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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It’s the not knowing, really, Isn’t it?. When we read mysteries and thrillers centered around solving a murder, we know the person is dead… but a missing persons case opens up a slew of psychological aspects to explore. There is no closure in cases of people disappearing. There is never an ability to mourn and move on because there is still a lingering flicker of hope. A character holding onto hope and simultaneously torturing themselves with endless possible worst-case scenarios is what really draws us into missing persons stories and what makes us resonate with them–empathize with the pain and grief of the family. Not only can we deeply sympathize with the character se…
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Janice drove slowly to avoid jostling the plastic containers of food on the floor behind her seat. She had better ones at home, but her father was likely to use them for storing nuts and bolts. She brought him food twice a week and resented it—the cooking, the drive, the awkward struggle for a topic other than weather or his cars. It was a matter of proximity. Janice was the oldest of his four adult kids and the only one who lived close. She often wished he’d died before her mother. With his wife gone he’d turned useless and low. Nothing engaged him but working on cars and taking care of his chickens. At the turnoff for his holler, she tried to straddle the mud holes, an…
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I was born into a second-floor flat on the Lagos mainland. It was the kind of flat with a living room that blurred into pale muslins of smoke whenever we forgot to shut the kitchen door before turning on the cooker. Outside the flat’s door, stray dogs and cocks bathed in the afternoon heat and rangy cats maundered through refuse for abandoned ponmo. In the mornings, I would rush out the flat to buy powdered milk and butter mints on credit from far mallam, a tall smiling Hausa man whose corrugated metal kiosk flanked our building. In the evenings, I would stand by my bedroom’s louvers to watch the neighbors perform ablution outside the estate’s mosque, a sea of plastic ket…
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I wish I was the kind of person who could live happily in all kinds of places. Don’t get me wrong; I love to travel, and I’ve lived in most regions of the country at one time or another, from Washington, DC to the Central Coast of California, to Missouri and northern Michigan. There were things I liked about each of the cities and small towns I briefly called home, but I couldn’t see myself settling permanently in any of them, and after a while I figured out why: I’m a Southerner. This is partly background, partly temperament. My father’s family settled in Virginia in the mid-nineteenth century, and I feel in a way that’s hard to put into words that the Blue Ridge Mounta…
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The success of Thomas Harris’s “Silence of the Lambs” unleashed a tide of serial killer novels throughout the ‘90s and ‘00s. You couldn’t walk through the front door of a bookstore or past an airport book kiosk without spying at least three or four titles dedicated to a mad butcher with a pun-y nickname and an inventive (or derivative) modus operandi. While many authors of those books succeeded wildly (including Harris himself, who followed up “Silence” with two sequels), the genre’s omnipresence put it at risk of exhaustion. How many ways can a diabolical genius kill the undeserving or hold a city hostage? How many different psychologists and cops can you set against …
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I’ve often, in my mind, likened the perfect reading experience to sitting in a bar and finding myself drawn—at first reluctantly, then less so all the time—into a stranger’s story. There’s something unique and compelling in that narrative space, and it’s an effect Jon Michaud conjures up masterfully in his new book, Last Call at Coogan’s: The Life and Death of a Neighborhood Bar. For a span of about thirty-five years, until its 2020 closure, Coogan’s was an uptown institution: an Irish bar in a Dominican stronghold, marrying the saloon ideals of a bygone New York with the practical, workaday concerns of a neighborhood in need of meeting spaces. Michaud, a talented noveli…
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Ashley Audrain, The Whispers (Pamela Dorman) “The novel soars via Audrain’s clever revelations of the ways her protagonists’ lives are linked in ways they never suspected. Both artful and pulse pounding, this isn’t easily shaken.” –Publishers Weekly Paul Goldberg, The Dissident (FSG) “[A] darkly comic tale . . . A refreshing and literary take on the genre that appeals to the intellect as well as the pulse.” –Library Journal S.A. Cosby, All the Sinners Bleed (Flatiron) “The hard-edged storytelling is supplemented by richly developed characters, especially Titus and his fami…
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With the pool at your feet and a cool beverage nearby, summer is the perfect time to pick up these novels and get lost in their pages. Queer thrillers and mysteries have a long history of offering fresh perspectives on traditional modes of crime fiction, whether it’s hard-hitting noir, historical thriller, detective story, or the cozy (the queer cozy, a.k.a. quozy). The genre boasts legendary writers—Joseph Hansen, Val McDermid, Michael Nava, Katherine V. Forrest, Ellen Hart, and Patricia Highsmith, to name a few—and of course, exciting newer voices, a sampling you’ll discover in the round-up of spring and summer releases below. Each quarter, Queer Crime Writers will hig…
