A couple years before Amy Bradley vanished on a family cruise in 1998, she dated a woman named Kat. They fell in love at Longwood University in central Virginia, at time when it was still dangerous to be open and gay, especially in the south. They would often drive down to the Ou … | Continue reading
Any novelist will tell you the construction of a novel boils down to the trifactor of characters, plot and setting. But setting is so often seen as the poor relation, merely a framework for the characters and plot to work their way through the pages. Not for the mystery writer; t … | Continue reading
Spectacle was an essential component of Victorian scientific promotion—perhaps most famously enacted by (eventual) Royal Society president Sir Humphry Davy, who would demonstrate chemical and physical experiments (sometimes of a dangerous nature) to packed lecture halls for most … | Continue reading
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. Natalie Moss, The Night Hunter (Berkley) “Brutal and shrewd in equal measure, this scintillating closed-circle thriller marks Moss as an author to watch.” –Publishers Weekly Lauren Nossett, Indie Darlin … | Continue reading
Walter Mosley said, “A man’s bookcase will tell you everything you’ll ever need to know about him.” When I read this quote ten years ago, I confidently scanned my own bookshelf expecting to be the most widely read author in the world. Well, to my horror, my bookshelf was packed w … | Continue reading
When I began communicating with Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, I hoped to uncover details about murders he committed he had not yet admitted to, secrets he had kept under the lock and key of his own silence for decades. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I had emba … | Continue reading
I was watching Moonraker the other night (yes, of my own free will) and I noticed a rather funny reference. In the scene where Bond is in Venice, and he’s breaking into Hugo Drax’s palatial laboratory, he watches two scientists go into a locked room, typing a passcode into a keyp … | Continue reading
My introduction to Twin Peaks might have been the most seminal media event of my twenties. I watched it with a dear college friend, who told me it was one of her “favorite things,” and this first viewing was mostly about reveling in the show’s weirdness, being fascinated by the R … | Continue reading
Below, you’ll find several psychological thrillers and multiple horror novels, along with one speculative tale. You’ll also find multiple commentaries on the problematic aspects of true crime culture, and several meditations on the nature of unholy appetite. Many of the character … | Continue reading
A mystery lover’s guide to what’s new to streaming this weekend. ___________________________________ New and Returning Mystery and Thriller Series __________________________________ Look, I’m going to be really frank with you: I don’t think there’s anything new worth watching thi … | Continue reading
When I was little I was sure my grandmother’s 1800s rural farmhouse was haunted, but I wasn’t sure if the ghosts were there to scare us or help us. Wanting to make my friendly intentions clear, I made up my own rituals to communicate with them, and while they never spoke back to … | Continue reading
My latest novel NO PRISONERS is published on July 21st. It’s a thriller about a woman in New Mexico searching for her missing husband. The unanswered question is the basic engine of suspense, and so the idea of someone vanishing—or worse, being taken—has always captivated me as a … | Continue reading
Wilkie Collins’s No Name (1862) is, to use its narrator’s own words, a “a narrative of dramatic disasters,” an exercise in building a “dramatic world out of a domestic chaos.” It is the story of two sisters who find their lives completely upended, and must rely on developing prof … | Continue reading
Traitors, my new geopolitical spy thriller, is a fictional account of a network of Russian agents that penetrates the highest levels of the U.S. government. Although some readers might dismiss this situation as unrealistic, history, unfortunately, suggests otherwise. Russian espi … | Continue reading
As recently as nine months ago I felt I could tell the difference between AI and not-AI when it came to images and videos. That time has now passed. Today, every time I go online I have to wade through floods of AI slop before I find an island of meaning. My only guide is […] | Continue reading
I wrote a movie about two brothers who beat each other half to death inside a cage, and afterward people kept asking me the same, wrong question. They wanted to know who they were supposed to root for. Tommy or Brendan. The marine or the teacher. As if any story owes you a clean … | Continue reading
