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,
3,499 topics in this forum
-
- 0 replies
- 461 views
Why are imaginary friends so creepy? What is it that’s so unsettling about the sight of a child confidently babbling away to thin air? Stephen King wrote, “The root of all human fear is a closed door, slightly ajar.” The things we can’t see that are almost always more frightening than those we can. The idea of a threat that the child can see but the adults around him can’t is recurrent in the horror genre because it’s so effective: think The Others, The Sixth Sense My debut novel, The Woman Outside My Door, owes a lot to horror. It’s situated firmly in the psychological thriller and domestic noir genres, with themes of mental health, motherhood, and homemaking and dark…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 460 views
I’ve always loved my science fiction/fantasy and romance with a touch of suspense—and lots of action. Those are the types of stories I gravitate towards in the books I read and the movies I watch, and they’re the stories I have the most fun writing. When I first thought about the GhostWalker series, I knew I wanted it to revolve around a group of soldiers who have super-human abilities as the result of a secret experiment. From telekinesis to DNA modifications, the GhostWalkers have seen a lot of paranormal activity, and most of the science fiction is based on real science somewhere along the way—including the seventeenth installment in the series, out this March, Lightni…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
All of my forty-eight published novels have been historicals, which naturally require a lot of research. I have one rule when I do research: I read and read until I come across something that makes me say, “Wow, I didn’t know that!” Then I build the book around that amazing fact, because I figure if I didn’t know it, neither did the vast majority of my fans. If it made me say “Wow!”, it will make you say “Wow!” too. One of these Wow moments resulted in my entire Counterfeit Lady Series. It all started about ten years ago, with a conversation I had with my then-editor, the great Ginjer Buchanan. Ginjer had been my editor for about ten of my Gaslight Mysteries at that po…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 459 views
I love to feel unsettled while I’m reading. My favorite books leave the reader teetering in the precipice of certainty, wondering what’s real. I think of them as “fever dream” novels—books that you read in a mad, sweaty dash and that make you feel dazed and disoriented when you turn the last page. Thrillers and crime novels are especially well-suited to this style because they thrive on ambiguity. It’s one of the reasons I chose to leave the narrator of my debut, Fan Club, unnamed. Who, exactly, is she? The reader knows her intimately, yet not at all. And as she slips deeper into her obsession with international pop star Adriana Argento and a group of her enigmatic super…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 458 views
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Christina McDonald, Do No Harm (Gallery Books) “McDonald offers a painful look at two hot-button topics: the desperate opioid crisis, and a system that allows the cost of cancer pharmaceuticals to extend far beyond the reach of so many. Is what Emma does an unforgivable betrayal of her medical oath, her husband, and herself? It will be up to the reader to decide if the ends justify the means.” –Booklist Charles Finch, An Extravagant Death (Minotaur) “Lenox’s latest adventure has humanity, heart, and humor; it offers a captivating glimpse of America’s richest citizens in the late …
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 457 views
I wake you at seven thirty. The kids I roused earlier with the rise and shine tone. Don’t worry. I sent an alert when their bedroom camera caught them stirring. Check your phone. There, charging on the nightstand. Go to live view. “Hey Google, broadcast: brush your teeth.” Message delivered. It echoes through the neighboring wall. You want another five-minute snooze? Okay. I’ll get you up. And you’re awake. I know because you’ve silenced the alarm and the shower’s going. I hear the shushing of water as I scan the airwaves for those two words signaling my attention: “Hey, Google.” My downstairs partners wait for “Alexa” or “Siri.” We three, always listening. The be…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 457 views
It is a truth universally known that if there’s a dead body found with a knife in their back in the middle of library, the police must be called. Or must they? If there is a list of stock characters you must have in a mystery, the police is on that list. From classic mysteries to modern procedurals, police are generally called in when murder is afoot. The roles police play shrink and grow depending on who’s the main character, but they always come in the end. They are the voice of reason that clears confusion after a locked room mystery at a dinner party gone wrong. They are there to capture a murderer who outsmarted the amateur detective. They might be the anonymous gr…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 457 views
There are few places in the world that inspire awe and terror like the Alps. With peaks that top 4000 meters and immense crevasses cracking through granite, the Alps give a god-like vantage above the world one minute only to plunge one to its depths the next. This dizzying sensation was best expressed by the French essayist Chateaubriand when he wrote: High mountains suffocate me, and while the lack of oxygen is certainly a factor, it is just one of the elements that make the Alps the perfect setting for chilling crime, suspense, and horror fiction. One of my favorite novels set in the Alps is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, published in 1818. Shelley perfectly captured th…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
