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,
3,487 topics in this forum
-
- 0 replies
- 389 views
A great challenge of Hawaiian detective fiction is to depict Hawai`i authentically. It takes more than ukuleles and flower leis to accomplish this. James Fallows once observed in the Atlantic that through mysteries and thrillers imbued with authenticity we can learn about exotic and distant locales, or distant times. The Soho Crime series, featuring the world’s most remote places, testifies to the first proposition, and (say) Alan Furst epitomizes the second, transporting us to chilly garrets the Gestapo may burst into at any moment. But without such authenticity, even best-selling murder mysteries become what Graham Greene called mere “entertainments.” For most Am…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 390 views
During this last period of lockdown and isolation, we’ve all searched for ways of escape. I found mine by rereading two of my favorite authors, PG Wodehouse and Jerome K Jerome. I first discovered Wodehouse and Jerome one Saturday afternoon when I was twelve or thirteen, an impressionable age, browsing through the stacks of my local library. To say the experience was an epiphany would be an understatement. No one I knew talked like that. I never knew such a world existed. (It doesn’t, but more about that later.) I’d never read anything so funny in my life. I still haven’t. So what makes British humor so funny? Is it different than American humor? British humor has a…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 796 views
Magic is mysterious, and mystery is magical: we are enthralled by that which we don’t (yet) know, and many of us are under the spell of a near-visceral compulsion to learn the truth—“solve” the mystery. It’s a natural instinct, to wish to know. Problems exist to be solved but mystery is ever elusive. Even if we know who has committed the crime, we need to know how; we need to know why. Beyond that, we crave to know meaning. In magic, the ingenious magician is one who not only knows how to perform magic but knows how to deflect his viewers’ avid attention from the workings of magic itself, which are (of course) illusory—the magician is the “illusionist.” Of magic it is co…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 328 views
“You were right, Nalam,” Ralph Daniels said as soon as Joshua Nalam picked up his call. “Diane Connors did show up on Eve Duncan’s doorstep today. I was staking out the cottage when I caught sight of Connors and another woman walking into the place. I wasn’t sure what you’d want me to do so I just maintained surveillance. She stayed and talked to Duncan for an hour or so and then left. That’s what you wanted me to do, right?” Joshua Nalam swore beneath his breath. “No, you idiot. I also want to know what they were talking about. You were there for a full day and didn’t bug the cottage?” “I’m not an idiot,” Daniels said with deadly softness. “You might be able to talk to…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 322 views
Two officers landed on my twin brother, cuffed him, and strong-armed him down the hallway during a Christmas visit at our mother’s condominium in Willmar, Minnesota. It took six attendants in the emergency room to wrestle him onto a gurney. It’s still hard for me to believe we hadn’t acknowledged the signs before—his frantic juggling of a dozen plastic bags, stuffed with his clothing, while home on a military leave; his incoherent tirade at a friend who greeted him as they departed from a service in our church. But it was only then, in 1986, the year Marvin and I turned forty-five, that he was diagnosed as having severe bipolar disorder. While Marvin’s manic rage landed …
Last reply by Admin_99, -
A few months ago, I jokingly wondered whether Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011), a movie I was in the midst of celebrating as the greatest spy film ever made, hadn’t actually cut the legs out on a few careers, based on a quick glance at the IMDb pages of some of the top people involved in the production, notably director Tomas Alfredson, who did a brilliant job with the complex le Carré material but somehow wasn’t given another opportunity at the helm of a film until 2017. (And when they did give him something to do, it was The Snowman, of all things.) In that same article I also implored—implored might not be a strong enough word, it was more of a cosmic plea—that some…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 477 views
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg remain the only Americans ever put to death in peacetime for conspiracy to commit espionage, the only two American civilians executed for espionage-related crimes committed during the Cold War that roughly lasted from 1946 to 1991, and Ethel is the only American woman killed for a crime other than murder. Today there is widespread recognition that Julius did pass military information to the Soviet Union, yet skepticism that the couple had, according to the phrase used at the time, stolen “the secrets” of the atomic bomb. Much was known about the basic physics involved in making a bomb; the main difficulty was devising practical weapons and the a…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 840 views
Somewhere in a recondite basement poorly lit by one dim, flickering bulb there is a sub rosa committee of crime readers crowding around an investigation board featuring a map of the world full-up with pushpins and other markers. Next to each indicator is a corresponding profile which all the readers know by heart. For instance, in South Florida there’s a fedora-wearing P.I. in a sweat-stained floral shirt investigating a body found in the Glades. In the Pacific Northwest a shadowy killer stands at the edge of a tree line, his figure blurred by the sheets of rain. And on the bustling streets of London a deductive detective knows the game is afoot. But in the thick pine for…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 421 views