Why do we follow a character from one book to the next, or one movie to a sequel, or in a television series from the pilot to the next episode and the next? For many of us it is because we make an emotional connection to the characters in the story. They become part of […] | Continue reading
Sir John Seward’s personal diary Friday, 16th January 1903 Littlemore Hospital, Oxfordshire I have finally made my first examination of the mind of Lady Lowell. I wish I had been able to see her sooner but it’s been an extremely busy week here, with more than one emergency admiss … | Continue reading
I’m going to say right here and now that this is not a list of WAR MOVIES. There are a lot of movies set on submarines: Das Boot (1981), The Enemy Below (1957), Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), U-571 (2000), Morgenrot (1933), We Dive at Dawn (1943), The Command (2018)… and that’s jus … | Continue reading
Here are 14 of the best books to be reissued this summer, as selected by the CrimeReads editors. * Yukito Ayatsuji, The Clock House Murders Translated by Ho-Ling Wong (Pushkin Vertigo) “An elaborate and creepy whodunit particularly pitched to fans of logical brainteasers.”–Kirkus … | Continue reading
As a licensed investigator, I’ve worked hundreds of cases over nearly twenty years, including on death tow. I’ve exonerated innocents. I’ve sat across from men scheduled to die and tried to figure out whether the justice system got it right. I’m also a crime novelist. And I’m her … | Continue reading
In the 2008 film Taken, Liam Neeson famously explains to his enemy that he’s a man with a particular set of skills, which of course turns out to mean he’s a total bad-ass and the villains messed with the wrong guy. In thrillers, this sort of superhero-level of capability is quite … | Continue reading
It’s unsettling to realize while you’re perusing the newest titles at a book fair or listening to a panel of seemingly civilized authors that at least half of the people in the room are probably thinking of ways to murder you. But let’s face it, that’s what we mystery writers do … | Continue reading
Over the past few years, when I would tell people I was working on a book about a cult, everyone seemed to be an expert on the subject. Had I watched the series about the one out in Oregon? The one about the kids at Sarah Lawrence? Did I know about the one where the […] | Continue reading
My most treasured item of clothing is my very first saree gifted to me by my grandfather when I was eighteen. It’s made of pure silk and even today feels soft and luxurious. I remember the pride in his face when he saw me wearing it for the first time. It made me feel beautiful. … | Continue reading
I’ve been a keynote speaker at conferences and book festivals. I’ve taught classes and seminars. Yet, somehow, every time I’m asked for writing advice, or to explain how I approach writing a novel, I want to go hide under my bed. My process has become so reliant on instinct that … | Continue reading
Friends! There is nothing—nothing—like a Golden Age mystery! They are the best ways to spend an afternoon, a weekend, a summer vacation…. Golden Age mysteries are in right now, which is fantastic for me and the hoards of other enthusiastic fans. You might be looking to start one, … | Continue reading
A confession: I didn’t intend to write a grief narrative masquerading as a darkly-comic take on a classic British murder mystery. The novel in question—How to Kill a Crime Writer—was written in response to a particularly awful set of circumstances. At the time, I was contracted t … | Continue reading
Summer is usually cast as the time for beach reading, those lighter and breezier books that suit a more active time of the year. This summer’s selection of queer crime fiction has plenty of that, plus the darker tones one associates with a good crime novel. Amateur sleuths abound … | Continue reading
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. Carinn Jade, The Dahlia Suite (Atria Books) “[A] spine-tingling sophomore novel. The luscious Caribbean setting is the perfect backdrop for Jade’s fast-paced, lightly mystical mystery, which doubles as … | Continue reading
What do Jonathan Franzen, Chris Pine, a little girl, and a disgruntled former ice-skating-rink attendant have in common? They’re all part of Italian writer-director Carolina Cavalli’s off-beat and winning new film, The Kidnapping of Arabella (2025). The little girl (Lucrezia Gugl … | Continue reading
“It begins and ends with characters. I am ready to start a new novel when a character speaks to me and tells me her name….” This is the tried-and-true approach that has sustained Luanne Rice for as many years as it has books. The New York Times bestselling author of some forty no … | Continue reading
