Crime Reads - Suspense, Thrillers, Crime, Gun!
CrimeReads is a culture website for people who believe suspense is the essence of storytelling, questions are as important as answers, and nothing beats the thrill of a good book. It's a single, trusted source where readers can find the best from the world of crime, mystery, and thrillers. No joke,
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I recently left the house and someone asked what kind of writer I was. I told them I was the kind that preferred to stay home. I didn’t tell them why—to avoid questions such as that. The person followed up by saying, “Are you a pantser or a plotter?” Not only did I fail to understand the question, I also misheard the second option as “plodder.” Yes, I said, that was my approach. I just plodded along, writing my average of one page per day. Later I went home and googled the question. It turns out that “pantser” refers to someone who writes by the seat of their pants, meaning they don’t plan ahead with detailed outlines. The origin of the term “fly by the seat of y…
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The passing of comic book maestro Neal Adams is a real fist-to-the-gut for his many fans—and if you bought a super-hero comic anytime between 1967 and 2021, you were a fan. Since Michael Barson and Hector DeJean were among the throngs who consider Adams to be as talented as he was prolific, they thought they’d share some of our favorite career highlights of his. HD: I’ll go first: I’ve gushed about Deadman in the past, but it’s a jaw-dropping achievement, and more of a series of pulpy crime short stories than a typical superhero comic. The story is the now-familiar tale of a murdered man whose ghost is trying to track down his killer–and the ghost has the super power of …
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Note: This article contains hints and occasional mild spoilers for the solutions in Agatha Christie’s A Murder Is Announced, The Mousetrap, The Moving Finger, Hallowe’en Party, The Pale Horse, and Murder Is Easy. It does not, though, reveal the ending of The Mousetrap! Agatha Christie’s detectives often don’t fit into the rigid gender roles that many modern readers associate with the first half of the twentieth century. Hercule Poirot, arguably her most famous character, is intellectual, somewhat hedonistic, and effeminate rather than particularly masculine. Miss Marple, her spinster sleuth, is an independent, older woman who has never had a husband or children. Even her…
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Sexual betrayal, violence, theft, family rivalries: they’re all fertile ground for plots of psychological thrillers: what I hadn’t realized until it happened to me was that there’s another crime that can inspire the kind of rage and hatred that leads to murder. Friendnapping. Having your best friend stolen from you right before your eyes. It seemed like such a good idea. I was going away for a long weekend to a beachside hotel. I’d be working a lot of the time, but I’d have parts of the day and evenings free. I invited my best friend, Ruth, to come with me, knowing she loved the beach and would be fine spending time on her own while I was working. A few days before we w…
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“Can’t say I’ve ever been too fond of beginnings, myself. Messy little things. Give me a good ending anytime. You know where you are with an ending.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Kindly Ones A great deal of consideration, deliberation and attention is afforded to the opening lines of a novel. The killer hook which lures the passing reader into the story, ensnares the casual book browser and makes the sale. Sales are after all desirable, and generally secured by that part of a book a reader can consume for free without annoying the bookseller. We can all quote our favorite opening lines: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” (The Tale of Two Cities: Dickens). “It …
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Kristin Chen, Counterfeit (William Morrow) “Chen’s third novel is sly and subversive, an examination of motherhood and an incisive look at culture and class . . . A readalike for Amelia Morris’s Wildcat, with a touch of crime.” –Booklist, starred review Katie Gutierrez, More Than You’ll Ever Know (William Morrow) “A fantastic debut . . . This is a sweeping novel, unflinching and evocative in its engrossing study of love, motherhood, sex, Mexico, journalism and more.” –Washington Post Katharine Schellman, Last Call at the Nightingale (Minotaur) “The well-developed supportin…
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Five hours and twenty-five minutes. That’s how much time the novel you are holding in your hands will take. Not how long it takes to read—that will vary, depending on the reader, and whether you have opened this book while browsing in a bookshop, on a short ride home after buying it, or tucked up in bed with a cup of tea. Rather, it is the story itself that unfolds over exactly five hours and twenty-five minutes. And we know this because the author not only alerts us to the time, he makes each chapter heading another click of the hands, (1:39…2:52…) so that we are precisely, at times excruciatingly, aware of those precious minutes running out. “A ticking clock” indee…
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Kathmandu, capital of Nepal with just 846,000 people and, in the old days, before Covid, a Mecca for backpackers and those on their gap year, the city’s population boosted by so many young folk again with rucksacks, walking boots and high hopes for having their minds blown at 4,600 feet – narcotically or spiritually (or both). The legendary heyday of Kathmandu was probably the 60s and 70s – the serial killer who targeted backpackers on the “Hippie Trail”, Charles Sobhraj, roamed the city and now remains in prison for life in Kathmandu. The recent BBC TV series The Serpent told his story. But Kathmandu has always remained popular, even after the devastating and tragic 2015…