We all love a good villain. From Tom Ripley to Hannibal Lecter, it’s the bad guys who make us sit up and pay attention when the movie scene changes or we dare to turn the page. In cinema, the cheapest scares come from the sudden jump cut, the full-face close up, a blast of discordant violins. There is no real equivalent in the novel, and none of those techniques produce what a truly effective literary villain can: that insidious creep of fear you get while reading, the dread that crawls up your spine, and often even lingers long after the cover is closed. But what is it about them that fascinates us so much? Let me rephrase that: how does the author fascinate us? Why do w…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 372 views
When discussing the lifestyle of a radio DJ, most people probably would fall back on the television sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati as the authoritative source of their knowledge. The comedic tales of Dr. Johnny Fever, Venus Flytrap, and the rest of the gang at WKRP painted a picture of broadcasting as being a career filled with raucous fun and excitement. It was certainly an influence in my decision to take a job as part-time DJ at a small station in southern New Jersey in 1990. To my surprise, that first radio job was far from being the lively gig that I was anticipating. In fact, working the Saturday overnight shift was about as boring as reading a poetry book written by a…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 807 views
Lists are useful and terrifying things. I have a “To Do” list for my day job that is approaching 350 items since we shifted to a remote, quarantined office existence (don’t worry, I’ve checked off almost all of them over time). There are, however, lists generated by other people that sucker me in and drive me mad. I am referring to the “Best of” lists, particularly when they come to books or movies. I should know better. These lists are compiled by people who devote their lives to these fields, whereas I, lucky enough to have a full-time day job to subsidize the side-gig/addiction of being a writer, find myself with not enough hours in the not enough days to keep up with…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 345 views
Crime and the City has been to Morocco before. Then we talked mostly about the crime writing coming out of, or set round about, the capital Rabat and the cities of Marrakech, Fez and Casablanca. We only briefly mentioned Tangier. But Tangier is a very special place, both within Morocco and also internationally. It sits in a key location—on the Maghreb coast of North Africa, at the western end of the Straits of Gibraltar, facing Spain and just about where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic. This unique location gave Tangier its unique history. From 1923 to the mid-1950s Tangier was an international city, controlled by foreign colonial powers, a port gateway between Europ…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 405 views
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * James Wade, River Sing Out (Blackstone) ”Wade, whose striking debut, All Things Left Wild (2020), traveled back a century in Texas history, uses an unlikely friendship to explore an equally wild present-day landscape…A haunting fable of an impossible relationship fueled by elemental need and despair.” – Kirkus Reviews Eric Redman, Bones of Hilo (Crooked Lane Books) “[Redman’s] local color goes far beyond touristy tidbits…[the] backstory [is] fascinating and timely.” – Kirkus Reviews Laurie R. King, Castle Shade (Bantam) “A lively adventure in the very best of intell…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 355 views
I have always loved period pieces. When I set out to write Dead Dead Girls, I knew it was because I wanted to challenge myself and write something about which I was very passionate. The idea of time travel has always appealed to me, and the best way I could do that was by reading period pieces. The thing about period pieces is that the worldbuilding, or as I like to call it, the vibes, has got to be impeccable, or I’m not going to believe it. I immersed myself in the 1920s, the clothes, shoes, and dance moves, to make Louise’s world real. I’m a very finicky and detailed reader, but I like my vibes. While doing my research for Dead Dead Girls, I spent a lot of time readi…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
Ask readers of crime fiction whether they have heard of John Sanford, and the writer most likely to come to mind is John Sandford, the author of the Prey series of detective novels—as they commit the common mistake of overlooking the “d” hidden in the middle of the name. But long before John Camp chose Sandford as his pen name, there was John Sanford—author of 24 books, including two hard-boiled 1930’s masterworks that combine gut-wrenching plots with a literary flair that drew favorable comparisons with William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and James M. Cain. Sanford, who died in 2003, is best known as a writer of non-fiction—including creative interpretations of American…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 427 views
The season is changing! As I write this, it’s eighty-four degrees and sunny outside. I can hear an ice cream truck out my open window, and also a cop shouting over the cruiser speaker at that ice cream truck, because I guess it’s illegally parked. My eyes are itchy from the pollen and my hair is voluminous from the humidity. On my block, the smells of grilled hot dogs wafting from the balcony barbecues above mingle with the smells of hot dog urine from the sidewalk below. This morning, I saw a pigeon fight with a seagull over a Popsicle wrapper. Rejoice, all, for it is summer in the city. I love—and I mean really love—summer in New York, the terrible place where I was bo…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 339 views
In 1917, as World War I raged on, two officers named Harry Jones and Cedric Hill were being held captive in a remote POW camp in Turkey. There, Jones received a postcard from his aunt. She suggested he might pass the time practicing some form of spiritualism. She included precise instructions on constructing a Ouija board. Jones and Hill would soon be holding seances for the camp’s prisoners, a ritual that drew attention from the guards. Using coded information from home and their keen sense of human psychology, the two officers went on to cast a spell over their captors, a spell that would one day result in a daring escape. Here, we read about their first experiments man…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 368 views
