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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The lull of waves lapping to shore. The scent of salty breezes, suntan lotion, and saltwater taffy. Flip-flop warm summer days with no agenda. This is the hidden promise when I find a cozy mystery with a waterfront cover. Instantly, I sense respite and escape, with a sprinkle of intrigue tucked inside. The waterfront setting. I desire it, in both reality, and fiction, and I know I’m not alone. We readers want this. Don’t we? We long for it. What is it about those cozy mysteries with the waterfront covers that lures us in? Doesn’t matter if it’s a sandy beach, a rocky cove, or a lake hidden within the pines. Doesn’t matter if it’s saltwater, fresh water, or a rambling rive…
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If ever a novel could evoke a simpler, gentler time, it is Mary Roberts Rinehart’s The Wall, written at the peak of her powers and success in 1938. The story takes place in a large seaside house in a New England town that is a summertime destination for the well to-do, if not the rich, who flocked to Newport, Rhode Island, in those days. The family had lived in the sprawling, ten-bedroom house for generations but the Great Depression had wiped out much of its wealth, so its only full-time occupant was the lovely, twenty-nine-year-old woman who owned half with her brother, who had moved away. The slow, easy days are devoted to swimming, reading, horseback riding, golf,…
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Agatha Christie once said that, “the best way of getting down to work is in a very bad hotel where there is nothing else to do but write, for there are no distracting comforts to indulge in, no good meals or interesting guests.” If anyone was an expert on the best way to “getting down to work” it was the Queen of Mystery—although I doubt that her version of a “bad” hotel would come close to mine! It’s not surprising that many of Christie’s novels were written in, or inspired by, hotels. She was a passionate traveler and in 1922, Christie took a ten-month voyage around the British Empire with her first husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, as part of a trade mission to pr…
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The Indian Runner is a movie of profound ambition. It seeks to dramatize nothing less than the history of violence within the United States, and how that violence infects spirit after spirit, like a powerful and contagious disease. It is also the screenwriting and directorial debut of one of the world’s greatest actors, Sean Penn. The two-time Academy Award winning actor would go on to direct four more films, and at one point openly discuss the possibility of retiring from acting to become a full-time filmmaker. The Indian Runner demonstrates why Penn’s cinematic style is important and under-appreciated. In 1982, Sean Penn began dating photographer Pamela Springsteen, le…
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First things first. I’m a true crime junkie. I’m also a fiction writer. And while I do have dreams of pursuing a true crime project, maybe even solving a cold case, I’m pretty entrenched in the writing of novels. There are not a lot of novels that take on true crime—part of the appeal of true crime is in fact that it is rooted firmly in our reality, that it really happened. But fiction about true crime can explore questions that we can’t if we are “sticking to the facts.” Story can imagine the psychic state of the killer and victim, can delve into motivations, and can take the time to empathize deeply with those involved—sometimes even offering belated redemption, or imag…
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Television history may not recall the second week of September 1974 as indelibly momentous. Yet for fans of small-screen private eye series, it most certainly was. On Friday, September 13, NBC-TV’s The Rockford Files premiered, featuring James Garner. That was just one night after competitor ABC launched another Southern California-set gumshoe drama with a well-known lead and lofty ambitions: David Janssen’s Harry O. The former program went on to five and a half seasons of public acclaim (plus eight TV reunion movies), and in 2002 was ranked No. 39 on TV Guide’s list of the “50 Best Shows of All Time.” While a previous Janssen crime series, The Fugitive, scored even bett…
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In 2018 the Staunch Book Prize launched, recognizing thrillers in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered. It’s a noble cause; in domestic and psychological suspense (the cloistered, relationship-driven genres I myself write in), the victims of violence tend to be female. I understand the impulse to center books that don’t leverage gratuitous female pain as a plot point. (Picture the central dead body in the heralded Mare of Eastown: a nubile young women woman stripped naked and splayed over the rocks, orbited by a wolfpack of potential male killers.) But there’s a reason none of my thrillers qualify. In reality, women are more likely t…
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Ah, the thrilling wives. Sometimes they’re the first, sometimes next, and sometimes they’re last. Often, they know too much. They are charming, hunting, haunted and lovely. Sometimes, they’re found in the twilight, or upstairs. These are the wives of domestic suspense, and no matter who their spouses are, these captivating women are the stars of the show. If you’re looking for your next thrilling read, look no further than The Real Wives of Domestic Suspense. Consider these popular episodes: My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing Samantha Downing knocked it out of the park with this particular housewife. Millicent and her husband are living the suburban dream. She’s a rea…
