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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No pain, no gain! A common refrain, and the quintessential mantra of those who hustle. While you’ve probably seen this couplet superimposed over dozens of muscular athletes wielding barbells like feathers, there are much smaller, quieter examples of pain as the pathway to a different type of success: healing. Very few people can put in an intense workout and escape the painful bodily backlash the next day, and the process of healing is no different. Trauma hurts and so does banishing it. I write about trauma because I am intrigued by how much our pain shapes us, and by the overall resilience of the human spirit. While the biggest examples of this are usually seen in news…
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I love crime fiction for its versatility, how it can incorporate well-realized characters, a wide range of tones and styles, and social commentary all within propulsive plots. A crime sets up an immediate conflict: a wrong is committed, and someone tries to address it and restore order. Crime fiction can include a wide range of stakes, from “Who stole Grandma’s award-winning pie recipe?” to “How do we catch the Pigface serial killer?” It offers a window into the dark recesses of the human soul while also celebrating the better angels of our nature. As a genre, it’s one of the most accommodating forms of storytelling. That being said, when I look at the crime novels on m…
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Novels, I’ve found in my writing experience, come out of ideas that won’t be denied. They surface from the mind like something primeval climbing out of muck. Once they’re out there, wet and dripping, there’s no putting them back under the black tar. My novel about an apocalyptic cult, Minor Prophets, came out of me that way, a piece at a time, first a head, then a tail, then a confused monstrosity of parts. I had just moved to Chicago after a lifetime spent on the east coast. One rainy night the first week my husband and I arrived, lost in our new city, carrying shopping bags of home goods back from a Target on the Near North Side, we passed a grassy field, a square of w…
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My current series revolves around the Locard Institute, its forensic science focus made of equal parts research, training, and private investigation for clients who need/can afford it. The Locard does not exist, alas. I invented and designed it for flexibility in plotting—but CSI schools are real enough. As labs are accredited and techs are certified, a certain amount of continuing education credits are required to maintain those standings. Forensic training classes might last from a morning to a week. Students include cops, fingerprint analysts, drug lab techs or death investigators with experience anywhere from a few months to a few decades. Most any professional empl…
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The Southern California stretch of the PCT that sits between Warner Springs and the Anza Trailhead runs forty-one desolate miles between two rural highways, State Routes 79 and 74. Despite the long views of barren ridges, the meanderings through fields of strange boulders, and the occasional funky cactus, this isn’t the most scenic section, but it was a convenient place for a trail hopeful named Eric Trockman, who lived in nearby Temecula, to test out his equipment for three days before he began his PCT thru-hike for real. On February 20, 2015, four days after the contentious call between Chris and Min, Trockman hiked north from Warner Springs. Eighteen miles later, h…
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We all love a tradition, don’t we? Whether it’s been passed down to us or we’ve adopted it ourselves, traditions bond us as families, friends or communities. They give us a warm, cosy feeling that we are part of something bigger, doing what others have done long before us, letting us pleasingly sink into a long line of ancestors and future offspring. We are safe in numbers, in tradition; the rules are set and all we have to do is play our part. And traditions are fun, right? Just good old-fashioned innocent fun. Well, that’s what I thought, too, until I actually dug into some of America and Britain’s most heart-warming traditions and followed their history all the way ba…
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From the earliest days, Hollywood and its overseas competitors and wannabes were addicted to Chinatown. In tandem with Limehouse fiction, Fu Manchu series, and Charlie Chan mysteries, the so-called China flicks—or, ahem, yellow flicks—exploited the stereotypical eerie ambience of Chinatown as the cinematic obbligato. With its exotically clad citizenry, crooked alleys, curio shops, opium dens, gambling parlors, brothels, hidden warrens, trapdoors, and an occasional flying dagger in the dark, Chinatown, whether in realist street scenes or carved out of cardboard and fantasy, appeared readymade for film noir. In some ways one may say that Thomas Edison, who had made a short…
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“Put silver in your pockets, walk with dirt in your shoes, or he’ll poke your eyeballs from their sockets, and boil your bones in stew.” (Katherine Greene is the pen name of two women writing twisty thrillers) Our upcoming psychological thriller, The Woods Are Waiting, begins with a morbid nursery rhyme that highlights a very specific set of superstitions that are followed by an isolated community in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. Silver and dirt have a long history of protective properties in many different cultures and the residents of the fictional closed off town of Blue Cliff, Virginia have held onto these beliefs and macabre traditions for generation…
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No serial killer fiction list would be complete without mentioning Red Dragon. Hannibal Lecter probably needs to introduction, but remains the model for the devilishly smart and manipulative psychopath. Of course, Harris gives us not one, but two serial killers within the book’s pages, and “The Tooth Fairy” is a very different kind of killer: one who is troubled, and unstable, and almost finds himself drawn to be kind when he falls in love. It’s a great portrait of the different types of killer, and of how trickery nearly undoes investigator Jack Graham. The Bone Collector has to go on any serial killer reading list too. Jeffrey Deaver’s gripping tale of a quadriplegic…
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You’ve written a great first novel. There’s buzz! There’s praise! The book is flying off bookstore shelves. Even the notoriously finicky and hot-blooded reviewers on Goodreads adore it. They’re throwing stars at you like henchmen in a ninja movie. Your publisher loves the book so much in fact, that they want you to write another one. Pronto. Welcome to the Land of the Sophomore Slump. Many writers spend years crafting their first book in a headspace that’s blissfully free from deadlines, contracts, and fan expectations. Then, when their debut novel is (miracle of miracles!) successful, they’re expected to crank out the next book in the series in record time–often less …
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Hugh Lessig, Fadeaway Joe (Crooked Lane) “[This] debut catches fire . . . [For] those who read for intriguing characters.” –Library Journal Jesse Q. Sutanto, I’m Not Done With You Yet (Berkley) “This is a wickedly enjoyable treatise on the dark sides of female friendship.” –Publishers Weekly Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, Dead Mountain (Grand Central) “Down-to-earth action tackles an otherworldly mystery in this devilishly plausible yarn.” –Kirkus Erin Flanagan, Come With Me (Thomas & Mercer) “Edgar winner [Erin] Flanagan (Blackout) explores the dark side of fe…
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“Almost perfect in its playlike purity and delightful prose.” —Barzun and Taylor on The Birthday Murder Lange Lewis was a woman of mystery. She made a splash in 1942 with the publication of her first novel, Murder Among Friends. It was praised in reviews published in the New York Times (“This appears to be Lange Lewis’s first book. Let us have more”), the San Francisco Chronicle (“Salaams to Miss Lewis and a recommendation to any and all fans who like their detective stories literate, civilized, and well-planned”), and the Oakland Tribune (“Devotees of violent demise in literary form have a treat coming at the hands of this young woman, Lange Lewis”). The Chronicle and…
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Beautiful Penang, on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, by the Malacca Strait. Its densely populated capital of George Town is a feast of colours and heritage buildings. If geography is destiny then Penang and George Town are evidence of the theory – deemed vital to the East India Company, the navies of a half dozen colonial countries and any number of pirates. The Straits of Malacca remain one of the world’s key waterways, linking east and west, but also one of the most pirate infested too. It’s had some interesting visitors over the years too. Penang-born Tan Twan Eng’s The House of Doors (2023) is set in 1921 and mixes real and fictional characters and events…
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Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk’s era-defining debut novel about a load of disaffected men beating the bejesus out of each other in order to feel alive, was first published twenty-seven years ago today. The book rapidly gained a cult following, was adapted into one of the most iconic movies of the 1990s (despite an initial failure at the box office), and, of course, originated the modern pejorative use of the word “snowflake.” Here’s what the very first reviews had to say about “Gen X’s most articulate assault yet on baby-boomer sensibilities.” I don’t want to die without any scars. “A volatile, brilliantly creepy satirefilled with esoteric tips for causing destructi…
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August is Women in Translation Month! So I figured I’d round up some of this year’s best crime novels in translation by women from around the world. Below, you’ll find Norwegian serial killers, Argentinian vampires, French influencers, South Korean lawyers, and so much more (honestly, a lot of French stuff—it’s been a really good year for French noir). A quick shoutout to the amazing publishers and translators who shepherded these works into a language I can read (although I did, once upon a time, read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in French. And some Simenon. Not to brag or anything). Victoria Kielland, My Men Translated by Damion Searls (Astra House) Nasty, brut…
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We fry in Leone summer: while Barbie and Oppenheimer cycle so rapidly through ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and ‘ugly’ so as to feel as plastic as their respective subjects—brands and back-room cowardice)—sundry other franchise zombifications feel like ash off of Eastwood’s cigarillo. And as film production itself stands still as a fake cowboy town erected in the desert, activated towards a fairer world, or even a less-cruel one, other fantasies linger, like the question of hyper-hyphenate Mission: Impossible–Dead Reckoning Part One. Here is an expensive legacy sequel full of considered action set pieces and interminably incoherent international implications, less jingoistic and ugly…
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A couple years ago, I found myself on a serious Shirley Jackson kick. I devoured as many of her short stories and novels that I could find—including the elusive The Bird’s Nest—Ruth Franklin’s excellent biography A Rather Haunted Life, and of course, the movies. The Haunting circa 1963 was fabulous, to be sure, but my favorite of all was Mike Flanagan’s modern reimagining of The Haunting of Hill House. I remained on tenterhooks for the entirety of the series, but one particular scene at the end of episode five—if you know, you know—had me nearly climbing the walls with sheer terror. One thing you should know: I am what is commonly referred to as a “scaredy cat.” And yet,…
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There are innumerable ways to answer the question of “When is it time to stop writing?” It could be time to stop when the publishing contracts dry up. Or it could be when your book sales dwindle to a dribbling trickle. When the last thing you want to do is come up with one more idea. It could also be time to stop when you flat out don’t feel like writing any longer and you’re afraid that every sentence you write reveals that reluctance. I wrote my first published mystery in 2009, and I recently turned in my eighteenth. The use of mathematics tells me that I’ve written an average of 1.125 books per year for the last fifteen years. Another burst of figuring tells me that I…
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“Pull over,” Allan shouted from the passenger seat. The rain was blinding. I refused to stop. My daughter was working the late shift and needed a ride home. “She can take an Uber,” he shouted. I couldn’t trust a random driver to bring my daughter home to safety. That was my job, her mother. With my hands clutched to the wheel, I drove fifteen miles an hour on the highway, the speed limit was 55, passing the dozens of other cars that had pulled over. In 1982 Angela Cavallo lifted a Chevy Impala off of her teenage son. We may not have heard the name Angela Cavallo, but most likely we have heard the story about the mother who saved her child’s life by lifting a car. Th…
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So here we are – The Detective Up Late, the seventh book in the Sean Duffy series… and so some evil rumourmongers say, the last. But it’s the 2020s – everyone has a comeback tour now, so no reason to think Duffy’ll be any different I reckon. For Duffy it’s 1990 – a new decade, the same old grinding “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. ‘The grim, greasy, seedy seventies had bled into the violent, neon, awful 80s…’ – a decade that saw 1,200 Troubles-related murders. Nobody in Carrickfergus Police Station is overly hopeful about the new decade, least of all our man, Detective Inspector Duffy. He’s still that rarest of things – a serving Catholic officer in the Royal Ulster Con…
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It’s almost impossible to imagine. Between 2010 and 2019, one of every seven crime novels published was by a single author—James Patterson. Working with co-authors, he became a novel writing phenomenon and much more, while many literary critics argued his work became much less. Patterson is well aware of the criticism of his assembly-line style productivity. How can one author, even working with co-authors, churn out dozens of books a year and expect any semblance of quality? The native New Yorker bonds with his audience and they’re devoted to him. His readers have devoured more than 400 million copies of novels with his name plastered in large type across the cover.…
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I was brought up to believe that our country was governed by whichever party happened to be in office. That’s what my ancestors had instilled in the generations before me and the belief that I was intending to pass onto my own children. And if I hadn’t become a journalist, perhaps history would have continued repeating itself. But instead, I was astounded to discover that our rulers and politicians are merely the organ grinders monkeys, whilst the media is the conductor of the ensemble. I’ve been interviewing celebrities for twenty-five years and I’d like to say that in that time, the media has moved with the times and changed its modus operandi when it comes to the live…
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The kids are almost back in school, vacation season is pretty much over, but there’s still time to travel this summer—just pick up an international crime novel! Here are five new books in translation that will take you all over the world, and into the dark underbelly of the coziest destinations. Isabelle Autissier, Suddenly Translated by Gretchen Schmid (Penguin Books) Isabelle Autissier has sailed the world alone, becoming the first woman to do so in a competition, and this survival thriller speaks to the experience of the author. In Suddenly, a French couple sets off on an epic journey, only to find themselves stranded on a remote island in the Antarctic Ocean. T…
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My latest novel, An Honest Man, is set in Maine and was written in Maine. This might make one think it qualifies as Maine fiction – and I respect your confusion. I’ve lived part-time in Maine for eight years now, and there are two disqualifiers in there. You can’t be a Mainer if you live in the state for “part” of a year (waivers may be considered for natives) and if the word following the number eight is years rather than generations, don’t even think about it. It was in Maine that I became aware of the acronym P.F.A., which stands for “People From Away.” This is one of the great terms for outsiders I’ve ever heard. There is Maine, and there is Away. The End. My wife, …
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A missing person is a story that doesn’t end. We grapple to make sense, to decipher, to make meaning out of something so unfathomable. Jon Billman refers to the ‘purgatorial underworld of the vanished,’ a description that makes infinite sense to me. The missing are perpetually caught in an in-between place, not here but not gone. Stories about missing persons respond to this cultural anxiety, their narratives plotting explanations or recovering and remembering the missing person, refusing their oblivion. In my novel Tell Me What I Am a woman goes missing leaving behind her four-year-old daughter and sister. They alternately narrate the story of what happened and, I like …
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