A lot of my work is about the power of stories. How they shift over time and how the mythologies surrounding a single story can spiral into an entire system of beliefs, beliefs people are willing to die and kill for. I find the process of storyfication fascinating. So I thought I … | Continue reading
The late 1980’s is a long time ago—it’s also when both Ellen Hart and J.M. Redmann started writing mysteries with lesbian protagonists. At the time many states still made queer sex illegal, and marriage was likely to happen after pigs found wings and soared aloft. Hart’s first bo … | Continue reading
I went on my first public tour of an asylum five years ago and something happened immediately upon stepping onto the grass-covered grounds, gazing at the massive and sprawling stone building for the first time. It was a spark of awe that, as I drank in the looming and heavy prese … | Continue reading
As most Cuban Americans would tell you, Viva-po-Ru (Vicks VapoRub) can cure anything from a cough to a fever, but when it comes to matters of the soul, you’re better off visiting your local curandera tossing shells or cards out of her shed. Then, be prepared to make a trek to you … | Continue reading
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Jean Kwok, The Leftover Woman (William Morrow) “A heart-wrenching examination of transracial adoption and its influence in the lives of a Chinese American child and the two mothers who love her.” –Ell … | Continue reading
I’ve been a stay-at-home dad for six years now and I could tell you horror stories. I’ve changed diapers on gas station bathroom floors that should have been condemned. I’ve caught my babies picking up the most vile things in city parks. There are events with Roombas and couch cu … | Continue reading
Among the few guarantees in life is that on any survey of great sports films, Ron Shelton’s name will appear more than once. The résumé of the minor-league ballplayer turned screenwriter and director boasts what is arguably the definitive baseball movie with Bull Durham (1988), a … | Continue reading
When I started writing crime fiction, what I worried about most was all the stuff you had to know. I had never been a criminal, a detective, a private investigator, or a lawyer. I didn’t know how to steal a car or bury a body or fake an alibi. Of course there was always Google, [ … | Continue reading
As one of the terminally online, I really enjoyed the recent “how often men think about the Roman Empire” discourse on Twitter. One response that went viral claimed that the female equivalent of thinking about the Roman Empire is thinking about your ex-best friend, and after a re … | Continue reading
One hears it all the time. A reader praises a book because they find the characters “likable” or “relatable.” Another reader dismisses a book because they couldn’t “identify with the characters” or, more damningly, “didn’t care about the characters.” Why do some characters inspir … | Continue reading
I am sitting on the sweeping terrace of the Imperial hotel in Torquay, England, looking out over the breathtakingly blue water of the bay, soaking up crime fiction history. This is Christie country, the place where Agatha Christie was born, and the venue for the International Ag … | Continue reading
Lou Berney is one of the reasons I write crime fiction. Coming up, I cut my teeth on Southern writers like Flannery O’Connor, Larry Brown, Harry Crews, and Jesmyn Ward. It wasn’t until I found The Long and Faraway Gone, Lou’s third novel, that I realized the full power of crime f … | Continue reading
“We all have secrets… Secrets are a part of our lives and the lives of literature’s great characters. But spies operate in a more complex world of secrets – things they hide from family, from friends, and from themselves,” says Paul Vidich, whose latest novel, Beirut Station, buz … | Continue reading
I find myself reflecting on my own teen years as I tackle Frankenstein-author Mary Shelley and her step-sister at age sixteen years for my new series, which begins with Death and the Sisters. Mary and her kaleidoscope of siblings gathered opinions and values from the books they r … | Continue reading
Once a narrowly defined genre—set in the American frontier of the 19th Century—the definition of Western has expanded with contemporary takes from such authors as Cormac McCarthy, Ivy Pochoda, Alma Katsu, Jim Harrison and Louise Erdrich. And now, along comes HOT IRON AND COLD BLO … | Continue reading
In another life, I’m sure I was a political assassin or, at the very least, a cold-hearted femme fatale who was on the right end of a gun or winning cause. How else to explain my long-standing obsession/fascination with mayhem, gore, and murder most foul? A voracious reader from … | Continue reading