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Edwin Torres turned 90 this year. The author of Carlito’s Way, Q&A, and After Hours, Torres is the Granddaddy—¡El Abuelo!—of Latinx crime fiction in the U.S. For a brief while in the 1970s, Torres picked up the mantle of Chester Himes and Miguel Piñero, keeping the door cracked open for crime fiction writers who happen to be ethnically diverse. Without Torres we might not have gotten Ernesto Quiñonez’ Bodega Dreams, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera’s Lupe Solano series, or even Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress. “His books are a brass knuckle to the groin,” said Richard Price, author of Clockers. “There isn’t a false note on any page.” Torres’ books spawned two viscer…
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The crimefighter known as the Shadow was a pop-culture sensation who arrived on the detective fiction scene before Perry Mason, Nero Wolfe, and Philip Marlowe, and whose extravagant war on evildoers predated those of Superman, Batman, the Lone Ranger, and Doc Savage. Americans during the Great Depression got regular doses of the Shadow via the radio and pulp magazines, and his adventures continue to this day in comic book form. Oddly, the character was never a big hit with movie audiences, despite decades of films that create an occasionally compelling but ultimately confusing portrait of the clever, menacing protagonist. Amazon Prime subscribers can check out some of the…
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Ask readers of crime fiction whether they have heard of John Sanford, and the writer most likely to come to mind is John Sandford, the author of the Prey series of detective novels—as they commit the common mistake of overlooking the “d” hidden in the middle of the name. But long before John Camp chose Sandford as his pen name, there was John Sanford—author of 24 books, including two hard-boiled 1930’s masterworks that combine gut-wrenching plots with a literary flair that drew favorable comparisons with William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and James M. Cain. Sanford, who died in 2003, is best known as a writer of non-fiction—including creative interpretations of American…
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I am not a person who makes friends easily but the ones I have I care about. I tell myself sometimes that that is because they’re the people I already know can stand to be around me, but in all honesty it’s because I like them. They are good people and kind, and the world without them in it would be a zoetrope of murder puppets and tax collectors. I will do pretty much anything for the people I love. I try to pretend I do not care about people I do not know, but that is a lie and kind of an authorial pose. I am a big softie and I love everyone. I guess that is the beginning of Jack Price. Jack really does not care about people he does not know. He does not hate them e…
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“You’re crushing my balls!” Jared whispered hoarsely into my ear as he clung to my back, my right arm between his legs, my left hand gripping his right arm, his torso draped across my neck in the classic fireman’s carry. I sensed he was gritting his teeth while trying not to let anyone else overhear. Jared was a 200-pound Navy SEAL not wanting to advertise his discomfort at having his gonads flattened against the shoulder of a female, fifty pounds lighter, who was struggling to hang onto him. “Shut the fuck up! What do you think you’re doing to me?” I spat. I was hot, I was sweaty, and I wanted to get him off my back. But I was determined to make it down the field towa…
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When I was a newspaper reporter, one of my colleagues on the advertising side of the operation was as much a fan of the TV series “Justified” as I was. My family hails from Tennessee, so I was attuned to the southern sensibilities of “Justified,” which was about flawed law enforcement agents and flawed criminals in modern-day Kentucky. My family knew many of the cities and wild places and types of people in the series. We recognized the truth and smiled at the exaggerations and appreciated how Kentucky tourism officials would feel when their state, on a weekly basis, was depicted as a place full of trashy rednecks and meth heads. My coworker, on the other hand, was an …
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Hello everyone! In my travels, I’ve encountered lots of different takes on what to call good ol’ Arthur Conan Doyle, the nineteenth-century doctor, prolific writer, and the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Briefly, I’d just like to set the record straight. Many have wondered whether his surname is “Doyle” or “Conan Doyle.” Is “Conan” a middle name, or part of his last name? Good question! The answer is BOTH, which is terribly confusing. “Conan” was technically his middle-name, with “Doyle” as his surname. His baptism records at the register of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh lists his Christian names as “Arthur Ignatius Conan.” “Doyle” is listed as his last name. However,…
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Publishers, booksellers, and many readers like to know the genre of a novel. Where will it sit on the bookstore shelf? How to categorize it online? Which types of readers will it appeal to? Sometimes it’s easy to slot a book into a category or genre: romance, crime, or indeed, mystery. But there are lots of novels which are too slippery for that. They have plenty of suspense and often a good dose of secrets and the unexplained to propel the story forward, even though their premise is not built around a central mystery which follows a trail to a satisfying conclusion. My novels have often been categorized as mysteries and although I’m okay with that, I don’t write them w…
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We have a proposition for you. You’ve heard it before that 1971 is the best year that crime movies have ever had. The French Connection, Shaft, Dirty Harry, A Clockwork Orange, Diamonds Are Forever, Get Carter, Klute. Even the non-crime movies are amazing: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Last Picture Show, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Maybe you’ve heard it floated 1972 is the best year for crime movies. The Godfather, Deliverance, The Hot Rock, Superfly. Not as many crime masterpieces as the previous year, but a contender for its saga of the Corleone crime family. And you’ve definitely heard it argued that 1974 is actually the best year for crime movies. The Godf…