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I suspect that every author has some novel in their memory banks that initially called them to the pen. For me, that book is James Michener’s Pulitzer Prize winning Tales of the South Pacific. Set against the American naval campaign of World War II, its sequentially plotted short stories bring all of humanity’s grace, failings, and foibles to life in a way that only literature can. The book’s narrator, a naval intelligence officer on an admiral’s staff sent to fix one problem after another, illustrates the way personality quirks of minor actors can have an outsize influence on major events. From tough-talking Marines laid low by heartache to nonagenarian Norfolk Islander…
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Of the incredible feats Harry Houdini is known for, too few of us know about his *passion project,* debunking fraudulent mediums. Among his psychic rivals, without question, Houdini’s archnemesis was Mina Crandon. In 1918, Mina married Dr. Leroi Crandon and moved to 10 Lime Street in Boston. Five years later, her husband got into the spiritualism movement and had friends over for a seance. When Mina wasn’t taking it seriously, she was scolded by the group, and soon she was overcome by a spirit that made her move the table. Her husband was amazed (and an idiot) and soon had her regularly working on growing her powers. Soon enough, she was making tables levitate and making…
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My first exposure to How to Steal a Million, William Wyler’s 1966 caper film starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole, was via anecdote. I was at a party at a professor’s home in September of my senior year at college, chatting with some graduate students when one brought up what she believed to be the sexiest moment in movie history, the scene in How to Steal a Million where Audrey and Peter’s characters meet for the fist time, when he’s stealing a painting from her house in the dead of night and she catches him. He freezes and lowers the frame he’s holding, staring at her the whole time. “When he looks at her over the painting he’s carrying! Those blue eyes!” But this …
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One sunny weekend twenty-five years ago, during a crime writing conference at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, I chatted with a fellow British author. This was Andrew Taylor, a novelist equally at home with writing contemporary fiction as with producing his multi-award-winning historical mysteries. Andrew and I were discussing Julian Symons’ classic study of the genre, Bloody Murder (known in the US as Mortal Consequences), which we both admired. Knowing of my lifelong interest in the heritage of crime writing, Andrew urged me to have a go at writing a book that would, in effect, be a modern version of Symons’ masterpiece. At that time, I liked the idea, but it seemed like a …
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“It’s quite easy, you know.” “What is?” “To get away with it.” He was smiling again—a charming, boyish smile. —Murder Is Easy As a pathology technician who worked in a mortuary, the question I’m asked most often is, “How on earth did you end up working with dead bodies?” The answer—that I’d wanted to do so ever since I was a child—rarely satisfies. But the reason for this early fascination is simple: I fell in love with forensic science after I fell in love with the books of Agatha Christie, books that I began borrowing from my local library when I was just eight years old. Coincidentally, Christie described me exactly via the twelve-year-old character Pippa in her 19…
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Thrillers are so much fun to read, and to write. Since I started in this business, there was always the one cardinal rule that you couldn’t break: your characters are to be likeable, at all costs. Well, that’s no fun. Especially in this genre. If I were writing romance, I would absolutely be sure that my main character was quirky-yet-loveable, and their love interest was possibly damaged from heartbreak but had a heart of gold themselves. Hijinks ensue, they fall in love despite themselves, and have a happily ever after. That’s the formula. That works. For thrillers? Give me some nasty characters. As long as they don’t kick puppies, I’m here for the unlikeable charact…
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Years ago, I had a silly wine-fueled argument with my dad, which I’ve thought about on many occasions since. We were debating who had it worse: Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe. I said Elvis; my dad said Marilyn. Neither of us would give way. I remember feeling furious at the sexism: no sympathy for Elvis, but Marilyn was fragile because she was female. Little did I know that I’d see this phenomenon play out again and again—in families, amongst friends, office politics and in the media—until finally it would spark a novel. What I discovered was that women found it natural—irresistibly so at times— to defend men, and vice versa. Right now there’s an Elvis versus Marilyn d…
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My first real working day at Hexa was a Tuesday. I was originally supposed to start on Monday, but the only time Yena could meet me for a drink that week was Monday afternoon at three p.m., so I traded that first shift before I’d even really begun—I thought it was a miracle they didn’t fire me there and then. Yena was my ex-girlfriend. We’d met at the call center (I told you I’d been much too friendly there, didn’t I?) and had been together for exactly one year, seven months of which we’d spent living together in the house I inherited from my mother. “You’ve probably been with lots of girls, haven’t you?” Yena said the first time she spent the night at my place. We were …
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Lisa Unger is the Queen of psychological suspense. She’s hit every bestseller list, been published in thirty-one languages, and sold millions of copies worldwide, all while maintaining her own, distinctive style, a concoction of literary writing and page-turning action that simply screams “Unger.” If it comes as a surprise to hear words like “literary” and “style” used to describe a bestselling author, then you don’t know Lisa. I didn’t know her until just a few weeks ago when I got the chance to peek behind the curtain and see how this master works. My grandma used to say, “The proof’s in the pudding, Eli.” And that adage holds especially true for Lisa. Her proce…
