ideas are cheap, but it’s the execution that takes so much time. I do not use generative AI, and I’m not a great typist, so I go slow. Along that long road, it’s easy to get distracted by the latest brilliant epiphany for a different book. I often wake up with inspiration in the morning or the middle of the night. Instead of looking away from my work in progress and listening to the siren song of those jangly keys, I stay the path, hold the line, and keep working on the book I’m already writing. So many ideas, so little time! If only I were immortal, or at least nigh-immortal.
To ensure that I don’t wander off like a toddler at the fair, I’m keeping better track now. Each day I record what I accomplished and what I plan to do tomorrow. All in shorthand, my notebook is part diary, part tracker, and all encouragement to keep my energy up and the momentum moving forward. Being a novelist is fun, but at its core this is still work. It’s a job, and jobs require attention, purpose, focus, and showing up consistently.
Final thoughts
Track your progress, because that which is not measured is not improved. Show up. Keep going. Maintain momentum. Do what you have to do, even the stuff that’s not comfortable. Peace and prosperity may be your aim, but getting there won’t be without speed bumps. Too much comfort is a trap. Explore options and don’t be intimidated by what you are comfortable with. For instance, running ads can be confounding, but confidence doesn’t come before the task. Confidence follows the work.
Vengeance Is Hers and Endemic are available on Amazon and these fine stores:
~ Have we met? I’m Robert Chazz Chute, blanket fort dweller, achy-ass cyclist, erstwhile Nova Scotian, graduate of journalism school and the Banff Publishing Workshop. Fifteen-time writing award winner, I’m also a raging hypochondriac who rages against the night. I pen apocalyptic epics with heart and suspenseful thrillers with brains and muscle. Since writing the Fear-Death Experiences series, I’ve become a huge fan of Cane Corsos like this guy:
It begins with a threatening postcard from a serial killer. Before it’s over, the US press secretary will be assassinated, a girl is kidnapped, and the good guy must cover up a murder.
Dr. Simon Fethullah is the FBI profiler who put away the Rainy Day Cannibal. Rainy Day is in prison, but he’s still coming after the good doctor. Hiding in the remote woods of Montana won’t be enough to save Simon and his wife. Stalked and alone, they’ll have to defend themselves from monstrous strangers. Serial killers don’t give up easily.
(Also, you’re going to fall in love with Stefano, but you’ll have to read the novel to find out what he’s all about.)
Where the Night Takes Us releases on September 14, but the ebook is available for pre-order at a steep discount.
Where the Night Takes Us is a gripping psychological thriller that releases on September 14, but you don’t have to wait. ARCs (advance review copies) are now available to download.
What is the novel about?
Dr. Simon Fethullah’s weapon was his mind. It is also his torment.
As a forensic psychiatrist working with the FBI, Simon’s testimony helped to convict the Rainy Day Cannibal. After taking a bullet for his trouble, Simon retreats to the wilds of Montana to hide and to heal with his loving wife Carla and Stefano, their massive dog. The good doctor seeks peace, but murderers have long memories. When the President’s Press Secretary is assassinated, a serial killer’s dreams become our nightmares.
Though caged, prison walls cannot contain Rainy Day’s ambitions. The madman has a loyal following and a vendetta that demands a terrible price. When threatening postcards find their way to Simon’s door, it’s clear that dangerous people know how to find him, and they are coming for blood.
Why You Might Love Where the Night Takes Us
Why authors give away free copies
Book sales platforms are getting inundated with AI slop. It’s estimated that between 3,000 and 4,000 books are uploaded to Amazon every day. There’s been an alarmingly sharp increase in the number of new books published due to the extensive use of AI.
Note: I do not use AI to write my books, nor is AI used in the creation of my covers and graphics.
To get the attention of the sales algorithms, I need reviews on my work, preferably during the first couple of weeks after the novel’s release.
All ARC readers who are accepted will receive a Bookfunnel link to download a digital copy. Enjoy your summer beach read!Thank you!
~ I’m Robert Chazz Chute, the winner of fifteen writing awards. I pen suspenseful thrillers and apocalyptic epics from my blanket fort in Other London.
