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Suspense Thriller Fiction by John T. Cullen

Valley of Seven Castles, A Luxembourg Thriller. I call this the world's first Progressive Thriller. The core journey is from Paris to Luxembourg. Two refugees from injustice are on the run and meet in a bar in Bagnolet called The 39th Step. This is a deliberate salute to John Buchan's 1915 thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps(on the run across the English countryside during the World War One period). It was made into a classic Alfred Hitcock thriller movie in 1935 (The 39 Steps) with a few plot changes. The pacing of Hannah Smith and Rick Buchan's run in my novel reminds me of that fabulous movie with Matt Damon and Franka Potente, based on the Robert Ludlum novel, The Bourne Identity.

On The Run Paris to Luxembourg. My novel is a modern progressive thriller, in which I lay aside tired 20th Century themes from the Cold War and the usual hatred of government or apocalyptic nonsense that's making much of the thriller genre sag with imagination fatigue. See if you can spot Hillary and Bernie in my novel. Bear in mind: I lived in Luxembourg as a child, was stationed in Europe with the U.S. Army in my 20s, and traveled many of these roads (though not on the run, unless after a chill, bitterish Diekirch or Stella Artois beer).

But Wait; There's More. I discovered an amazing fact about Alfred Hitchcock's later films. Soon, I'll tell you all about it here. The information is in the novel, if you're eager to find out which major Hitchcock film was based on his original 1935 flick and the 1915 novel from which it was derived. I'll relate all this soon.

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