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 first lesson I learned about writing was to check for errors and then check again. And I keep learning the same lesson over and over. I’m not the first or the worst mistake-maker. Writers have been making errors forever. Google the topic “mistakes in books” or “authors’ mistakes” and prepare to be overwhelmed. These mistakes take many forms, and some have become famous. In the “Wicked Bible” of 1631, the 7th Commandment reads, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” In Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, the shipwreck survivor Crusoe is on the island watching his ship sink. He takes off his clothes and swims back out to the ship to salvage supplies, which he brings back to shore in…
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My first novel The Bloodless Boy includes dozens of real, and people from history, both the famous and the infamous, placing them in a fictional setting. The time and place in which the action takes place—late 1670s London—was full of larger-than-life characters. Here, I profile ten ‘rogues’ of the time, some of whom appear in The Bloodless Boy, and some in the sequels I have written. Charles II 1630—1685 At the time of The Bloodless Boy, Charles has just prorogued Parliament, seeking to rule without it. This provoked fear that he wanted to rule absolutely, like his father Charles I. A genuine fear (along with the fear caused by the Popish Plot) was that there would b…
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CrimeReads editors select the month’s best debuts in crime, mystery, and thrillers. * Yasmine Angoe, Her Name is Knight (Thomas and Mercer) This action-packed origin story introduces one of the most kick-ass heroines I’ve ever encountered. As a child, Nena Knight lost her family and most of her village to violence. Taken in by an elite family of movers and shakers, Nena becomes a highly effective assassin, fulfilling her duties to her adoptive clan with nary a stray thought. But when her latest assignment—coupled with the appearance of an old nemesis—causes Nena to question the pattern of her life, no one is safe (especially Nena). –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Senior E…
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My 27-year career as a diplomat in countries around the world, and the U.S. State Department, has quite naturally drawn me to espionage fiction writing. I actively dealt with issues in Europe, Asia and the Mideast, with Latin America and Asia, focusing on national security and arms control issues and negotiated with the then-Soviet Union. I have been tutored through real world experience on how diplomacy and intelligence operatives work. This world is marked by officials of intelligence, courage and others who may be personally flawed, who often face high personal risks and choices marked by moral ambiguity. Fiction affords a superb platform to explore such themes. Night…
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One of the most important aspects of writing fiction is knowing when to communicate which pieces of information with the reader or audience. Suspense of any kind is created by selective ignorance—the author’s job is to dole out each parcel of knowledge in a way and a time that will be satisfying. And then there’s the dynamic between the reader and the protagonist— should they learn each new thing at the same time, or is there a dance to be done with the reveal, with one sometimes a few steps ahead of the other? Found text is its own specific dance, with the limitations drawn tight around writing that exists in the fiction you’re creating. There are plenty of examples, o…
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Questions of faith are a universal part of the human experience. Why am I here? What does my life mean? Is there a God and if so, what is His role in the universe and in my life? These are big and fundamental questions and how writers and readers tackle them matters. Yet themes of faith, doubt, crisis, and belief are not typically found in the pages of thriller fiction. Recently we had the honor of launching a new thriller series for Tyndale House—the leading Christian publisher in the industry—and the journey has us thinking a lot about the changing face of faith in fiction and in the world at large. In our mind, the new series is not a departure from what we’ve always …
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One of our favorite things, over at the CrimeReads desk, is when a character in a movie grabs a pen and uses it as a weapon in a fight scene. Don’t ask me why we enjoy it so much. Maybe it’s because we’re writers. I wouldn’t read too much into it. Anyway, for fun, we picked the ten best movie scenes where someone gets offed by a pen. What are the criteria? Well, first of all, I’m accepting “pencils” in lieu of pens. They might not be interchangeable on a Scantron, but they are for the purposes of this list. Second, we are not counting staking vampires or other undead entities with pencils, so this rules out From Dusk Til Dawn and Fright Night. Third, and this is the b…
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Over several years in the early 1930s the spousal writing team of Gwen Bristow (1903-1980) and Bruce Manning (1900-1965) published four crime novels: The Invisible Host, which possibly inspired Agatha Christie’s classic mystery And Then There Were None, The Gutenberg Murders, Two and Two Make Twenty-Two and The Mardi Gras Murders. The couple later went on to enjoy highly successful careers in entertainment, she writing historical fiction, including her bestselling Plantation Trilogy, he writing screenplays in Hollywood in Hollywood, including most of the scripts for the hugely popular films of youthful star Deanna Durbin. Before turning to writing crime fiction and these …
