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,
4,204 topics in this forum
-
- 0 replies
- 677 views
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Alison Wisdom, We Can Only Save Ourselves (Harper Perennial) “Eerie and powerful. . . . the hypnotic storytelling and exploration of Alice’s character—and the character of Alice’s entire town—will draw readers in.” –Booklist Tod Goldberg, The Low Desert (Counterpoint) “These are stories Elmore Leonard would love—not just because the razor-sharp Goldberg wastes no words in cutting to the heart of his stories, but also because he highlights the humanity and inner lives of even his most bent characters . . . A thoroughly enjoyable collection by a bona fide original.” –Kirkus Reviews…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
I like to check in on writer’s houses. Not in a creepy, hiding-behind-the-hedges way, just as a diversion during the work day when I’m stuck online and wishing I were somewhere breezy with nothing but time, mixed drinks, and books. There’s a vicarious creative thrill in seeing the places where our favorite authors produced their best work. That’s especially true when a writer and a place are entwined in your imagination. I’m thinking about Hemingway’s Paris apartment on Notre-Dame-des-Champs or the Dickinson Homestead in Amherst—addresses and edifices that have survived to our day and still manage to conjure up an artistic world. In the crime fiction realm, that’s John D.…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 1.4k views
Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA offers an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction. When I was getting my degree, I read countless essays where genre fiction was referred to as “escapist fiction.” The essays we read were (of course) written by proponents of literary fiction who made it clear that genre fiction was something common and vulgar which should only be sold from seedy shops in back alleys. Genre fiction wasn’t true literature (affect a snobbish accent and be sure to look down your nose). Genre or popular fiction was deemed insignificant and those who read it weren’t as cultured as readers of literary fiction. At the time, I didn’t pay the labels much attention. Di…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 1.5k views
When considering the great artistic accomplishments of England, what often comes to mind first is English Literature. Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, the Brontes, Jane Austen, Dickens—names that hold as much or more relevance today as they did when these authors lived. Their brilliance is as well-documented (the work speaks for itself, really) as it is undeniable. Their words live on era after era, with each subsequent generation of readers finding new meaning and understanding, new insight, and new revelations, in these centuries-old works. English literature is without doubt among the world’s great treasures. A cultural treasure needs, above all, to be enduring, to withs…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
As the marshals’ search for the Commander sputtered during the first months of 2012, there was no way for them to know that the key to solving this mystery sat in a drawer of a metal filing cabinet at the New Mexico State Library in Santa Fe. Had Bill Boldin and his team known where to look, they could have found, alongside back issues of the Ruidoso News, the Carlsbad Current-Argus, and the Bernalillo Times, a blue-and-white box containing microfilmed issues of the Gallup Independent from July and August 1997. As it had for more than three decades, the masthead on the August 8 edition of the local newspaper proclaimed that, inside, readers would find “The Truth Well Tol…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 1.5k views
Traveling the world from the safety of our armchairs is the only travel most of us get these days, so it’s a good thing that publishers continue to bring out plenty of works grounded in far-flung locales to keep our imaginations, at least, from being stuck at home. This month’s offerings include a carefully plotted German thriller, a thoughtful Ghanaian mystery, a cynical Italian noir, and two new Scandinavian crime novels. Melanie Raabe, The Shadow (Spiderline/House of Anansi) Translated by Imogen Taylor Melanie Raabe made international waves with her tricky revenge thriller, The Trap, in which a shut-in author must venture outside after being granted a new chance t…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 637 views
There have been many times in the last ten years when I’ve watched a movie or read a book created before the twenty-first century and had the reaction, “You just can’t do that now.” Usually this was in response to a character who, for lack of access to a telephone, was in dire trouble with no way to summon help. Perhaps their phone line had been cut. Or maybe they were dodging a bad guy and couldn’t risk making a mad dash toward the nearest phonebooth. I recently read Harvest by Tess Gerittsen (published in 1996) and was constantly aware of the aspects of the book that were dated due to advancements in how we communicate. With its medical setting, there was a prolific u…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 675 views
A look at the month’s best reviewed crime novels, mysteries, and thrillers. Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared (Dutton) “… a sharply-written, tension-filled yarn full of twists readers are unlikely to see coming. The most compelling element, however, is the character of Frankie, a recovering alcoholic whose obsession with the missing is a penance of sorts for the burden of guilt and grief she carries over a past trauma that took the life of a man she loves.” –Bruce DeSilva (Associated Press) Anders Roslund, Knock Knock (Putnam) “With a story stretching from Stockholm to Montenegro and back, this is definitely a tense and detailed thriller, giving some inter…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 632 views