Time travel is a genre unto itself, one that spans sci-fi, mystery, fantasy, history and more. But there are distinct categories of time travel narratives, each with its own set of rules—and each with a different baked-in outlook. Getting to a taxonomy of time travel stories, the first question is—who or what is actually time-traveling? Because while the first stories we think of involve spaceships and Deloreans, the oldest time travel stories are stories about… 1. SEEING THE FUTURE In these stories, it is actually INFORMATION that travels through time. And this might be the most scientifically plausible form of time travel, one that is already happening all the time …
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 456 views
As we all know, the worst thing to happen to mainstream American cinema in the 21st century was the near-total abandonment of that most compelling and enigmatic of subgenres: the erotic thriller. While there have been a few notable additions to the canon over the past two decades (In the Cut, Unfaithful, Gone Girl, When the Bough Breaks…em… The Boy Next Door) the sweaty heyday of the erotic thriller has been over for some time now. Its Golden Age was actually quite a lengthy period, beginning (I would argue) in earnest in 1981 with Bob Rafelson’s remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice and ending in 1996 with the Wachowskis’ Bound. (I will also accept 1998’s Wild Things…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 455 views
My hometown, Oxford, is a city of bookish ghosts. Its honeyed streets—now spookily empty—hold shimmery echoes of its literary past. And I’m not talking about the obvious here: Inspector Morse or His Dark Materials, or even the University’s 45 Colleges with their medieval cloisters and chapels and gargoyles. I’m talking about the characters that haunt the little alleys, nooks and crannies, the tunnels and vaults, the hidden graveyards. One of my favorites spots is an unobtrusive doorway right in the city centre where a lion’s face is carved into the wood, two golden fauns perched above him: a physical inspiration, so I’m told, for C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. Another…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
As the Cayuses struggled for their very survival, Henry Spalding despaired of his new life among American settlers in the Willamette Valley. Despite having spent the first three decades of his life in the uniformly white small towns of upstate New York, he wrote that he “never felt at home among the whites.” Short of money and with four young children to provide for, he jumped from job to job in the 1850s, working as a teacher, farmer, school commissioner, postmaster, roving minister, justice of the peace, Indian agent for the federal government, and pontificator in local and East Coast newspapers. All the while, he ached to return to Nez Perce country, where he wanted to…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 455 views
Well, so here’s March again, and we are coming up on our one-year anniversary of pandemic lockdown (with a way too brief respite last summer). People are getting weird. Maybe it’s the endless ice and snow, rain and hail, lather rinse repeat of the Canadian winter, but I find myself and hear other people talking to people just to talk. Torontonians are not chatty, but suddenly everyone from the pharmacy (Shoppers, the Duane Reade of Toronto) to the ice cream place (Ed’s Real Scoop) is small talking up a storm. Such are the constraints of the way we live now. But there are books—yes, thank you for the books, we need them even if we have gotten into the habit of jumping pro…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
London, September 11, 1888. The noise of hammers and steam engines filled the air in Whitehall, the construction site of the New Scotland Yard headquarters. Little did the architect of the red-and-white brick Gothic castle on the bank of the river Thames know that its site would become a crime scene investigated by the police force’s detectives. Frederick Moore, a laborer at the site, spotted an object lying on the mud. When he picked it up, he made a horrifying discovery. It was a woman’s arm, neatly amputated from the body. In the following days, the victim’s torso and leg turned up at the site. This was most certainly murder. It wasn’t the first such case in that peri…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 453 views
Each month the CrimeReads editors make their selections for the best upcoming fiction in crime, mystery, and thrillers. * Caroline Kepnes, You Love Me (Random House) Kepnes keeps turning up the intensity with each new installment of the Joe Goldberg series, this time sending her protagonist-villain to an island in the Pacific Northwest, where he finds work, naturally enough for Joe, at a local library, and of course trains his attention (and delusions) on one of the librarians. In the past, Joe has been very much a creature and observer of cities, first New York and then Los Angeles. The move to a small-town adds a special, terrible intimacy to his crimes, not to men…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
When I conceived When the Bough Breaks, the first Alex Delaware novel, in 1981, I had worked as a clinical child psychologist and medical school professor for several years and was astonished at the lack of anything close to an accurate portrayal of the mental health professions in fiction. Back then, depictions of psychologists and psychiatrists in novels, plays, movies and T.V. shows tended to fall into two categories: evil, Svengali-like and often homicidal mind-rapers—think Dressed To Kill—or nerdy doofuses saddled with more tics, quirks and neuroses than their patients—think The Bob Newhart Show. The absence of verisimilitude extended to the therapy process, whi…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 453 views
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Bryan Christy, In The Company of Killers (Putnam) “Christy makes his fiction debut with an exceptional adventure thriller… A riveting plot, complex characters, deep backstory, and an engrossing setting enhance this finely written novel about justice, personal responsibility, and saving the environment.” –Publishers Weekly Edward White, The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock (W.W. Norton & Co.) “White distinguishes his work with an inspired approach…. An absorbing, thoughtful, and balanced look at a master of his medium.” –Library Journal Mariah Fredericks, Death of a Showma…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 453 views
