Scott Trendell

Former U.S. Capitol insider writing political thrillers. The rooms Washington doesn't show you. The Writer's Toolkit on YouTube. Free Thriller Kit ↓

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

What if your book is more than one genre? Good. A lot of books are. But here's the key. Know which genre is driving the bus.

On YouTube: The Writer's Toolkit.

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#amwriting #WritingCommunity #writingtips #writerslife #authortube #novelwriting

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

@LeeGimenez Congratulations on the release, Lee. J.T. Ryan up against an AI killer is a strong hook. Wishing you a great launch.

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

Publishing moves slowly. By the time you finish the manuscript, revise it, edit it, find an agent, sell it, and get it published, that trend may have changed completely.

On YouTube: The Writer's Toolkit.

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#amwriting #WritingCommunity #writingtips

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

Don't look at the books you think you should read. Look at the books you actually read. There's evidence sitting on your bookshelf about what fascinates you.

On YouTube: The Writer's Toolkit.

#amwriting #WritingCommunity #writingtips #writerslife #authortube #novelwriting

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

Imagine yourself ten years from now. Someone walks into a bookstore, sees your newest novel, and says: "Oh, I love this writer. They write incredible ______." What do you want that blank to say?

On YouTube: The Writer's Toolkit.

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#amwriting

[Lee Gimenez @LeeGimenez]

My novel, The Movie Murders, is now available in Audible.

At Amazon: https://t.co/7Rr3aeoJfg

#Books #Kindle #Movies #Films #Audible #AI #USA

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

When you're drafting, draft. When you're revising, revise. If every newborn sentence has to survive an editorial board meeting before it's allowed onto the page, your imagination stops submitting applications.

On YouTube: The Writer's Toolkit.

#WritingCommunity #amwriting

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

Maybe the material isn't ready yet. You don't throw vegetable scraps on the pile Tuesday afternoon and demand rich soil Wednesday morning. Sometimes your mind is working on the story in ways you can't see yet.

On YouTube: The Writer's Toolkit.

#WritingCommunity #amwriting

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

We make a mistake when we treat writer's block like a single disease. There are many different ways to be blocked. And sometimes you're blocked because you're trying to create and criticize at the same time.

On YouTube: The Writer's Toolkit.

#WritingCommunity #amwriting

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

@LeeGimenez Thanks, Lee. I'll post my review when I finish the book.

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

Back in July I told @LeeGimenez I was adding the J.T. Ryan series to my stack. Started THE WASHINGTON ULTIMATUM tonight.

Review when I'm done. I don't rate, I review.

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

Don't research in the middle of creative momentum. Type check later in brackets and keep going, because sometimes research is research, and sometimes research is procrastination wearing glasses.

Full episode on YouTube: search The Writer's Toolkit.

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

You sit down to write, and nothing happens. Forty minutes later the word count hasn't moved. I don't think you're out of ideas. I think something is standing between you and the page.

Full episode on YouTube: search The Writer's Toolkit.

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

Don't borrow my why. Yours doesn't have to be profound, and it doesn't have to sound good on a coffee mug. It has to be true.

Full episode on The Writer's Toolkit, YouTube.

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

Forget about publishing, money, reviews, the bestseller lists, the movie. Someone has just finished reading your book. They close it. They put it down. Now answer this.

Full episode on The Writer's Toolkit, YouTube.

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

So you want to be a writer. Before you worry about characters, plot, agents, or how many copies you'll sell, there's a harder question. Why?

Full episode and a free workbook on The Writer's Toolkit, YouTube.

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

A Washington book. Written at a lake in New England.

That isn't a contradiction. You cannot see the Capitol clearly from inside it — the noise never stops long enough.

Two chairs. One is where the work happens. One is where the story actually gets solved.

Free Insider Kit → https://t.co/fr1ElsadRp

#PoliticalThriller #ThrillerBooks #MysteryThriller #CrimeFiction #BookTwitter

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

Writers often get taught to cut every cliché. Silva doesn't — and in dialogue, he's right not to.

A familiar phrase fails when it substitutes for real observation. It works when it belongs convincingly to the person speaking — where it can sound natural and reveal personality.

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

The Stack — fall 2026.

Finished Silva's Ransom on the 9th; review's up. Gimenez's The Washington Ultimatum is next, then Berry. October is Bentley and Dekker.