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Panama City, capital of the Republic of Panama. Nine hundred thousand people with rather a lot of banks and lawyers as well as being, of course, on the transcontinental canal bisecting the narrow isthmus between the Caribbean and the Pacific. The city has been sacked several times since its foundation in the early 1500s – Spaniard vs Genoese; privateer vs mercenary, General Noriega vs the US military. First railroads, and then canals, brought American and French influence, as well as migrants from the Caribbean and across Latin America, into the city, turning it into a vibrant and lively, though segregated and often socially enflamed, city. And that canal – mired in corru…
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This year marks the 125th anniversary of one of the most influential ghost stories ever written. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James is a novella of shadows, lurking dread and psychological menace. The story is deceptively simple: a vulnerable, highly sensitive young woman takes the position of governess at Bly, a remote manor house. The children she is employed to care for, Miles and Flora, are delightful, and at first Bly seems to be a place of sun-dappled sanctuary. That idyll is soon shattered. The (unnamed) governess’s pleasure in the role swiftly turns to terror when she becomes convinced that the manor, and particularly the children, are haunted by the ghosts of …
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Are you worried about the future of, well, just about everything, given the decidedly-not-creeping rise of AI? The way concepts like “deep learning” and “neural networks” will soon worm their way into all manner of media, from podcasting to my own dearly beloved scribbling? I know that AI is nothing new (Philip K. Dick was writing about the concept way back in the ‘60s), that the current model upon which the open-use version of ChatGPT is based is not “new” itself. Instead, it’s stuck in a Palm Springs-style time loop of sorts (its knowledge base stops at September 2021.) Back in September 2021, generative AI was the furthest thing from my mind. I was fresh off a road …
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If I could have one person with me in an emergency, it would be a mother. Mothers, shepherds of the toddlers, the most chaotic group to herd. Mothers, whose bags are filled with every conceivable tool plus snacks. Mothers, whose transition into motherhood is such a total and radical transformation, and yet, they find ways to adapt. While my debut novel, The Perfect Ones, centers on the mysterious disappearance of an online influencer on a promotional trip to Iceland, I think the heart of the book is motherhood and the profound effect it has on women. I wanted to explore how motherhood drives the women in my story—and how, sometimes, it doesn’t. Because as a mother, I thi…
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I have a confession to make: I can’t watch horror films. As an author of dark and violent novels, you would have thought I would devour them but no. They scare the crap out of me. But what I do love are serial killer books. I save them for the downtime. For the gaps in between writing when my life is taken up with the minutiae of life I’ve forgotten about while I’ve been buried, trying to hit a deadline. I store novels like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter, waiting for the time when it’s safe to catch up on what I’ve missed; when I’m sure I’m not going to subconsciously feed a plot line into my current work in progress. Why the difference? Who knows. Maybe, when I re…
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Sleuthing in Regency England is a tough gig, especially for a lady. And even more so for that that lady’s creator. Namely me. Like most writers of historical mysteries, I had to solve several problems created by the realities of my historical setting to write my Regency lady sleuths in The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies. The ‘Ladies” of the novel are Lady Augusta and Lady Julia Colebrook, two fierce 42-year-old spinster sisters who use their privilege and invisibility as ‘old maids’ to solve mysteries and extract other women out of perilous situations in 1812. I call the novel a serious romp, and I chose to reach for a very high level of historical authentici…
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The flowers are blooming, the temperatures are climbing, the schools are out and summer reading season is officially in full swing. These June releases, featuring historical mysteries, psychological suspense, American gothics, supernatural thrillers, and classic espionage. There’s also new books from big names, as well as quite a few new voices to discover. So grab your pool towel, your sunglasses, and your 50+ SPF sunscreen, and enjoy! Clémence Michallon, The Quiet Tenant (Knopf) I just got my advance copy of Clémence Michallon’s much-anticipated new novel and I *can* confirm that it’s worth the hype!! It is a beautifully and thoughtfully written book with a pitch-p…
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As essential to the world of mystery novels as arsenic-laced sugar cubes or blackmail from beyond the grave, the remote country estate pops up in hundreds mystery novels from masters of the genre like Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But each of those writers is distinctly of their setting and time period, of course, as most were publishing their celebrated works prior to World War II, and those listed are of the British Isles or from a territory of the Commonwealth. American writers, being slightly less defined by legally entrenched aristocracy, can’t as easily swoop its detectives and do-gooders into manorial seats as caval…
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Imagine you’re trapped in a locked room, forced to use your deductive reasoning, cunning, and wit to escape. Now up the ante with a ticking time bomb set to detonate in less than a minute. To make things worse, each incorrect solution speeds up the countdown clock. Finally, throw in some cutthroat competitors, and only one of you is allowed to make it out alive. If this sounds like the makings of a great read, you’re not alone. Locked room mysteries have made a comeback, but with an added twist of grisly consequences and diabolical machinations on the part of the one pulling the strings. People are hard-wired to seek answers. Since ancient times, humans have been for…