This January, the Collins Crime Club issued a new edition of Rudolph Fisher’s classic crime novel The Conjure-man Dies, originally published in 1932 and considered to be the first detective novel by an African-American author, as well as being steeped in the literary culture of the Harlem Renaissance. The Collins Crime Club, a historic British imprint, was relaunched a few years ago with the intention of bringing lost and little-known classics back into print, focusing on Golden Age writers. We asked David Brawn, the publishing director for the Collins Crime Club, a few questions about the imprint, its history, and its latest reissue, The Conjure-man Dies. CrimeReads: Br…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 621 views
The New Yorker editor reached Randy Wayne White at his historic waterfront home high atop a historic Indian mound on Pine Island on Florida’s Gulf Coast. “We’d like you to write a story about the Everglades for us,” she told him over the phone. Randy was in a foul mood. The Outside magazine columnist was also a fishing guide working out of Tarpon Bay Marina on Sanibel Island, just across the bay and salt flats from his home, and it was the height of fishing season. “I’d been fishing something like 48 days straight,” he says. “So much has been written about the Everglades, I don’t know of anything else to write.” He told her thanks, but no thanks. He went on with his…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 727 views
(This article contains spoilers for Psycho and Les Diaboliques. And The Sixth Sense.) This year marks both the 60-year anniversary of Psycho and the 65-year anniversary of Les Diaboliques. Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, has become one of the most famous movies of all time. Its brutal murder in a shower and its jolting all-strings score by Bernard Herrmann have acquired the status of memes. Even people who haven’t seen the movie have mimed stabbing movements while emitting staccato screeches to evoke the idea of a psychopath. Les Diaboliques, made 5 years before Psycho by French director Henri-Georges Clouzot, isn’t as well-known these days, though we might not ha…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
When Valora first stepped through the door of my office, the smell of cigarettes followed, along with a palpable physical tension. He was in his thirties but looked older, with a tight, tense frame, deep creases in his face, and bags under his eyes. His thin, sinewy arm muscles twitched under his skin, and his fingers beat a rhythm against each other as he fidgeted to find a comfortable position. He spoke in a staccato voice, interrupting himself when his train of thought outpaced his speech. He had a million questions for us. Who were we? What did we want to know? Where should he start? Did we know about his pending criminal case? He didn’t care if helping us helped him …
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 1.5k views
Draw a circle. The space inside the circle represents the positive space in the drawing. The negative space would be the shape made by the outside of the circle. It’s most noticeable in cut paper art or silhouettes or even those Nagel prints that were so popular in the 1980s. Positive and Negative Space exists within other forms of art as well: ceramics and sculpture, for example. Since writing is also an artform, the theory of Positive and Negative Space also applies to literature and, specifically in this case, world-building or setting. Often, readers and new writers assume that world-building is what the author describes in detail—whether that’s the history of the fi…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 694 views
___________________________________ The Life and Crimes of Marie Dean Arrington ___________________________________ Marie Dean Arrington had been taking matters into her own hands for her entire life. So when she found herself in a minimum security jail cell—well, what was she supposed to do? Just sit there? Marie was thirty-five, and she’d been committing crimes for over a decade. At 23, while working at a motel as a maid, making 75 cents an hour for scrubbing floors, she suddenly realized that she could make a lot more money if she just robbed the motel instead. So she robbed her boss, and then she tied herself to a chair. When the police arrived, she said that she w…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 716 views
“Your father was working for the CIA,” said Bogdan, husband of my second cousin, a provocative person, especially after several bottles of local Slovenian wine. Nine of us were finishing a pleasant dinner in Ribić, a seafood restaurant on the Adriatic coast near Trieste in 2010. We were reminiscing about the years our American and Slovenian families had known each other, a relationship that began in 1951, when I was brought to Yugoslavia as a ten-month-old. My parents were in London for a year on a Fulbright grant when my father decided to visit the Slovenia mountain village his parents left in 1911. Bogdan’s claim stopped the conversation. “Preposterous, out-of-th…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Murder: A Roadside Killing and The Novel That Captured an Era
by Chief Editor- 0 replies
- 1.5k views
“It is impossible to drive anywhere in America today without encountering a patient, droop-shouldered chap who stands by the roadside and continuously jerks his thumb across his chest. He is the hitch-hiker, one of the strangest products of the auto age, and he is getting to be a prominent part of the American landscape. He is also getting to be an intense pain in the neck. Just why it should be considered proper for a man to stand by the roadside and beg free transportation from total strangers is a mystery….But the hitch-hiker is something more than a nuisance. There are times and places when the hitch-hiker is an actual menace to public safety….[M]urders of motorists b…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 591 views
My recent novel, Blood Will Have Blood, was driven in part by my fascination with protagonists who find themselves in dire exigent circumstances, facing predicaments where recourse to conventional protocols and laws simply fails. Sometimes dialing 911 isn’t an option. One of my favorite movie examples is Cape Fear (the original, with the inimitably noble Gregory Peck). Here is an officer of the court, an upstanding man of laws, stalked by Robert Mitchum’s vengeful ex-con, whose mayhem cuts through any notion that societal restraints can keep the order of things. How starkly this reality eventually strips Peck of his norms, leading this good citizen down a decidedly dark p…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 627 views
