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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My theory is that everyone has one of these stories. Perhaps it was a place you grew up in where random objects would vanish – you swore you put your keys on the sideboard and now there’s just a blank space where they were. Maybe your girlfriend lived in a house that produced unexplainable sounds – ‘no, there’s no one upstairs, it just sounds like someone is walking up there sometimes.’ Or perhaps it was a tiny but powerful thing – you walked into the ruin of an old church on a fiercely sunny day only to feel a chill settle over your bones. You’re not supposed to be here. This place is bad. For me, stories about hauntings have two key ingredients. The first is one often…
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For three months after its launch in May 2023, I.S. Berry’s spy novel was flying under the radar, as most debut novels do. Then a rave review from The New Yorker set off a firestorm of other favorable notices that resulted in numerous publications and National Public Radio naming it one of the best novels of year. In a world where thousands of great books go unnoticed annually, I.S. Berry (her pen name) was the lucky one who was discovered for her talent and story by a publishing and media world that too often looks inward for more of the same, by the same, for its next round of similar enlightenment. Berry’s novel, The Peacock and the Sparrow was also nominated for bes…
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If you follow the news at all—on TV, newspapers, social media—you are aware of crimes perpetrated both at home and in faraway places. You might read them, feel a pang of grief for the victim or a flare of rage at the villain. But our fast-moving media often gives us only a glimpse of the crime itself and then the news cycle is on to the next crime. Most of the time, the aftereffects of crime aren’t acknowledged. It’s not because those reporting the news are bad people. There’s just so much crime and only so many minutes in the day. Part of it may also be our own viewing habits. In these days of instant connection with a single click, I think our attention spans have beco…
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Not coincidentally, I quit my great love, horror movies, right around the time I became a mom. Perhaps it’s because new terrors haunted me: SIDS and school shootings, poison in Halloween candy, toxins in the water, plastic in our bloodstream, creepy lingerers in Golden Gate Park, a planet on fire, a child poisoned, a child with no future, a child lost forever. That was enough horror for me at that point in my life. Or maybe it’s because becoming a mom brought to my attention how many horror movies make moms into monsters. Moms are the ugly reason behind Jason and Norman Bates and Carrie. They’re the evil antagonists in Ma (2019), Mama (2013), and Mother’s Day (1980/2010)…
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From the time gold was discovered here in 1871, Alaska has been a magnet for a certain type of risk-taker. Daredevil fortune seekers came, seduced by the area’s seemingly infinite riches – miners, traders, trappers, and crab fishermen all answering Alaska’s siren song. Throughout Alaska’s recorded history, yet another kind of risk-taker has gravitated to The Last Frontier. Lured by the vastness of the terrain, its Wild West lawlessness, its endless winter nights, or all of the above – serial killers have left their mark. I set my debut mystery/thriller Cold To The Touch in this locale because of its unique, stark beauty and its ability to harbor the darkest and most si…
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April 2024 It is springtime in Paris. I am in Paris. I know now that this, what I am experiencing, is the perfect combination of a time and a place, a season and a city. It rains a lot, but only a little. The sun is chilly but the wind is warm. At lunchtime, I walk to the Place Dauphine, a shady courtyard on the west side of the Île de la Cité, the island in the Siene that bears up Notre Dame, listening to the hurried French of elderly couples. In the evenings, I stroll through the Latin Quarter, weaving around clusters of American students on study-abroad. I’m staying with a friend in an apartment in the 20th arrondissement, near Père Lachaise, the old cemetery. In a f…
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The phrase “people often ask me” sounds like a setup here, but it’s true that people often ask me why it is I’ve chosen to write about small-town Texas. And every time, the question sort of takes me aback—not because it’s an unusual one, but because the setting of my books feels inherent to me, the first thing that comes when I sit down to write; it doesn’t feel like much of a choice. The straightforward answer is that I’m writing what I know: I grew up in small towns and rural areas. I enjoy wide-open spaces and have a need to spend time there in my mind. There’s also an intrinsic relationship between crime fiction and small-town settings—small-town mysteries their own …
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This is part two of our annual roundtable discussion ahead of the Edgar Awards, in which we discuss major issues (and minor peeves) in crime writing. Thanks so much to all the nominees who contributed to the discussion! __________________________________ What do you think is the most important issue facing crime writers today? __________________________________ Jess Lourey (nominated for Best Paperback Original – The Taken Ones): Inclusivity in our genre, in my opinion, is the most important issue facing crime writers today. Thanks to the hard work of Crime Writers of Color, Sisters in Crime, and others, our field is more diverse than it’s ever been, but there’s still …