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It’s no accident that Los Angeles is the ultimate home for unmoored detectives—even on a good day, the Big Orange is a noir maze of jungle U-turns, glamor facades, and keen disconnection. The place also just happens to be the unofficial hurricane eye of the record biz, and it played a central role in the development of 20th century pop every step of the way…from the crackling exuberance of the studio musicals to the bop sweat of Central Ave, Hermosa’s cool jazz scene, the hot wax AM radio revolution of Capitol Records and Gold Star Studios, the teenybopper invasion of the Sunset Strip, and beyond. That’s why it’s no surprise that some captivating novels have been written…
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Two impeachments and one insurrection ago, comedian John Oliver described a then-fresh scandal–the Trump campaign’s potential collusion with Russian interference in the 2016 election–as “Stupid Watergate.” This use of Watergate–a shorthand for the series of crimes, dirty dealings, and subsequent cover-ups that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974–reveals a lot about how we tried to understand the firehose of scandal and corruption that was the Trump Administration. On the one hand, Watergate was a hopeful precedent. It promised that political misdeeds could be brought to light, thoroughly investigated, and could bring down an unfit president. On the other,…
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I know the trades keep telling us the strike situation isn’t going to be truly felt by viewers for several months still, but if June is any indication of what the streamers have in their stockpiles, the future is bleak. Most months, we’re looking at at least five or six crime shows worth your time. This month, honestly, it just isn’t going to happen. Maybe we’re entering into the post-Succession, post-Barry, early summer lull. Anyway, the news isn’t all bad, at least for those Kelly Cuoco / Chris Messina / true crime culture fans out there. (And a note: I strongly support the WGA strike and hope a fair contract is delivered soon.) Based on a True Story (Peacock – Pr…
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I’ve got a novel called The Siberia Job coming out June 6th; it’s a based-on-real-events recounting of the insane world of Russia in the 90s and how adventuring American investors briefly controlled Russia’s most powerful energy company, before they were forced to sell by some very credible death threats. While doing research for the book, I interviewed a lot of fascinating people with a lot of fascinating anecdotes of the wild west-atmosphere of post-Soviet Russia. I stuffed The Siberia Job with as many of these as I could, but inevitably some of my favorites had to be left on the cutting room floor. Happily CrimeReads has given me a chance to tell a few fantastic storie…
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If you consume any kind of media these days, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll find some level of meta contained within it. Movies about movies? Just ask Steven Spielberg and his newest release The Fablemans how it’s done. TV shows about TV shows? My recent favorite Reboot proves that there’s plenty of entertainment to be found when the writers poke fun at their own industry. Books about books are no different. Because we’re all readers to begin with, we tend to be drawn to stories that revolve around libraries, bookmobiles, book stores, and book clubs. After all, these are the spaces where we collectively thrive. Who among us hasn’t dreamed of uncovering a dead body in…
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Megan Abbott, Beware the Woman (Putnam) “A real treat for the author’s many fans and for everyone who treasures that sense of Gothic-tinged trouble both within and without. Think Rebecca in the UP. Abbott was once a cult favorite, but those times are long gone. She’s a crime-fiction A-lister now.” –Booklist I.S. Berry, The Peacock and the Sparrow (Atria) “Outstanding…The plot’s many twists will captivate readers, and Berry’s gorgeous prose is its own reward with echoes of le Carré and Graham Greene.” –Publishers Weekly Alison Goodman, The Benevolent Society of Ill Mannered La…
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Graham Greene famously called Patricia Highsmith “a poet of apprehension,” a phrase that kept returning to mind as I read Megan Abbott’s newest book, Beware the Woman, a brilliant fever dream of a novel in which time and sensation are bent out of order and each turn of the page brings a quiet breath of dread. Abbott, known for her hothouse, atmospheric thrillers, is at her most visceral here, with the story of a woman, Jacy, in early pregnancy accompanying her new husband on a trip to his father’s remote house in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Immediately, the physical reality of Jacy’s new world— the smells, the pains, the appetites—overwhelms us, and we’re thrown headlong …
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Whether or not General Sheridan knew of the concept of Manifest Destiny or had heard the term, he was a believer. Newspaper editor John O’Sullivan popularized the idea in 1839 when he made the case for America’s expansion westward. He wrote an article called “The Great Nation of Futurity,” which eloquently explained the political, economic, and moral reasons why Americans should go forth and spread across the North American continent. The words destiny and progress are prevalent in the piece, and a central tenet of progress was to civilize the Native American tribes, who were seen as archaic and savage. The idea of civilizing the tribes seemed noble at the time, but it wa…
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