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A bar in a Las Vegas casino isn’t generally a place where one would contemplate what we owe to our Victorian ancestors, but that’s exactly where I was when it hit me that we owe them more than we think. My husband was playing a Senior Event at the World Series of Poker and I was perched on a bar stool waiting for him when I realized that the flashing lights of the slot machines, the ear-splitting music and the endless taxis discharging fares outside the big glass doors couldn’t exist without them. I’d been working on this article for some time, but I wasn’t satisfied with anything I’d written. But that changed when I was sitting on that bar stool sipping my glass of mer…
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I’ve always been a huge fan of the young adult dystopian fiction of the early twenty-first century – The Hunger Games, Divergent and their ilk. I loved these new, feisty representations of young female protagonists who were determined to take on the injustices of the world. However, when I began analyzing what was making them so popular, I began to notice a pattern. Surprisingly often, the characters’ mothers were absent figures in their daughters’ lives. The more I looked into this, the more questions arose. I found that the reasons for this maternal absence varied: from mental breakdown (Katniss’s mother in The Hunger Games), to disinterest (the Uglies series by Scott …
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Looking for the perfect present for your crime-obsessed loved one? Well, look no further, for I have a host of gift books to recommend this holiday season, from oversized to pocket-sized, and everywhere in between. (What is a gift book, you might ask? A gift book is a book that someone would not ordinarily buy for themselves but would love to receive as a present. There. Easy peasy.) These beautifully designed books should make perfect gifts for the fan of true crime, detective fiction, graphic novel mysteries, or film noir. Check out Olivia Rutigliano’s great list from earlier this week for crime-themed candles, mysterious wall prints, and much more. Poe For Your Pr…
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CrimeReads editors select the month’s best new nonfiction crime books. * H.W. Brands, Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution (Doubleday) Brands’ latest history is an engaging, provocative look at the American Revolution and the largely forgotten battle lines it drew within the colonies: dividing neighbors, families, and communities. Our First Civil War is a study of the schism between Americans who wanted to throw off British rule and those who stayed loyal to the crown. Centuries later, the American Revolution is often taught as a great swelling of popular unrest, but Brands shows how fine the distinctions were, and how the build-u…
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A reptilian line of hills, the Serrata del Marchante, drags itself from the east like fossilized vertebrae. Beyond it lie the windings of a bleached and twisted labyrinth. Through the haze I have an impression of ravines and riven rock, but if I stare at them too long the lines detach and lose their form, dissolving into pale glare. My eyes cannot get a grip; it is too hot to see. Downward now on a slope of dust, past shattered canyons of grey and kidney-purple rock. The sun is high overhead. Trees are an extinct species. My boots crunch on gypsum shards which I mistake, at first glance, for broken windscreen glass. The ground is white, baked hard, interspersed with flak…
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In the Netflix’s documentary, Making a Murderer, 16-year old Brendan Dassey is interrogated by two detectives who believe he might be implicated in a murder. The detectives stressed that they knew what happened and had physical evidence to prove it, all of which was untrue. They aggressively commanded that he tell the truth while simultaneously befriending him, saying things like, “We’re here to help…” They offered a rationale for the alleged killing, telling Brendan that it wasn’t his fault, and directed the blame onto his uncle, the man they did the killing.. After hours of interrogation, Brendan, with an IQ of 70 and his perception of events muddled by the persuasivene…
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Santiago Gamboa (transl. Andrea Rosenberg), The Night Will Be Long (Europa) “Each novel by Santiago Gamboa is at the forefront of the best Latin American novels. Gamboa dismantles the legacy of Chandler and Hammett, adapting it to the craggy environs of Colombia, and adds to it a tireless sense of ethics. His novels revitalize a genre that we thought could do no more.” Martín Solares Shelley Noble, A Secret Never Told (Forge) “Fascinating history about Coney Island …those with a taste for the madcap will be entertained.” Publishers Weekly Carlos Ruiz Zafon, City of Mist: Stor…
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When I was fourteen years old, much to the annoyance of my parents, I would only read one type of novel: the ones that were written by Agatha Christie. My mother used to nag and/or bribe me to read more upmarket fare, and actually I was busted, around the same time, having pocketed the prize money, for claiming to have finished Jane Eyre and then ‘not remembering the bit’ about Mrs Rochester. I am still teased about it today—but that is another story. Attempting to defend the quality work of Agatha Christie, my teenage self told my far-from-stupid mother that I had been moved to tears while reading Death on the Nile, due to the amazing character development of its variou…
