The 1932 gangster film Scarface, directed by Howard Hawks, features a moment in which a newspaper editor refers to the recently deceased mob boss Costillo as “the last of the old-fashioned gang leaders,” reinforcing “this town is up for the grabs.” The man who will eventually tak … | Continue reading
Woke Up This Morning Okay, let’s get this out of the way first thing: The Sopranos is secretly a ghost story. I know, I know. But seriously, hear me out here. From the first frame of the first episode in Dr. Melfi’s office to that infamous final scene in New Jersey’s legendary Ho … | Continue reading
Dear crime writer, Need to breathe a little life into the bloated corpse of your narrative? Looking for a new, downwind angle from which to approach its fetid stench? Then pull on a pair of surgical gloves and prep those nibs, because the epistolary format is the break in the cas … | Continue reading
Cults, often concealed yet surprisingly pervasive, are inherently dysfunctional. Estimates suggest there are as many as 10,000 cults in the United States today. Cults are not a far-fetched concept—they are closer to home than most realize. While it would be easy to dismiss those … | Continue reading
With these crazy hot temperatures, crime increases. So, stay home, grab a frosé and lounge chair by the pool or a coffee drink and couch in the AC, and “increase” your crime the safe way with a delicious queer mystery or thriller. In this round-up, Queer Crime Writers* is scoopin … | Continue reading
Nineteenth century writer Georges Polti proposed that there are only thirty-six dramatic situations for a story. He came to this conclusion by studying classic Greek plays as well as his contemporary literature. His plot descriptions are both useful and entertaining. “Crime Pursu … | Continue reading
At fifty-one years old, Mary Haynes, known as “Big Mary” to the other women and clients for her large stature, was one of the older sex workers on the avenue—and one of its more experienced. She dished out advice to younger girls from her two decades on the avenue, including how … | Continue reading
Gauri Lankesh, an Indian journalist who frequently defended the rights of Muslims and other minority groups, was shot to death outside her home on Sept. 5, 2017. The crime, authorities say, was committed by men who objected to her acerbic comments about their brand of hardline Hi … | Continue reading
Pain is a fascinating, contrary experience. Our bodies have evolved this neurological warning system, making us feel terrible in order to better survive. Burn your hand? Get away from the fire. Leg killing you? Stop walking on it before you break another bone, idiot. We don’t liv … | Continue reading
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Mindy Mejia, A World of Hurt (Atlantic Monthly) “[N]erve-shredding . . . Mejia maintains breathless suspense as she fleshes out the combative dynamic between her captivating leads. For crime fiction f … | Continue reading
I adore a good domestic thriller. Instead of going big, domestic thrillers go deep, mining the ordinary world of home and family for its terrible secrets. And there’s always this moment when a character wonders about their spouse or parent or child, Wait, do I really know this pe … | Continue reading
Malmö is Sweden’s third largest city and the sixth largest Nordic conurbation, but also Sweden’s fastest growing city right now, partly due to immigration and its bustling port city atmosphere. And host city to Eurovision 2024 (I know this doesn’t mean much to American readers!). … | Continue reading
Can “citizen detectives” online, like those on Reddit or Websleuths, be helpful to missing persons or homicide investigations? This is one of the elements our debut thriller On the Surface explores. The internet has amplified our fascination with true crime. Pre-internet, when so … | Continue reading
The first adaptation of Dracula was technically released even before the novel was. Eight days before the novel Dracula first went to sale in 1897, the Lyceum Theatre, the famed institution for which Bram Stoker was the business manager, performed a theatrical adaptation that Sto … | Continue reading
There are few relationships in this world more important than the ones women have with our female friends. After all, it’s our friends that walk with us through the most important moments in life, and it’s our friends who we lean on during the darkest times. But how well can we e … | Continue reading
With its stunning red rock canyons and forest trails, Sedona, Arizona, is the perfect getaway. This might be what you’re thinking if you’re planning a family vacation. Or if (like me) you’re plotting a crime novel. Each year millions of people visit this small town, known for its … | Continue reading