The CrimeReads editors select the month’s best debut novels in crime, mystery, and thrillers. * Ashley Audrain, The Push (Pamela Dorman) In Ashley Audrain’s slow-burn suspense thriller about motherhood, Blythe Connor doesn’t have much of an idea about how things are supposed to go–after all, her own mother left when she was a young child. She’s determined to be the perfect mother she never had, but she can’t ignore the worries caused by her eldest’s many outbursts. Something seems…off, about the child, something that she’s never felt about her darling youngest. As her checked-out husband reassures her that everything is fine, Blythe becomes increasingly certain that…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
People say you should never meet your heroes. When, in 2011, I sat next to David Cornwell (aka John le Carré) I was more worried for my hero meeting me. As the bright-eyed 81-year old leapt, smiling, to his feet, a kink of snow-white hair kicking up over the collar of his dinner jacket I made a pact with myself: Under no circumstances should I bring up the crime novel I am struggling to plot. Crime novels (including spy novels) are best known for their plots. Almost all reviews of successful crime novels will talk about plot before they mention character. Grisham’s plots are “intricate”, Agatha Christie’s are “ingenious”, Ruth Rendell’s are “twisting”. But le Carre, this…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 688 views
One thing I’ve noticed about cozy mysteries is that—for those unfamiliar with this charming genre—they seem to have a bit of a reputation. Basically, older women snooping into crimes, possibly a knitting group, definitely a cat. But this isn’t always the case. Well, except for the cat. Although really it can be any cute animal companion. This misunderstanding makes sense. I mean, famed characters like Miss Marple and Jessica Fletcher arguably defined the genre. But it’s grown from their foundation, branching out to encompass so much more in terms of characters, themes, narration, and mystery elements. First, you might be asking, what exactly is a cozy mystery? A puzzli…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 578 views
Ever since my husband died, I had been drawn to true crime as a way to process trauma. Hearing dark, tragic stories made me feel less alone. I started with Dateline, watching episode after episode, sometimes for hours, alone in my flat in London. Then I heard about True Crime podcasts. There was something so intimate about these—smart, funny women journeying into the world’s darkest places to make order out of chaos. I became addicted, listening to every episode, attending live events where I met incredibly kind, open people. I became immersed in the True Crime fandom. In my novel, If I Disappear, my protagonist Sera is obsessed with true crime podcasts. It gives her a s…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 641 views
There is no going back now. The taxi glides away from the house, down the street towards South End Green, retreating effortlessly from my family home, away from the expensive brickwork and tended gardens I will never see again. The sound of the indicator clicks out a steady rhythm. My body quietly shaking, I turn my head so that my driver will not look at me and see what I have done, I watch my life streak past through the window, the bumping motion of the car, the low hum of conver- sation from the radio. The girls hadn’t lifted an eye as the horn beeped from the road. Why should they? To them, today is just another day. How long will it be until they learn the trut…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 638 views
Today the Mystery Writers of America announced the nominations for the 2021 Edgar Awards, one of the mystery world’s premier honors. The winners will be announced on April 29, 2021. This year marks the 75th annual presentation of the awards. For more on the nominees and special award winners, check in with the Mystery Writers of America throughout the season. ___________________________________ BEST NOVEL ___________________________________ Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara (Penguin Random House – Random House) Before She Was Helen by Caroline B. Cooney (Poisoned Pen Press) Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (Penguin Random House – Pamela Dorman Bo…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 679 views
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Camilla Bruce, In the Garden of Spite (Berkley) “Bruce uses a framework of fact to create fiction that horrifies…[a] grisly historical thriller.” –Booklist Eliza Jane Brazier, If I Disappear (Berkley) “Blending the true crime compulsion of Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark with the immersive creepy-craziness of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects, Brazier creates a heady, pitch-dark cocktail all her own.” –Publishers Weekly Joanna Shaffhausen, Every Waking Hour (Minotaur) “Tight plotting and sophisticated surprises fuel the rich storytelling. Schaffhausen layers much em…
Last reply by Chief Editor, -
- 0 replies
- 1.5k views
At first glance Poland’s major city Warsaw can seem like one of the grittier of Eastern Europe’s capitals—not with quite perhaps having the charm or romance of a Budapest or a Prague, or maybe even a Bucharest. Thanks to Hitler wanting to wipe the city off the map the old town is pretty much gone (except for a newly built ersatz ‘new/old’ town). Then in the Cold War the Stalinist architects got a go and stubbornly, but predictably, refused to build anything with a human dimension. Now there’s new money, European Union membership, and skyscrapers are popping up. But you can’t keep a good old city down—Polish hipsters are opening up all manner of cafés, restaurants and bout…
Last reply by Chief Editor,