I started writing crime novels back in the dark ages—the early eighties. I had always wanted to be a writer, but somehow other things had gotten in the way of my doing that—two years of teaching high school English, five years of being a school librarian on an Indian reservation, and ten years of selling life insurance, not to mention the births of my two children. In 1982, at age 38 and as a divorced single mother, I finally gave myself permission to start living that dream. I hadn’t been allowed in the Creative Writing program at the University of Arizona in 1964 on account of my being a girl. As a consequence, my first effort at fiction writing turned out to be a 1,40…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 381 views
I have a confession to make. In 2020, my debut novel, Little White Lies, was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association “New Blood” Dagger Award. I was delighted, of course, BUT… I never meant to write a “crime” novel. I’m not a “crime writer”. I hardly even read any crime. If I do, twenty-four hours after finishing, I often can’t remember “whodunit”. What stays with me instead are the characters. Their relationships. The atmosphere. Not the plot. So, gate-crashing about on the fringes of the genre, what am I? My marketing team would probably tell you that I’m a psychological thriller / psychological suspense author. And I’m quite happy with that categorization. I…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 412 views
Yarn lovers love yarns. After all, storytellers are said to “spin a yarn,” right? Knitting and reading simply go together. I’ve been knitting for as long as I’ve been writing (and reading). Every yarn lover that I know—be it knitter or crocheter—is also a book lover. And if you walk into any bookstore or book club and ask who knits, you’ll see a lot of raised hands (if they don’t already have hooks or needles in them). So why is that? To me, the process of creating a good story is much the same as knitting. You take one thing—a straight piece of yarn in this case—and transform it into another one stitch at a time. Patterns emerge. Transitions take place. Something enti…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 430 views
It was painstaking work, creating that fort out of a large thicket at the bottom of the hill. The opening was small and cut through the side so it couldn’t be spotted by anyone who might wander by. A tall cinder-block wall, about ten feet in height, stood a few feet in front and stretched across part of the bottom of the hill and down the road toward the Corniche. It surrounded an old, abandoned peppermint-stick lighthouse. The wall made for good cover and didn’t restrict our view to the other side of the hill and down the same road to our apartment building, which was a couple of blocks up from the Corniche, and the Mediterranean Sea. The fort became our hideaway. We na…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
A plague on these women who, lengthily wooed, Are not to be won until one’s out of the mood. And who then discerning one’s temperateness, Accuse one of cooling because they said yes! —”Curse in the Old Manner” (Dashiell Hammett poem published in The Bookman in September 1927) “You’re going to behave. I don’t want a lot of monkey-business out of you.” She laughed suddenly, asking: “Will you beat me if I’m bad?” —Exchange between the Continental Op and Gabrielle Leggett in Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Dain Curse (1929) Tell me something, Nick. Tell me the truth: when you were wrestling with Mimi, didn’t you have an erection? —Nora Charles to her husband Nick in The…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
As I type this, a new film has been released which offers a backstory into the motivations of the Disney villainess Cruella de Vil, a character who needs no introduction (or even, some might say, explanation) but has been given one anyway. I haven’t seen this new film, Cruella, which stars Emma Stone and sets itself up as a pseudo-prequel to Disney’s live-action 101 Dalmatians film from 1996, which starred Glenn Close as the diabolical, piebald, puppy-stealing termagant. I probably won’t see the new film (simply because I’m not very interested in Disney’s live-action remakes and such), but I’m not writing this to knock it. All I can say about it is that I’ve noticed that,…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 400 views
Con men flourish in two diametrically opposite times—when the people have nothing and are desperate for anything that will raise them out of poverty; and when there is boundless plenty for the vast majority, when countries are newly awash with easy money, and there are countless newly rich men and women who can just as easily be separated from their money as they acquired it. My book How To Kidnap The Rich is set in India, a country which is in both of these moments at once. For hundreds of millions of its very poorest, very lowest caste people, many former agricultural workers newly urbanised, every day can be a pitfall in being separated from their hard earned pittance…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 336 views
“You mean you, the translator, don’t read the novel all the way to the end before you start translating?” My new friend, who’s a Swedish novelist, couldn’t hide his surprise as we sat chatting during our first encounter in Oslo, Norway. I’d just told him that I’d been astounded and thrilled by the plot turn as I put the last pages and paragraphs of his novel into English. You see, the excitement of an investigation, a chase, an unexpected development, or a revelation is even more intense when you’re embracing the foreign-language text line by line and seeking to render it precisely and vividly into your own native language. I’ve been a mystery and puzzle addict since m…
Last reply by Admin_99,