The scene couldn’t have been written any better. It was the middle of the night and a father bolted upright in bed, hearing noise downstairs in the kitchen of his suburban home. His wife and children slept peacefully, but the man suspected an intruder had entered the house. A … | Continue reading
School field trips. Exhibitions. Guided tours. It might be easy to dismiss museums as stuffy or even boring, but they are far from that—especially to an aspiring crime writer looking to write her first murder mystery. The idea for my debut historical mystery, A Traitor in Whiteha … | Continue reading
Bars in grand hotels figure prominently in the canon of spy literature. One of the pleasures I get from reading the novels of Joseph Kanon, Graham Greene and other masters of the spy genre, is that the anonymous guests in the grand hotels come alive with a backstory and confident … | Continue reading
The argument erupted at the supper table in a Colorado lumber camp near Castle Rock, a spot on the map at the edge of the Rocky Mountains and about thirty miles south of Denver. William Atcheson, who was working at Hocker & Gray’s sawmill in March 1876, had a large dog and the la … | Continue reading
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Paul Vidich, Beirut Station (Pegasus) “This taut, nuanced spy thriller centered on Lebanese American CIA agent Analise Assad further establishes Vidich as a new master of the genre. Vidich ably descri … | Continue reading
I think it’s fair to say that, in general, Hamburg is a rather underrated German city. Berlin and Munich get the crowds, Frankfurt the money, and Hamburg gets a bit overlooked. But not by crime fans as Hamburg has a long history of being, shall we say, a bit sleazy? It’s a port c … | Continue reading
A look at the best reviewed crime fiction from September. * Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books) “Brilliant, blistering … Writing with pulse-pounding tension and urgency, Knoll expertly conjures an atmosphere of dread and anxiety while paying tribute to all … | Continue reading
The history of travelling carnivals, or circuses, is complex. The form is steeped in tradition, but the people who live and make their living in modern circuses are a diverse bunch, hailing from everywhere in the world. Often they live a nomadic life, travelling internationally w … | Continue reading
For someone who would dress all in black in the guise of a priest or in a dapper all-white suit, there remain shades of gray surrounding Thomas King Forcade (née Gary Goodson). He blazed out of Phoenix in the late ’60s, becoming the head of the Underground Press Syndicate—a natio … | Continue reading
A look at the best reviewed crime fiction from September. * Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books) “Brilliant, blistering … Writing with pulse-pounding tension and urgency, Knoll expertly conjures an atmosphere of dread and anxiety while paying tribute to all … | Continue reading
There once lived a man who was naked, raving, and could not be bound. According to the Gospel: “He tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet.” It turns out (spoiler) he was possessed. The demons were exorcised and cast out of the man. Lacking a human host, the demons … | Continue reading
I’d only been working for the British government for a few weeks when I met my first spy. I’d already had my background checked, and I thought that part was over when I first met Eve in the kitchenette at my office. She was new she said. Worked in the legal department. A few day … | Continue reading
There’s something beautiful about ugliness. We all have it simmering under the surface. But we make damn sure not to show it. Why? In my debut, The Stranger Upstairs, Sarah Slade is a popular influencer who struggles with a dark side. Her marriage is falling apart and her career … | Continue reading
A crime as large as a war may exceed the definition of crime in the usual sense. Crime is bad enough when it’s one or a few victims and one or a few perpetrators. That kind of crime, though reprehensible, one can get arms around while often cringing in horror or disbelief. But ho … | Continue reading
From where he sits and writes in his Long Island home – in longhand, 10 pages a day – Mike Lupica can see a framed photograph of Robert B. Parker, the prolific author of the Spenser mystery novels. Parker wears a grin on his face and a Pittsburgh Pirates cap on his head. Also eas … | Continue reading
(some names and dates have been changed) From Sin City to Hustlers to Zola, more than a few of my favorite neo-noirs feature strip clubs as part of their narrative. My interest in these naughty places began when I was a kid growing-up in New York City. Whenever mom took me throug … | Continue reading