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I’ll say upfront that there is nothing quite like the firm economy of Die Hard, a Christmas-set movie about how German terrorists commandeer a fancy Los Angeles high-rise, hold hostage all the people currently attending their office holiday party inside, and are slowly picked off by the one partygoer who had managed to stay hidden during the initial raid: a scrappy NYC cop named John McClane (a Moonlighting-era Bruce Willis). Although it is now thought of as a quintessential action movie, with a big-budget franchise in its wake, I like the first Die Hard for the—when you think about it—tightness of its conceit. The Nakatomi Plaza building is locked-down, and so the movie …
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Spring in New Hampshire is slow to arrive, with warm stretches rudely interrupted by a return to winter complete with snow flurries and blustery winds. How do we survive six slow and endless months of frigid weather, you might ask, each and every year? One answer is that we turn our focus to interior pursuits, to the pleasures of life at home. Last spring, the entire nation joined us as people sought comfort, meaning, and face it, the need for something to do during their own forced isolation. Looking for ideas to while away the hours? The cozy mysteries I discuss below have you covered. Besides savoring the puzzling plots, mystery fans enjoy learning more about a subjec…
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Lists are useful and terrifying things. I have a “To Do” list for my day job that is approaching 350 items since we shifted to a remote, quarantined office existence (don’t worry, I’ve checked off almost all of them over time). There are, however, lists generated by other people that sucker me in and drive me mad. I am referring to the “Best of” lists, particularly when they come to books or movies. I should know better. These lists are compiled by people who devote their lives to these fields, whereas I, lucky enough to have a full-time day job to subsidize the side-gig/addiction of being a writer, find myself with not enough hours in the not enough days to keep up with…
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New York Times bestselling author Ace Atkins gave me the title for this column five years ago. My family and I were on a trip down to Pensacola Beach. I’d just gotten out of coaching and started writing seriously. The only author I “knew” was Ace. We’d met back in 2010 at the Yoknapatawpha Writers’ Workshop in Oxford, Mississippi. Ace and I were former college football players. We hit it off instantly. Once the conference was over, however, we didn’t keep up much. I was coaching high school football and Ace was publishing two novels a year (along with his Quinn Colson series, Ace has also carried on Robert B. Parker’s iconic Spenser character for the last decade). Fast…
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—Translated by Daniel Hahn Frustration and liberation. These two extraordinarily strong feelings were what prompted me to write Two Spies in Caracas, my first novel. The frustration stems from my conviction that I was not telling my readers the complete story, the real story of what was happening in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela. I have been writing newspaper columns, academic articles, books about Venezuela and about President Chávez for more than two decades. About his Bolivarian revolution, his 21st century socialism and about his executions both inside and outside Venezuela. All these were analytical works in which I used the best techniques I could find in social sc…
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Books adapted from movies don’t have a sterling reputation. They’re often viewed as slapdash cash-grabs by writers-for-hire, despite some notable examples to the contrary—for example, Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (written concurrently with the screenplay) and Alan Dean Foster’s “Alien.” Now Quentin Tarantino is providing his own twist on this odd genre with the novelization of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” the 2019 movie he wrote and directed. The story follows fading Western-movie star Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie) and his stuntman/assistant Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) as they navigate Hollywood in 1969, drinking and talking and lur…
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The summer is officially over, the days are beginning to turn cold, the leaves are falling, and the pumpkins proliferating…which all means it’s time to put on your flannels, brew some tea, and cozy up with a chilling international thriller or two! September brings plenty of new international releases, including Scandi noir, French historical fiction, and an Italian meta-mystery. Max Seeck, The Ice Coven Translated by Kristian London (Berkely) Max Seeck burst onto the international scene with last year’s chilling debut, The Witch Hunter. Now, the story continues, as Seeck’s heroine tries move past her encounter with a coven of murderous witches by plunging into a new…
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I’m not sure we’ll ever get a consensus on what it means to be a New Yorker—ten years in a rent-controlled apartment? birth? a certain swagger down the shady side of Broadway?—but there’s something undeniable about a great New York novel, a novel that balances the vastness of its ambition with the particularity of its moments, a story that takes place on street corners and stoops and peers through the occasional open window while admitting to the eternal appeal and hopelessness of the city’s voyeurism, how other people are around us all the time, on display and unknowable. The new novel, The Great Mistake, by Jonathan Lee, takes as its subject one of those lives, an extr…
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