Here are 15 of the best novels to come out in paperback over the past three months, as selected by the CrimeReads editors. Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women (S&S/MarySue Ricci Books) “Stunning… By focusing on the women affected by her Ted Bundy stand-in instead of the nuances of … | Continue reading
August is here! To greet the month, I’m posting my regular column of psychological thrillers early, so there’s plenty of time left to read these by the pool before fall begins (and gothic season descends). The following books range from deadly serious to completely satirical, but … | Continue reading
I am most fascinated by character, real and imagined, and what makes people do what they do, what lays beneath their surface. A pretty package that holds a deadly gift. So, let’s dig a bit into the three main inspirations behind Not What She Seems. The Saying… A little story. The … | Continue reading
There is no clearer, or more dynamic, thriller plot than a protagonist desperate to stay alive in a lethal game of survival, and the five thrillers listed below deliver that ‘in spades.’ These authors have taken the thrill and fun of the games, and sports, we all love and subvert … | Continue reading
Charles Dickens’s Bleak House is a murder mystery—rather, it contains a string of mysteries, one of which involves obvious murder, while others involve missing persons, blackmail, and suspicious deaths, including one via (of all things) spontaneous combustion. The novel’s resembl … | Continue reading
When writing my debut action thriller, The Recruiter, it became apparent early on that I would have a lot more fun subverting the standard thriller tropes rather than adhering to them. Not all of them, of course. Tropes exist largely because they work, and people enjoy them. But … | Continue reading
I blinked a lot as a kid. Like, a lot a lot. And my head jerked, like a nod, only quicker and sharper and repeatedly. And I grunted. I didn’t even know I grunted until someone pointed it out to me. I think I was eleven, maybe twelve. There were other tics, some brief, some […] | Continue reading
When Shannen Doherty died on July 13th 2024, it felt personal. Which was absurd, given that I’d never been in the same room as her. Was it some kind of parasocial response? Did I mistakenly think of her as a friend, purely because I’d loved watching her kick ass on Charmed and li … | Continue reading
A look at the month’s best reviewed crime fiction, nonfiction, mystery, and thrillers. From Book Marks. Juliet Grames, The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia (Knopf) “Deeply compelling, well-crafted … Yet the literary heart of this brilliant novel, its probing meditations on class, power, … | Continue reading
If you’re a fan of the ingenious denouement at the climax of Murder on the Orient Express, this list is for you. Who doesn’t love a book where the victim was so universally hated that anyone could have done it, and all we want as the reader is to congratulate the so-called baddie … | Continue reading
Beginning with my very first published short story—written long before I’d had children of my own—my work has often endeavored to explore the complexities of motherhood. This is, in part, because of the significant challenges of my own upbringing. As a result, I’ve always felt a … | Continue reading
Summer’s here and if you’re young, fun and into banging tunes then the isle of Ibiza, “the White Island”, in the Spanish Balearic Islands, may be the holiday destination for you. From sleepy Mediterranean island to sixties sun kissed hippie hangout to the rave and nightclub capit … | Continue reading
Our expedition, if you could call it that, was to find a whale head. The very idea of seeking out a head is surreal, odd, enticing, terrifying. It conjures both sad and monstrous imagery. We feel the pain of loss. We may see the horror of decay. Right away we ask questions, mainl … | Continue reading
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Nekesa Afia, A Lethal Lady (Berkley) “A busy, bubbly Jazz Age romp capped by a mystery.” –Kirkus Reviews Carol Goodman, Return to Wyldcliffe Heights (William Morrow) “In keeping with the grand gothic … | Continue reading
My partner Nicola is an actress. For those of you who don’t know, she is best known for playing a regular character in the British sci-fi series ‘Dr Who’. I’m sure you would assume that actors who appear in cult television shows tend to attract a lot of fans, and attract lot of a … | Continue reading
Sherlock Holmes, the literary epitome of rationalism and clear-headed detective work, spent his career debunking and illuminating the mysterious, the unexplainable, and the supernatural. But Holmes’s author, Athur Conan Doyle, could not have been more different from his creation. … | Continue reading