Gordan Greenberg and Steve Rosen’s new play Dracula: a Comedy of Terrors, now open at New World Stages, is production is replete with playful contradictions. Despite the presence of the word “terrors” in the title, there’s nothing too grisly to worry about. After all, the fanged … | Continue reading
Michele Campbell worked at a prominent Manhattan law firm before spending eight years fighting crime as a federal prosecutor in New York City. She launched her fiction career in 2005, writing as Michele Martinez, with the Melanie Vargas legal thriller series. Then in 2017 she piv … | Continue reading
My objective is to list the six best mysteries that feature real people. Quite a challenge given all the published stories meeting this criterion. There are, for example, several series that portray famous personages as detectives. Some, like Nicola Upson’s Josephine Tey Mystery … | Continue reading
There’s a joke among millennials that our favorite childhood television shows would have sucked if the characters had owned smartphones. Videos of Buffy fighting vampires would have been uploaded to TikTok in a second; Joey would have spent her evenings texting Dawson instead of … | Continue reading
When people talk about great fictional detectives, there are classic names that come to mind: Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot; Sam Spade; Phillip Marlowe; and Columbo trip easily off the tongue. In the modern era there’s even Batman, whose cool gadgets are second only to his skil … | Continue reading
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Jeffrey Archer, Traitor’s Gate (Harper) “Only someone like Jeffrey Archer . . . could have written a compelling story like this.” –David Baldacci Ben Fountain, Devil Makes Three (Flatiron) “Fountain b … | Continue reading
For such a hotshot lawyer who’s never lost a court case, you’re a lot younger than anyone would expect. And it’s your win/loss record, not your good looks, that’s wooed Rob Jacobson—publishing and real estate heir—to hire you. He’s accused of killing three and needs you to get hi … | Continue reading
Big Pharma is an industry that touches most everyone in some way. We have connection to it on a personal level as individuals and, even more importantly to many, our families. It touches us whether we want it to or not. The first draft of The Deadly Deal was written when I worke … | Continue reading
Matthew Meacham’s body quaked, his mind raced, and his skin burned. He raked overlong fingernails down the tender flesh of his arms, praying for his eyes to adjust to the lightlessness. They never adjusted. After a time, he sat up in that dark space, feeling the elements of the w … | Continue reading
In another era, the cinematic car chase was a purely analog affair: stunt performers would strap themselves into modified vehicles, then do their best to violate traffic norms and the laws of physics for the audience’s pleasure. But at a certain point, that changed. The demand fo … | Continue reading
For over a thousand years, the area known as Smithfield, north of St Paul’s, has been home to London’s principal meat market. Live animals were banned from Smithfield in the 19th century, but until then the ten-acre site was filled with sheep and cattle pens, nearly two million a … | Continue reading
Horse racing and gambling are intertwined – always have been, and always will be. But the biggest gambles in racing are not made at the races or with a bookmaker, they occur in the sale rings, where vast sums are staked on untested, unridden and as yet unnamed one-year-old Thorou … | Continue reading
Like many great novels, the book you are about to read is one whose every page is imbued with the art of storytelling. Its first five words, ‘I still remember the day’, spoken by the narrator, Daniel Sempere, open the door to what will soon expand into a complex world of both mys … | Continue reading
The CrimeReads editors select the best debut novels in crime, mystery, and thrillers. * Laura Picklesimer, Kill For Love (Unnamed Press) The bored college fifth-year narrating Kill For Love has always been good at suppressing her appetites—you can see it in her carefully counted … | Continue reading
I met Anjili Babbar smoking cigarettes at Bouchercon last year (she has since quit), and thought, this chick is really cool. And also, she knows a lot about Irish crime fiction. Babbar is, in fact, the author of an excellent new work on Irish crime writing, aptly titled Finders: … | Continue reading
I met Nina Simon shortly after I read her beautiful, heartfelt debut, Mother Daughter Murder Night. If there were ever an author whose persona perfectly captures the verve of her work, it’s Nina. Nina’s all natural, almost crunchy in a Santa Cruz kind of way. She speaks from the … | Continue reading