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Like most people, I discovered Meg Gardiner through Stephen King's laudatory essay in Entertainment Weekly wherein he expressed his shock over the fact that she wasn't yet a household name in the US. With complete conviction he stated that he was 'convinced (he) had found the next suspense superstar', and when Stephen King says that, the publishing world sits up and pays attention.

But long before I heard that Dutton was going to be publishing Meg's books here in the US, I decided to check out her blog and became hooked. Her voice was compelling, her anecdotes amusing, and her gathering of weird and wacky news stories from around the globe provided me with endless fodder for small talk at bars around New York: "Did you hear about the gnome that is terrorizing this small village in Argentina..?" became a common opening gambit of mine, as did "Are you aware of the prolific number of underwear bandits in the world?"

So when I heard that Meg was going to be signing books at Barnes & Noble, I grabbed my copy of The Dirty Secrets Club and headed over to meet the person behind the novels and endlessly entertaining blog.

And it was really fun. Meg Gardiner is vivacious, amusing, and very charming, and has clearly been enjoying her new found success while keeping her feet on the ground. She recounted her attempts to persuade neighbors in England that she was in fact a normal, pleasant person and not a ghoulish weirdo from the mythical land of California who spent her time putting imaginary people to death. She spoke about her incredible good fortune in being noticed by Stephen King, and then laughed over how his criteria for selecting her book had not been the scintillating language nor the gripping plot, but rather the large and easily read print.

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Everybody has something to hide. We each have something we don't want the world to know. This means secrets have power. And that power gives forbidden knowledge its overwhelming allure.

In The Dirty Secrets Club, a group of A-list San Franciscans plays hide and seek with the secrets in their pasts. The game is risky but exciting, until they start dying and taking others with them.

Forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett, consultant to the SFPD, must figure out why murder-suicide has become a grisly game. She learns that the dead all belonged to the Dirty Secrets Club, a shadowy clique that's playing truth or dare with some crazy secrets.

The Dirty Secrets Club is a virtual confessional where members reveal their wildest doings. It's part ego-trip, part strip-club of the conscience, part game. And it's exclusive: you have to apply to join, and you won't be admitted unless you're a power player with something shocking in your past. The club is for thrillseekers who want to play Russian roulette with their status and their freedom.

Where did the idea come from?

From human nature. People love secrets. Secrets can be horrible, fun, or deadly. Most of all, they can be valuable. But only as long as they stay secret.

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In my last post I mentioned that when I tell people the title of my new novel, their eyes go wide. The Dirty Secrets Club.

They say: Where'd you come up with that? They're thinking: No way she just invented that. The novel's set in San Francisco, and she lived near San Francisco, so two plus two equals... A friend even sent me the card below, showing the Golden Gate Bridge with the caption: "Say, Mommy - what did you and Daddy do when you were members of the Dirty Secrets Club?"

So this is a good time for me to say, loudly: Not all novels are autobiographical.

Especially not The Dirty Secrets Club. I've never sprinted across the roof of a skyscraper in stilettos, trying to escape the gaze of a news chopper. I've never chased a killer across the Golden Gate Bridge.

I have, however, been through a knock-you-down earthquake.

Here's the truth: my novels are not autobiographical, but ­everything that happens in my life is fair game for becoming book material.

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People ask me what my new novel's about. It's a thriller set in San Francisco, I tell them. The heroine's Jo Beckett, a forensic psychiatrist. It's The Dirty Secrets Club.

These people then give me a look. Dirty secrets, they say - how much do you know about that? Those years you lived near San Francisco, what kind of crazy things did you get up to?

I can't talk them out of the look, no matter how many times I explain that novels are fiction. They nod, and say: Of course you invented the club. For the book. Sure you did.

Then, with the same expression of disbelief, they say: a forensic psychiatrist. Did you make that one up? Does the job actually exist?

Absolutely.

Jo Beckett performs psychological autopsies to determine whether equivocal deaths are suicide, accident, or murder. When the police can't determine the manner in which somebody has died, she's the one they call. She's the last hope in puzzling cases. She's a deadshrinker.

And her job is very real. A forensic psychiatrist doesn't open up victims' bodies, but their lives. She digs into people's passions, secrets, and obsessions to find out what has killed them. Her territory is the psyche and the human heart.

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Meg Gardiner is our guest blogger during the week of June 9th. If you have any questions for her add a comment to any of her posts. Here is some brief information about The Dirty Secrets Club: