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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Ah, school days! The grassy quads, the tang of autumn in the air, the dying screams of murdered classmates. With atmosphere like that, it’s no wonder campus mysteries have been around since the Golden Age of detective fiction. All the greats took a crack at it—Dorothy Sayers in Gaudy Night, Agatha Christie in Cat Among the Pigeons, Ellery Queen in The Campus Murders—and later innovators like J. S. Borthwick, Pamela Thomas-Graham, and Lev Raphael helped diversify the subgenre. But in 1992, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History was the first to break out of the cozy mold, becoming a crossover bestseller and changing the face of the campus thriller forever. A lush, melancholy wh…
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Raymond Chandler had a complicated relationship with Hollywood. If you’re inclined to dig around there are any number of interesting and sometimes shocking anecdotes about his time working around movies, and he certainly left behind a litany of quips on the subject. (“Its idea of ‘production value’ is spending a million dollars dressing up a story that any good writer would throw away.”) My own personal favorite has a slightly lighter air than most of the matter on offer. It’s the now legendary, possibly apocryphal story about William Faulkner, hired for a script adaptation, desperately trying to work out the plot of The Big Sleep and inquiring of Chandler which of his ch…
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tk ___________________________________ The Soothsayer: Rose Marks ___________________________________ There were so many sad women in Manhattan. They were educated and successful and desperate. They had MBAs and books on the New York Times Best Seller list and jobs in international finance; they had abusive husbands and drug-addled sons and mothers who were dying. Their daughters were depressed and their boyfriends were leaving them and their bodies were riddled with cancer. What could they do? These women had grown up believing that there was something more out there, something to cling to. And now, as they dragged their aching hearts through the city, something appe…
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While working on our recent ranking of prison escape movies, I hit a wall after thinking about movies in which the villain gets himself (or herself, possibly, but it’s almost always a “him”) caught, as part of an evil plan. In these films, it is only by “getting captured” that the next phase of the villain’s plan may commence. And then, usually, he’ll escape. Often, out of some sort of large glass box. So, these films didn’t seem like they should go on my prison escape list, but felt relevant. Hence, the mini sub-list. But of course, there are also movies where the good guy wants to get caught, so he can escape and do something. I think these instances are fewer, but sti…
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Once a week this summer, Bobby Santovasco and his best pal Zeke head down by the Belt Parkway to throw things at the cars getting off at the Bay Parkway exit near Ceasar’s Bay shopping center. Bobby’s just turned fourteen. Zeke is thirteen. They like stealing CDs from Sam Goody and cigarettes from Augie’s Deli and playing video games in Zeke’s basement. They both have a crush on Carissa Caruso from Stillwell Avenue. They’re both headed into eighth grade at St. Mary Mother of Jesus on Eighty-Fourth Street. Bobby was left back in third grade, so he’s a little older than everyone else in his class. Their teacher is going to be Mrs. Santillo, who Bobby heard fart during the …
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I escaped Romania in the middle of the night, by bike, on February 2, 1965. It was the moment when the country was locked in a communist prison. I was seventeen years old then. Now, twenty- four years later, in the diplomatic and political frost of 1989, with the beginning of freedom, I’m returning. As I walk through customs at Bucharest’s Otopeni airport with my American pass‐ port held tightly in my hand, I feel a strange sensation: memory is pulling me back to a lost time. I see my seventeen-year-old self in front of me, leading me into the labyrinth of youth. She takes my hand and warns me of pitfalls while I enter a world I may have forgotten. She’s cute, smiling, s…
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Of the many triumphs of feminism, and often-cited benefit of women’s equality is the goal of equal participation in the job market. We are able to benefit far more than previous generations from women’s job skills being taken seriously, and there are more working mothers than ever before. And yet maternity leaves, like real wages, or salaries for women of color, or job security for laboring women who are also about to be in labor, remain far behind the glowing promises of the 1970s (or the 1920s, if you go with Soviet promises). Despite the wide variety in length of leaves available across the world, from the average three months of the United States to the year-long lea…
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You’ve got your large Coca-Cola in the cupholder affixed to the chair and your bucket of popcorn overflows into your lap. The lights go down and the movie begins. Cue the hero: some grizzled ex-special forces vet or former assassin with an ax to grind. This isn’t just any hero, though. This person is godlike, superhuman, the best in their field. No punch or kick will derail them. Maybe they’ll break a rib or two, or take a knife to the arm, but they will not stop kicking ass. Similarly, no bullet will take them down. There will be hundreds of bullets—thousands—fired at them over the course of the movie, and not one of them, not a single one, will be lethal. The bullets th…
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Ever wondered if you could be tempted by a cult? If the current viewing and reading choices are anything to go by, probably. From strictly religious, to New Age and downright bizarre, cults represent that fascinatingly dark side of devotion. And we never tire of wondering: what causes seemingly ordinary people to give up their wealth, their bodies, and sometimes even their lives to group of strangers? With life being more isolating than ever, it is perhaps not surprising we’re more drawn than ever to peeking inside extreme groups, promising a simpler, decision-free life. My own interest is strictly professional, of course. Researching my book, Black Widows, cast me deep …
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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…
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Although I’ve produced a book or two a year for the past thirty years it’s a truth still to tell that publishers continue to struggle to slot my output into a specific genre. You might ask what is a genre other than a label made up for the purposes of marketing and easy introduction. It rarely encapsulates everything that goes on in a book, is used simply to make a sale quicker and more achievable, and I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. However, doesn’t it leave us wondering what we might be missing if we “never read crime” or we “scorn romance” or “wouldn’t go near science-fiction”? I can’t imagine there’s an author alive whose only real concern when writing a bo…
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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 …
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It’s February 6, 1960, about five in the afternoon. Darkness is falling. The Chevy Bel Airs and Ford Thunderbirds maneuvering their wide bodies off of Walnut Street onto Main are snapping on their headlights, making a sheen against the wet pavement. Saturday night is coming. Pippy diFalco is limping across Main Street. The weather is sleety, temperature in the high thirties. Pippy is a small man wearing a big overcoat. He has an open face, puppyish eyes, shows lots of teeth when he smiles—kind of a goofy expression, which gives an impression of innocence. But that’s misleading. People say there was always something else going on. “Nice guy,” his onetime partner told me…
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When you think of the 19th Century English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, you don’t necessarily think of suspense. Rather, he brings to mind the agricultural world of the southwestern counties of England, where most of his novels are set, and the harsh social circumstances (to put it mildly) of his characters. He’s renowned for his lyrical writing style, the romantic and pastoral elements of his books, and his commentary on the moral, social, philosophical and religious values of his time. But when I re-read one of my favourites, his 1891 novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles, it struck me that Hardy is also a master of suspense. And I felt compelled to start taking notes. Pe…
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When Putnam and the Ludlum Estates asked me to write The Treadstone Resurrection, all I knew was that it was a spinoff series that drilled deeper into the shadowy world of Operation Treadstone. For those unfamiliar with the Ludlum Universe, Operation Treadstone was the covert CIA program that took Jason Bourne and turned him into a genetically modified assassin. A man capable of killing without hesitation or remorse. My contribution was to create a new hero. A protagonist who’d give readers a Bourne-like experience, but not a Bourne rip-off. At first glance, it seemed pretty straightforward. In fact, as I began developing my protagonist, a former Treadstone operative …
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The Man Who Didn’t Fly, first published in 1955, is a highly successful novel by an author of distinction whose crime writing career came to a sudden and rather mysterious end when she was at the peak of her powers. The central puzzle in the story is unorthodox. A plane is engulfed in fire and crashes in the Irish Sea. The wreckage can’t be found. A pilot and three men were on board and their bodies are missing. But four passengers had arranged to go on the flight and none of them can be found. So who was the man who didn’t fly, and what has happened to him? This is such an original mystery that I don’t want to say much more about the plot, for fear of spoiling readers’ …
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The headline pretty much says it all—after three decades of reviewing an incredibly wide variety of crime novels, Marilyn Stasio has retired from writing the New York Times Book Review’s crime column, although she will still contribute occasional reviews to the newspaper. Sarah Weinman, author of The Real Lolita and frequent contributor to national publications as well as editor of a number of landmark anthologies, is the natural choice to succeed Stasio—Pamela Paul of the NYT calls her the “the most obvious suspect” and we couldn’t agree more. We won’t be seeing her Crime Lady newsletter as much anymore, but we’re looking forward to reading her column—the first one’s up…
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I love the show Moonlighting, but everyone loves Moonlighting. To see Moonlighting is, in fact, to love it, though if you didn’t watch it when it aired, from 1985 to 1989 on ABC, there’s a chance you may never have seen it. None of its five seasons are available in digital versions, for purchase or subscription streaming. The handful of DVD editions produced in the early 2000s are out of print. The only way to watch it now is via a mélange of YouTube clips, or to get your hands on those rare physical copies (which is what I did, via many stressful eBay auctions, tortured soul that I am). The eventual obscurity of this show is, as far as I’m concerned, a crisis. Moonlighti…
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The Valentine’s Day love note from a secret admirer has an evil twin—the “vinegar valentine” from a hidden hater. When mass-produced valentines replaced handmade ones in the Victorian era, satirical valentines were as available as sentimental ones. Vinegar valentines, ancestors of poison pen letters and trolls’ tweets, ridiculed their recipients and sometimes drove them to suicide or assault. Sending cards with poems of love and friendship to mark Valentine’s Day became common in the 18th century. This practice grew out of an earlier tradition of gift-exchange between lovers on that day. In pre-Victorian England, valentines were handmade and resembled today’s cards in th…
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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…
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These are dark days for romance. Even if you are the type who usually buys into the schmaltzy hullaballoo of Valentine’s Day, you’re probably not feeling too lovey-dovey this year (and if you are, what the hell is wrong with you?) With the pandemic still raging and date-night hotspots shuttered, many of you will no doubt settle in to watch a movie at home, probably one all about love and romance, through which you can pine and swoon and live vicariously. But all that’s likely to do is make the current day reality more bitter. So, instead of watching some cheap, over-lit Hallmark movie or Vaseline-lensed classic, why not embrace the darkness by indulging in something mea…
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There’s another long weekend coming up in the U.S. With a large portion of the country currently under snow, lockdown, or both, and what with the President’s Day mattress sales not what they used to be, how’s a body supposed to spend its time? I’d recommend traveling vicariously to Paris to hang out with a master of disguise and gentleman thief. Or going to Brazil, if you like folkloric mystery. Or possibly Barcelona, circa 1960. What I’m saying is don’t despair, you have options, and most of them are on Netflix. Here are a few recommendations for your long weekend international thriller binge. If you’ve always want to visit Paris with a gentleman thief… Lupin Seasons…
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Vienna was giving Norah the cold shoulder. When she’d visited with Alex in the summer, she’d been enchanted; it had seemed to her a city with a mind of its own, unlike anywhere she’d been before. That felt like light years ago. Everything seemed so bleak—a Munchian vision of a city; a dark, urban forest, warped and menacing. The gloom pervaded Norah’s empty at and the dingy streets. Passers-by stared grimly at their phones; melancholy coated everything like a film of grease. And it was fucking freezing. Norah bought an Austrian paper, a German paper and a packet of cigarettes in the newsagent’s across the road, and sat down with them in the corner bistro. By the time sh…
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Thirty years ago, July “Come on, Erik!” Josh’s sneakers disappeared over a mussel-encrusted rock ridge left exposed by the low tide. His voice echoed behind him. “We have to get there and back again before the tide turns!” Like Erik didn’t know that. He pulled himself up the ridge, puffing, and saw Josh’s tracks in the dark sand, the strides long, the toes dug in. He was running. Bastard. Erik savored the forbidden word in his mind and even thought about saying it out loud. No one was around to hear, or wash out his mouth with soap, or spank him, or send him to bed without his supper. Which his mother lost no opportunity to do because she thought he was too fat. Inste…
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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 …
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