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Between the advent of streaming as a basic service and the slightly more recent establishment of niche platforms like Sundance Now and Acorn TV (both subsidiaries of AMC Networks), the opportunity to watch all kinds of TV from all over the globe has grown exponentially in a relatively short span of time. Gone are the days of having to hope your local indie video store might carry an ancient copy of Poirot or Midsomer Murders; today you can just navigate over to the Search bar of your streaming dock of choice and queue up pretty much any international title you can think of. And what’s more, with streaming making it possible for, say, a random Australian crime drama to rea…
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On January 6, 2002, Christa Worthington was found raped, beaten, and stabbed to death in her Cape Cod home. Her two-year-old daughter, Ava, who was physically unharmed, clung to Worthington’s body; the toddler’s mother had been dead for up to 36 hours. The details found in the most basic description of the crime are horrifying on their own and needed no sensationalization, but that didn’t stop the media—and it didn’t take long for Worthington to become the antagonist in her own murder. In the months leading up to September 11, headlines were dominated by another high profile case with some parallels to Worthington’s: the disappearance of Chandra Levy, a 24-year-old inter…
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During my high school years, when I was at my most rebellious, my eyes glazed over and rolled with impatience whenever our beloved English teacher, the indomitable Mrs. McFadden would talk about the role of the forest in the Last of the Mohicans. Who cared about such trivia when there were more important things to be concerned with—like that cute boy in my fifth period math class or the next Saturday night’s dance. Undeterred by our lack of interest, she would continue unabated, telling us about the literary devices authors often employ to bring a simple story up to the level of art. She would describe the metaphors and similes that enrich the narrative and give the char…
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Summer is coming, and mystery and thriller lovers are looking for that perfect beachy read to savor with an umbrella drink in hand. How about a story set in paradise? Suspense novelists have long been attracted to idyllic settings. What is it about the concept of paradise that inspires dark fiction? Is it the vicarious joy of writing about white sand beaches and shimmering blue water? Is it the irresistible lure of an escape from reality? Or maybe we writers like the diabolical appeal of inflicting mayhem on a cast of unsuspecting tourists. To me, the most appealing aspect of a writing a suspense novel set in paradise is the challenge of creating a story world where not…
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The CrimeReads editors select their favorite new fiction this month. * Katie Gutierrez, More Than You’ll Ever Know (William Morrow) In Katie Gutierrez’s powerhouse debut, a woman with two husbands loses one to the violence of the other, and a true crime writer uncovers shocking secrets decades after. I love this book more than Delores “Lore” Rivera loves both her families and now you have to read this book to understand what I mean. –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Senior Editor Chris Offutt, Shifty’s Boys (Grove) Offutt’s powerful follow-up to The Killing Hills is just as rich in atmospherics and a master-class in the craft of crime fiction. Mick Hardin is back in th…
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When I started writing my novel, How to Be Eaten, I wasn’t really thinking about true crime. In it, I reimagine classic fairy tale characters as modern women trying to make sense of their lives in the aftermath of their traumatic stories. Yet as I considered how the women would be viewed in the public eye today, I realized that their strange and horrific stories were ripe for sensational true-crime treatment. They would be dissected in lurid detail yet oversimplified with tidy narratives telegraphed in enticing headlines. Thus, in How to Be Eaten, Little Red Riding Hood’s fateful encounter with a wolf is picked apart on true crime podcasts, details of Gretel’s mysterious …
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When I moved from central New England to the barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina, I left behind many things, including family, friends, and ice scrapers. One thing I retained: my love of mystery novels. Especially cozies which, as the name implies, reassure the reader that all will, indeed, be well. At least until the next dead body turns up. My favorite cozies depict the beach-strolling appeal of the southeastern U.S. But for the amateur sleuths who populate the pages, life is not a permanent vacation. Not only are these plucky women puzzling out perplexing crimes, they’re also juggling the contradictory demands of family and career. And they’re drawing stre…
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While June isn’t quite so packed with urgent new series as, say, April and May, there are still some very choice selections coming your way soon, led by a Tony Hillerman adaptation and closing out with your goodbye to the Shelby clan of Birmingham. Dark Winds AMC – Premieres June 12th The long-awaited adaptation of Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee series is finally here, brought to the screen by Graham Roland, with a starry executive producer corps that includes Chris Eyre, Robert Redford, and George RR Martin. Zahn McClarnon and Kiowa Gordon take on the iconic leading roles, which keeps its original 1970s Southwest setting and navigates a web of corruption and c…
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