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One of the most creative avenues for genre exploration today is found in young adult fiction. The following new and upcoming releases are distinguished by nimble use of tropes, deep love of references, intricate plotting, and a passion for justice. They are also, and I cannot emphasize this enough, incredibly entertaining. God speed, ye readers. Tyffany Neuhauser, Not Dead Enough (Viking, January 23) This novel uses the undead as a perfect metaphor for PTSD—the main character is literally haunted by her abusive ex-boyfriend, a duplicitous soul whose harmful ways were invisible to all other observers, and a brutal confrontation with this zombified incarnation of traum…
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Death of an Author is a rare example of a novel by E. C. R. Lorac (the principal pen name of Carol Rivett) that does not feature her popular and long-serving series detective Inspector Macdonald. The story is so entertaining, however, that we don’t miss him, especially given that Lorac introduces an appealing and capable pair of substitute investigators in Chief Inspector Warner of the CID and Inspector Bond. The novel, originally published in 1935, boasts an unorthodox and well-crafted plot, but is particularly strong in its depiction of the literary world of the mid-1930s. This is a subject which evidently fascinated Lorac, and she returned to it more than once in subs…
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Most of the generation of authors that produced the Golden Age of detective fiction–that brief era when the puzzle plot purportedly reigned supreme in mysteries–had departed not only from the field but from life itself when, over a half-century ago in the Spring of 1972, British crime writer and critic Julian Symons published Bloody Murder, his landmark study of mystery, detective and crime writing (there is a difference among them to be sure) and the first popular survey of the misdeeds and mayhem genre since Howard Haycraft published Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story, three decades earlier in 1941. (Revised editions of Bloody Murder followed…
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I can’t write crime. That’s the troubling discovery I made while drafting my second novel Sing, I. As a discipline of the crime genre for decades, particularly detective fiction and more recently true crime, I initially found my inability to write crime deeply frustrating and surprising. I knew from the outset that Sing, I would begin with a store holdup and the robber would continue to commit local crimes and evade capture. As I wrote on, I fully expected Ester, my main character and one of two victims of the store holdup, to become increasingly embroiled in the hunt for the repeat offender—along the lines of a heart-trembling psychological thriller. But Sing, I’s story …
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Anthony Horowitz, Close to Death (Harper) “An absolutely engrossing tale…written with the abundance of whimsy and dark humor that seems to permeate nearly everything that Horowitz creates. Kudos to anyone who can figure this one out!” –Booklist Sara Paretsky, Pay Dirt (William Morrow) “Paretsky’s phenomenal gifts for significant and riveting stories, lacerating dialogue, rich psychology, and barbed humor reach tornadic force.” –Booklist Alyssa Cole, One of Us Knows (William Morrow) “Cole mixes a spooky, isolated setting with a hint of the gothic and a storyline that isn’t …
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A look at the month’s best new releases in crime fiction, mystery, and thrillers, via Bookmarks. * Don Winslow, City in Ruins (William Morrow) “Winslow has written a near-perfect saga: He’s created great characters who grow and develop while remaining true to their essence, and a sweeping story that morphs and expands over time, with the stakes escalating until they reach nosebleed heights at the end.” –Alma Katsu (Washington Post) Karen Jennings, Crooked Seeds (Hogarth) “It’s been years since I read a book that strained the Likability Principle so viscerally … This novel couldn’t be any more overwhelming if it came in a scratch ’n’ sniff edition … The real ar…
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Perched on a stool at the end of the bar of the Elks Club lodge 656, Gary Webb answered his black Nokia flip phone like a celebrity fielding live calls at a telethon fundraiser. After so many decades as a farmer, political agitator, activist, competitive fisherman, football coach, school board member, and historical preservationist, Webb, 69, was a well-established connector, the hub at the center of a giant wheel of people. That was part of why he’d finish one call, clap the phone closed, and it’d start ringing again. The other part was my fault, since before I’d made that reporting trip out to Missouri in August of 2013, I’d told him I’d like to meet anyone he thought I…
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From ancient times, India has had a rich tradition of magic, active and thriving even today. Lord Indra, Hindu God of the heavens, who wields the power to control thunder and lightning, is also believed to be the world’s first master magician. His biggest magical creation is the Indrajala, or maya, the web of illusion in which our lives are embedded. The Atharva Veda, one of India’s oldest and most influential sacred texts, is rich with descriptions of magical rituals, incantations, charms and spells. Seals from the Indus Valley site in Harappa, dating to the Bronze Age, show evidence of shamans wearing horns. In colonial India, jadoo, magic, was intertwined with street…
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In the two years that have passed since I did my first round-up of Australian crime and mystery dramas, our “Golden Age” of Antipodean streaming options has only grown more gilded. To date, at least two dozen more top-tier Aussie (and Kiwi) series have made their way to North American streaming services, including cringe rom-com Colin from Accounts (Paramount+), cringe apocalypse comedy Class of ‘07 (Prime Video), and cringe probate law comedy Fisk (Netflix). Also, the Cringe Comedy King of them all: Taskmaster, both Australia and NZ editions. But of course it hasn’t just been cringe comedies the Antipodeans have been sending north these past two years! They’ve also — as…