Welcome to “They’re in That??,” a recurring column about actors we had totally forgotten were in certain things I’ve been (re)watching a lot of James Bond movies recently, and ruminating on my favorite characters in the franchise. One character I love is the giant, metal-toothed … | Continue reading
July brings with it simply an embarrassment of riches when it comes to psychological thrillers. I know it’s becoming my constant refrain, but there are just too many good books. Here are 11 excellent additions to the suspense genre, all quite thrilling, all perfect for summer rea … | Continue reading
Gary Phillips has had a long career as a crime writer since he first emerged in the 1990s with the Ivan Monk novels, which have been reprinted in new editions in 2024, and are today acclaimed as some of the great crime novels of the era. Since then he’s gone on to write other ser … | Continue reading
A mystery lover’s guide to what’s new to streaming this weekend. ___________________________________ New and Returning Mystery and Thriller Series __________________________________ Lucky (Apple) This new series on Apple features Anya Taylor-Joy as a con woman on the run followin … | Continue reading
Long before I wrote crime novels, I studied in the perfect setting for one. My Havana middle school was a labyrinth of granite floors, dusty halls, cobweb-filled classrooms and hidden nooks. It even had its own ghost: Andrés Gómez Mena. The millionaire owner of the entire block, … | Continue reading
Michael Newman and Jon Land’s new sci-fi thriller Icefall has been favorably compared to John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” debuting a new brand of superheroes who are all that stands between the world and total annihilation at the hands of an alien race. Here Newman and Land talk abo … | Continue reading
I was initially resistant to see Obsession because I was mistakenly under the impression (granted, I didn’t watch the trailer) that it was somewhat of an incel movie about a guy who is desperate to get some and won’t take a hint. And I feel I’ve done my time with incel movies. Fr … | Continue reading
Japan, more than anywhere I know, runs along straight and well-determined lines, bringing you to where you need to be as smartly as a bullet-train. When A Quiet Place begins, we’re at a typical corporate dinner, of the kind that’s playing out all around me as I sit at my desk he … | Continue reading
All cities are invented, but few cities were invented as thoroughly as Los Angeles. “Every city can be regarded as an artificial construct, an audacious projection of human will, imagination, and vanity onto the natural landscape,” writes Gary Krist in his excellent history of LA … | Continue reading
If ever there were an industry rife with the potential for duplicity and downright evil that’s tailor made for crime fiction, it’s public relations. And Hilary Davidson excavates those dens of inequity to great effect in her novel, Every Lie I Told, published June 16, 2026. * Nan … | Continue reading
There’s nothing like a Southern summer. Nothing. Sorry to my snowbird friends but getting through late August in Georgia is damn near surviving the apocalypse. And that’s the word for it. Survival. It’s in this barren, climactic wasteland that the sinister can go full throttle. E … | Continue reading
Featured image credit: FX via The Hollywood Reporter Bret Easton Ellis’s 2023 autofictive horror novel The Shards, which is, in the words of CrimeReads Editor-in-Chief Dwyer Murphy is “genuinely excellent,” is getting a series adaptation. Veteran modern-mainstream-pulp producer R … | Continue reading
Agatha was a surprise addition to the Miller family, an “afterthought,” as she would describe herself. Born on September 15, 1890, she was a child of the Victorian fin de siecle (or “end of the century.”) Her siblings, Margaret (“Madge”), born in 1879, and Louis (“Monty”), born i … | Continue reading
In June 1898, Ernest William “Willie” Hornung began publishing the short stories that would comprise the collection The Amateur Cracksman. Hornung was at that point a relatively minor literary figure, though a well-connected one, in part by his membership of the cricket club, the … | Continue reading
My traditional publishing debut Smile for the Cameras is a love letter to slasher movies born from my infatuation with all things cinema. For my sophomore release, Scary Movie Night, I wanted to explore a similar movie-inspired world through a different lens. Enter Hitchcock and … | Continue reading
There is an avalanche of speculative fiction coming out this summer that is absolutely perfect for crime readers, so much so that there is no possible way to round it all up, but I’ve done my best to assemble some highlights! While many of the books below count as both horror and … | Continue reading