November's slot is open — tell me what belongs there.

#PoliticalThriller #ThrillerBooks #CrimeFiction #BookTwitter

[Scott Trendell @ScottTrendell]

MY REVIEW — RANSOM BY DANIEL SILVA (GABRIEL ALLON #26)
Completed September 9, 2026.

Silva’s Ransom opens as a sophisticated disappearance mystery set among Britain’s privileged elite, then steadily widens into an international espionage thriller shaped by Russian influence, compromised wealth, artificial intelligence, and modern drone technology.

The twenty-sixth Gabriel Allon novel is accessible even to readers unfamiliar with the series. Four former Cambridge classmates reunite for their annual holiday, this time at a lavish villa in Ibiza. Their host is Alice Winter, a glamorous social-media celebrity married to billionaire property developer Edward Knight. Her life seems enviable—beauty, money, social standing, and millions of followers—but the vacation exposes the tensions beneath that immaculate public image. Following a bitter quarrel with her friend Phoebe, Alice vanishes.

Meanwhile, Gabriel and his wife, Chiara, are enjoying a quiet summer at their cottage in Cornwall. The former Israeli intelligence chief has returned to the comparatively peaceful world of art restoration and is receiving acclaim for his latest work. When he attends a fundraiser at Edward Knight’s Devon estate, however, Alice is noticeably absent and Edward appears deeply troubled. Edward soon asks Gabriel to locate his missing wife, pulling the legendary operative back into a world he believed he had left behind.

The opening is unmistakably Silva: magnificent estates, valuable paintings, aristocratic company, and cultivated conversation all conceal more dangerous realities. Silva’s dry humor—particularly the affectionate exchanges between Gabriel and Chiara—brings warmth to a protagonist marked by decades of violence, grief, and clandestine service.

Silva also demonstrates that familiar language is not always ineffective language. His characters occasionally speak in phrases that might ordinarily be considered clichés, but within dialogue those expressions can feel natural, reveal personality, or briefly relieve tension. The distinction is important: a familiar phrase becomes troublesome when it substitutes for genuine observation, but it can succeed when it belongs convincingly to the person speaking. Silva generally employs such language with enough confidence and control to make it work.

What first appears to be a kidnapping motivated by money soon proves considerably more complicated. Gabriel discovers that both Alice and Edward are concealing important truths. Edward’s enormous property empire is also connected to suspicious Russian financing. The investigation ultimately uncovers relationships among compromised Western businessmen, sanctioned oligarchs, and Russian intelligence.

One of the novel’s greatest strengths is the tension between Gabriel’s traditional espionage methods and the technologies reshaping modern intelligence work. Gabriel mastered his profession through physical surveillance, informants, disguises, and meticulously constructed identities. In Ransom, he must also contend with social-media footprints, AI-assisted surveillance, cyber operations, and increasingly sophisticated drones. Although he remains the operation’s strategist, he depends upon familiar allies, including Sarah Bancroft, Ingrid Johansen, Christopher Keller, Graham Seymour, Julian Isherwood, and Detective Inspector Timothy Peel.

The novel also reaches back to the darker traditions of Cold War assassination. One scene involving a minute poison-delivery mechanism evokes the 1978 murder of Bulgarian dissident writer and broadcaster Georgi Markov, who was killed in London by a tiny ricin pellet in an operation attributed to Bulgarian state security with assistance allegedly supplied by the KGB. The parallel connects Silva’s contemporary technology to an older and very real history of covert murder.

This convergence of past and present raises the novel’s most compelling question: What place remains for an old-school intelligence officer in a world where almost anyone can be identified, followed, or killed remotely? Gabriel may no longer be the youngest or most physically formidable operative, but he remains exceptionally skilled at perceiving the design behind seemingly disconnected events.

Ransom offers an absorbing mystery, elegant European settings, financial corruption, evolving intelligence tradecraft, and a Russian threat that feels disturbingly plausible. It also finds a convincing role for its aging hero. Gabriel Allon does not need to be the fastest man in the room; what matters is that he still sees what everyone else has missed.

Recommended for readers who want current geopolitics and modern technology but still yearn for old-school tradecraft.

I review, I don't rate. As a novelist, the paragraph is the verdict — not a star.