As someone who has spent years living in cooperative housing, I will admit that when it comes to community, I’m ready to drink the cool-aid. But in an age of increasing inequality, an ongoing housing crisis, and increasing segregation between the haves and have-nots, I find it di … | Continue reading
Juliet Grames: Immigrant Detective. It’s not an official title, nor does it rank among the distinctions listed in her biography (though maybe it should). Those include Editorial Director at Soho Press, for which she received the Ellery Queen Award from the Mystery Writers of Amer … | Continue reading
An unreliable narrator is a point-of-view character who describes the story in such a way that the reader cannot trust his or her version of reality. There can be purposeful reasons for this—for instance, to hide their own biases or wrongdoings. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, th … | Continue reading
In 1917, the seventy thousand residents of San Diego had a decision to make: “Smokestacks versus Geraniums.” Few cities have the chance to define their future, but the candidates in the 1917 election for mayor made the two possibilities clear. Gilded Age bankertype Louis J. Wilde … | Continue reading
It makes my dark little heart happy to see how the young adult horror genre has evolved. It was far more limited when I was younger, which is one of the reasons I got into Stephen King so early (and when people ask me “Jill, why are you the way that you are?” I often […] | Continue reading
Peter Houlahan’s Reap the Whirlwind: Violence, Race, Justice, and the Story of Sagon Penn is an engrossing, insightful account of a traffic stop gone horribly wrong. On March 31,1985, Penn, a Black man driving a pickup truck carrying several other Black men, was pulled over by Do … | Continue reading
Obsession, addiction, and disease: They are themes that coexist as a strange hierarchy of social horror, like the raw matter of what makes a subculture tick, and how self-destruction often takes control of the individual long before they can identify the source of the hurt. They … | Continue reading
By the time I got there, everything was cleaned up. That’s how it always was. Casings collected by the cops, or kicked by passersby into the storm drain; blood scrubbed off the sidewalk; witnesses with three days to vanish or make up a story about how they didn’t see what they sa … | Continue reading
As I write this essay at the start of fire season, the skies near me are smoky from a blaze north of where I live. For many residents of wildfire-prone areas, the smell of smoke or strong gusts on a hot day can be triggering. We check our apps or bookmarked links. We text friends … | Continue reading
“What’s Denver’s dating profile?” When the prolific novelist, Rachel Howzell Hall, asked me that question in a podcast interview, I was stumped. “Is she sultry or what?” Rachel continued. “I want to know more about the city. Who is Denver?” Rachel’s question forced me to dig deep … | Continue reading
Some would say all writers are criminals. We steal bits of reality to make our fictional worlds. But is using someone else’s experience in your fiction really a crime? That’s the question I pondered as I wrote The Widow on Dwyer Court, a domestic thriller about an erotica writer … | Continue reading
Brian Winchester and Denise Williams began a torrid affair in the late 90s, and soon enough decided they wanted to be together for real. The problem? Their communities and families would judge them harshly for getting divorced. They decided the only solution to their problem woul … | Continue reading
THE AUTHOR Having just survived writing a speculative mystery novel that allows readers choose what happens at certain points in the story, when CrimReads asked me to write an essay about the experience in the same format, I felt: Terror Excitement * TERROR It’s already hard enou … | Continue reading
More than two decades ago, the idea hit me. The kind of novel that I’d wanted to write, been trying to write for years, was equally influenced and informed by the early blues music I loved as it was by the hardboiled masters I idolized. I realized the direct connection between Ha … | Continue reading
“We don’t have that kind of problem around here.” This is the first thing Santo Alvaro* says to me when I ask him about the ’Ndrangheta. “The mafia is all in the city, in Reggio and Milano. You don’t have to worry about that at all in this area.” Alvaro is a third-generation rest … | Continue reading
Detective Chief Inspector Bob Perks nursed half a shandy in Scruffy Murphy’s and sat wishing he was more interesting. He didn’t want to be a cliché, like all those coppers on the telly, with broken marriages and drink problems, he just fancied . . . livening his lot up a little. … | Continue reading