Best-selling suspense author Lisa Gardner is about to make her first visit to sunny San Diego, and she's bringing with her a story as darkly disturbing as Edgar Allan Poe's "A Tell-Tale Heart" ---- with a wrenching distinction.

While Poe wrote of a tormented man's descent into murderous madness, Gardner writes in her new novel, "Live to Tell," about the familial anguish of young children descending into mental illness. (Gardner will be signing the book Thursday at Mysterious Galaxy in Clairemont Mesa.)

The novel's topic shocks with the juxtaposed horror and love that family members feel as they live through a child's wandering between the innocence of play and the inexplicable compulsion to harm ---- even kill ---- a loved one. It is a topic with which Gardner skillfully draws in the reader as she knits a real yet little-known crisis into a pearl of a novel.

Thank the goddess, she has a sense of humor, too, because all four books in Gardner's Detective D.D. Warren series are jarring emotional journeys, no matter how well written. (Her previous book in the series, "The Neighbor," just won the ITW Award for Best Hard Cover Novel of 2009. Gardner has also written six novels in her FBI profiler series, two standalones, one co-authored, and 13 romantic suspense novels under the pen name Alicia Scott.)

But Detective Warren’s comic ---- and sarcastic ---- relief is a bright respite from the stormy suspense that pervades Gardner's work. Even dieters will be grateful for the detective's obsession with each next meal at an eat-all-you-can buffet, humorously described in gravy-dripping detail.

"I think suspense authors have the best senses of humor!" Gardner said in a recent phone interview as she tooled through Houston after a book signing. "That's something I don't think people know."

But Gardner's fans surely do know that about her, as they must also know she has other rich gifts to share: the ability to produce a good suspense novel a year, 10 of which have made the New York Times' best-seller list; the ability to hook the reader from the first paragraph and keep the line taut for 350 to 400 pages; and the ability to craft a complex plot entwined with the type of crimes that keep parents up at night, checking every peep and lack thereof.

Child abduction, rape, mental illness and adult survivors of childhood abuse; these are the stuff of the Detective Warren series, and they serve as insight into the author: It's no surprise she is the mother of a young child.

"I'm driven by dark questions," Gardner said. "I want to know what is the nature of evil. Why do we get these big, huge, horrific crimes we read about in the papers? And I get to call experts and ask questions. I feel like each book is an opportunity to learn, to empower and to problem-solve.

"And now that I'm a mother," she continued, "I'm concerned about crimes closer to home. I worry more about families. And one of the worst things that can happen to a family ---- when you start to realize that this beautiful little boy or girl you gave birth to ... is capable of killing you. What can you do?"

Such questions underscore Gardner’s "favorite form of procrastination" ---- research, yet another gift the author brings to her work, and it shines in "Live to Tell," a book inspired by a friend's young son. "The child did suffer a breakdown and got his hands on a hammer," Gardner recounted, "and the parents weren't home, but the babysitter was with their daughter, barricaded in (a room). ... It was really, at the moment, a failure (for the parents). They had worked so hard ... they were engaged ... they brought all the resources to bear. And their son still ended up in a lockdown pediatric ward ---- the one that I went to for the research."

Despite the fictional context of "Live to Tell," Gardner's descriptions of the pediatric patients and treatment options reveal a growing challenge yet to be adequately addressed in contemporary society. Those involved in the issue might find the book an effective teaching tool for the uninitiated, a bit of learning wrapped in entertainment.

Gardner puts a heavy emphasis on learning in her books. "I like suspense novels where I learn things," she said. "And I think suspense readers like to learn things. We like to learn the latest police procedure, new forensics. But I think also we like to have the veil lifted back from a world we didn't know about ---- the Russian mafia, a street kid in Chicago, childhood mental illness. When you learn about that new world, that's the icing on the cake ---- you're entertained and you're informed."

Gardner's next lifting of the veil will be revealed in another Warren novel, about which she said with a laugh, "You’ll have to wait until March ---- I really mess up her life!"

After that, it could be a horrific crime headline that catches Gardner's eye, or even just something she sees online: "I just printed out from the Internet the other day an article on an online support group for mothers of serial killers. If you think about it, they're victims, too."

Lisa Gardner

What: Signing "Live to Tell"

When: 7 p.m. Thursday

Where: Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Suite 302, San Diego

Info: 858-268-4747