A look at the month’s best new true crime books and critical studies. * Murder in Canaryville: The Triue Story Behind a Cold Case and a Chicago Cover-Up, by Jeff Coen (Chicago Review) James Sherlock, a consummate detective and appropriately named, came from a family of Chicago police. After his own long career with the department, he was headed toward retirement when he came across a cold case, the murder of seventeen year old John Hughes on the Southwest Side of the city. The case, with its flickers of a broader story of corruption, came to consume him, and as he chased down leads and connected the dots, he began to see a bigger picture, one that implicated figure…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 452 views
When I spoke with the legendary Marilyn Stasio, she planned to spend her afternoon working on review of Femi Kayode’s debut novel Lightseekers. Her editor wanted to know why she chose that particular book. “Well,” she said, “I’ve never been to Nigeria.” At eighty-one, Stasio still wants to be surprised, though getting one over on someone who reads more than 150 books a year is no easy feat. Stasio began her reviewing career as a theater critic for the now defunct Cue magazine and eventually wrote a syndicated column, Mystery Alley, for newspapers throughout the country. In the 1980s, she became the designated Crime Columnist for The New York Times, soon emerging as the…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 452 views
Novels are a very macro endeavor packed with micro details. They’re the literary version of those slightly spooky yet somehow charming matryoshka nesting dolls. Plot, setting, and characters: they’re equally crucial elements that must all be individually successful, then join in a perfect confluence in order to tell a compelling story. The sum is always greater than its parts. I call this notion many things: the Holy Trinity, the Golden Triangle, the Magic of Three. A Sisyphian task? Sure, but what isn’t in life? And the longer you’ve been doing anything, the more instinctively things come together in just the right way. Part of the fun is pushing that boulder up the hil…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 452 views
There is no one to whom a blue dress has meant more to his career than author Walter Mosley, with the possible exception of his biggest fan, President Bill Clinton. Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress had been critically acclaimed prior to Clinton telling the world Mosley was one of his favorite writers. But after Clinton’s endorsement, Mosley’s books traveled from bookstore mystery shelves in the back of the store, to storefront windows and entryway co-op tables in less time than it takes to complete a book signing. Not since President John Kennedy sang the praises of Ian Fleming, the father of James Bond, has an author’s work been jumpstarted so successfully. And Mosley …
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 452 views
Each month the CrimeReads editors make their selections for the best upcoming fiction in crime, mystery, and thrillers. * Benjamin Wood, A Station on the Path to Something Better (Europa) Benjamin Wood’s emotional noir about a young boy taken on a desperate road trip by his estranged father is as beautifully written as its title is long. The father promises to take his son to the set of a popular TV series he claims to work on, but the journey turns into anything but, as the father’s untruths catch up with him and he resorts to violence to salvage his self-worth. –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Senior Editor Melissa Ginsburg, The House Uptown (Flatiron) In The Hous…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 451 views
For me, every good book begins with its characters. Even with crime fiction, where a gripping and twist-filled plot is essential. And even with Cozy Crime, where the bucolic settings and rootedness in place add so much to the genre. When I reflect on the books I have loved or that have changed me as a writer, years after I read them, it’s always the characters I remember most vividly. It’s the characters who drew me in to those thrilling plots, and intricately conceived worlds, and made me care about them. My own new cozy crime book, Murder at the Castle, is the second in my series of Iris Grey mysteries. And although Scotland (and Italy) both play a significant part in …
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 450 views
In 1977, the New York Daily News published an article about a beautiful young con woman named Barbara St. James. (At least, that was one of her names.) “If you meet her, you will like her,” ran the article. “She will draw out your life story, your troubles and triumphs. She appears wealthy, a woman of substance and class. She drips with sincerity.” Appears was the second-most important word in the paragraph, but the first was like. You will like her. Beautiful Barbara’s life story has long been forgotten, but that line could be used to describe almost every con woman before and after her. If you meet her, you will like her. The con woman’s likability is the single most…
Last reply by Admin_99, -
- 0 replies
- 450 views
“Conspiracies are melodramatic, my dear, especially when they’re made by rich people with too much money and time on their hands.”—The Smiler with the Knife, Nicholas Blake * Orson Welles arrived in Hollywood in July 1939 with a Mephistophelean beard and a clutch of potential projects. The facial hair was an artifact of Five Kings, a wildly ambitious synthesis of Shakespeare plays that had closed in Philadelphia. John Houseman, then Welles’s producing partner, wrote that “as a final token of defiance, Orson announced that he was retaining his beard and would not shave it off until he had appeared as Falstaff on a New York stage.” The affectation provided additional ammu…
Last reply by Admin_99,