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They fanned out across the slope, taking their time to survey the terrain. The wind was no longer so ferocious, but it was still cold and gusty. Back home, the experts referred to this as a natural ‘terrace’, but it was far from flat – a thirty-degree slope with steep cliffs at the bottom, the terrain a mixture of scree-covered rock and patches of snow. Just one slip could send you tumbling down the mountain, to be smashed to pieces on the glaciers below. They were at 27,000 feet on the North Face of Everest, the lower edge of the ‘death zone’. Five American climbers and mountain guides: average age thirty-two, two previous summiters, all eager and willing. At Base Camp,…
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My cat has nothing in common with Maisie Dobbs. Let me back up. Picture the scene: it’s December 2021. My first nephew had just been born, and because of the pandemic, I couldn’t meet him in person or help my sister the way she’d helped me after my sons were born. I was feeling helpless, sad, and vulnerable as Christmas approached. So I did what any logical person would do. I went on PetFinder. Hear me out, though—we’d recently adopted a chihuahua, and my intention was to find contact information so that we could make a holiday donation to the organization that had rescued him. Instead, I saw a description of a cat who needed a home. I showed it to my husband, who rai…
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I love writers who mix genres. It’s like an athlete who plays sports and somehow, improbably, manages to be good at all of them. C.J. Tudor’s novels cross boundaries between mystery, horror, and thriller, managing to bring out the best in each of them while creating something wholly new. Her newest novel, The Gathering, delves into the aftermath of a grisly murder that may have been committed by an isolated community of vampires in rural Alaska. As one online review put it, “You never know what you’re going to find in a book from C.J. Tudor—other than a great read!” Recently we sat down to talk about another genre-crosser, Michael Marshall Smith’s 1996 novel Spares. Why …
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It’s no secret I love historical mysteries. I spent my childhood reading Nancy Drew, The Famous Five and Secret Seven, progressing to Agatha Christie in my teenage and adult years. I rejoiced when the genre moved away from bumbling women who solved mysteries purely by luck to strong, interesting and diverse characters solving crimes through pluck, grit and intelligence in a variety of settings, with a motley crew of supporting characters. In the real world during these time periods, women would have been confined to strictly domestic roles, but in the realm of historical fiction, they emerge as powerful figures, breaking free from patriarchal constraints and asserting the…
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Kellye Garrett, Missing White Woman (Mulholland) “Juicy but shrewd, Missing White Woman is arguably a thriller for the TikTok age, its issues contemporary yet timeless. Kellye Garrett uses her staccato sentences to build pressure … [and] handles questions with depth and verve in this exciting new book.” –Elle Peter Nichols, Granite Harbor (Celadon Books) “Well-written, character-driven portrait of small-town New England meets Silence of the Lambs.” –Kirkus Reviews Catherine Mack, Every Time I Go On Vacation Someone Dies (Minotaur) “[A] fizzy series debut . . . Mack, a pseud…
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“People should be interested in books, not their authors.”—Agatha Christie A couple of years ago, on the sun-drenched Amalfi Coast when it was climate-change hot outside, I had a thought (Okay, I had many thoughts, but mostly—why did I think it was a good idea to go to Italy in July?). My husband and I were halfway through a ten-day tour and our conversation was wandering, as it tends to do when we’ve spent that much uninterrupted time together, into random topics. I talk a lot—maybe that’s why I’m a writer?—and my thoughts sometimes skip like stones across a flat pond. In between Coke Zero’s and Aperol Spritzes (By the time the trip was over I was half Coke Zero and ha…
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I don’t usually include personal anecdotes in film reviews, lest they detract from the critical discussion at hand, but I’d just like to open this review by saying that I brought my 87-year-old Croatian grandmother with me to my advance screening of The Fall Guy in IMAX, and after we got her situated in her ADA seat and watched the trailers and the movie itself started rolling, revealing a medley of impressive stunts, she leaned over and said, in a very matter-of-fact way, “this is an action movie.” The Fall Guy has a lot going on, but the most important thing about it (indeed, the thing about itself that it most wants you to know) is that it is an action movie and that …
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They moved Route 36 in the years after the killings. Now the road runs straight where it used to dogleg through Newton County, an hour’s drive southeast of Atlanta, and most travelers don’t see that it was ever otherwise. Orphaned stretches of the old highway linger here and there, most of them dwindled to rough trails—hardwoods and high weeds pressing their flanks, yearling pines braving their unpaved crowns, thick weaves of vine plunging their remote twists into midday dusk. Leave anything for long in the Georgia heat and rain and, sure as the sunrise, nature will reclaim it. It does not take long. You have to look hard for one piece of the original roadbed, where it …
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