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My new book, Murder at Mallowan Hall, is a mystery set in the (fictional) home of Agatha Christie. The housekeeper at Mallowan Hall, Phyllida Bright, discovers a dead body in the library during a house party hosted by Agatha Christie and her husband Max Mallowan. When the authorities seem far too bumbling and slow to solve the crime—and, just as importantly, chase away the journalists and photographers camped out on the premises—Phyllida takes on the task of exercising her own “little gray cells” to unmask the killer. Having the protagonist of the mystery series being a housekeeper—that is, being from the downstairs world—made it both a challenge for me, and a refreshing…
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While preparing for a recent appearance on a podcast episode about John Boorman’s 1967 film, Point Blank, I thought a lot about American noir cinema of the very late 1950s and the 1960s. I find it interesting that so many of the films made during this time remain unknown and underappreciated relative to the classic film noir period, generally regarded as beginning with John Huston’s 1941 classic The Maltese Falcon and ending in 1958, and the body of American crime cinema known as neo noir, which took off in the early 1970s. I have no desire to reprise the ‘what is noir?’ debate. I also realise that it is impossible to put firm boundaries between periods of cinema. Some a…
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In 1859, workers at a dock in New York City noticed that a barrel that had been shipped into town smelled particularly foul and decided to open it up. The first thing that they saw when they pried the barrel open was a woman’s face, detached from the body parts beneath, but still recognizably a face and, in some accounts, even still beautiful, despite the fact that the woman had been dead for several weeks. The barrel was traced back to Henry Jumpertz, a barber in Chicago, and the body proved to be that of his girlfriend, Sophie Werner. In Jumpertz’s own account, he had come home from his barbershop and found that Sophie had hanged herself. Fearful that he, as a Prussian…
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The greatest financial secrecy tool the world has ever invented isn’t something you can hold. It’s not something you can see, or touch, or peer into, trying to ascertain what exactly it contains. It is, in a very real sense, something of a fiction: it exists solely on paper, and solely to conceal the names of the people, and the sources of their money, for whom it was created. It’s called an “anonymous shell company.” Like regular companies, these anonymous shell companies can be registered quickly: a few phone calls, a bit of paperwork, and a new company can be had in a short period of time. On paper, it’s often difficult to tell the difference between the founding of…
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Violence and art couple freely as rabbits on the American scene, but as a crime writer and defense attorney—with a foot in each world—I find it impossible to recognize real-world crime in the depiction of violence for art’s sake. Popular media gets murder wrong. The fantasy unpacks itself weekly from red Panavision trucks, spitting distance from the courthouse in downtown Brooklyn where I work. There on random afternoons crews erect lighting scaffolds and gaffers fasten down thick electrical cords before actors arrive to shoot another episode of whatever crime show Americans love. I don’t watch them anymore. Before becoming a DA twenty-five years ago, I worked for a big…
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On June 12, 1950, a British journalist and bureau chief for Reuters News Agency in West Berlin made Cold War-era history. John Peet, 34, stood in front of a crowd of more than 200 international reporters, summoned to East Germany’s government information office, formerly home to Hitler’s Propaganda Ministry. The place where Joseph Goebbels had once briefed the Nazi press was bursting at the seams. No one knew what the news would be, except for Peet. In fact, Peet was the news. “I simply cannot consent to take [part] any longer in the warmongering,” began the crow-like Peet in fluent German, with an upper-class British accent, “which threatens not only the Soviet Union …
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With most heist films, the pleasure is in watching everything fall apart. No matter how meticulously planned the central heist, something always goes wrong—the passcode to the vault changes, the getaway driver decides to turn rat. Even if our antiheroes escape with the loot, it’s often with a trail of bodies in their wake. If they escape at all, that is. Fortunately for cinematic criminals everywhere, though, there’s another path: a subgenre of “nice heists,” in which the robbery goes absolutely to plan with a minimum of bloodshed or drama. These movies often hinge on the charm of the heist’s ringleader as they reliably outsmart all opposition, leaving confused cops and …
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I have long believed that Thanksgiving is the most boring holiday. Christmas, Halloween, and New Year’s all have a competitive edge—there’s always the desire to out-do last year’s festivities. But no one’s ever said “this is going to be the Best Thanksgiving ever!” Frankly, it feels like a holiday built to fail: it’s racist, centered on the worst sport and the worst meat (football and turkey, respectively), and takes place during the end-of-year slump when days are short and dark but not cozy. And it’s on the Thursday before the most morally bereft day of the year after Columbus Day, Black Friday. Good luck ever enjoying this holiday if you work retail. So why not embrac…
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There’s a passage by the great Salman Rushdie in his novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet that I’ve long admired and like to revisit every so often. It’s about those select few who are born into the world as inherent non-belongers—societal outcasts who march to the beat of their own drum, or who march to no drum at all—and how we, the presumed upstanding citizenry, secretly admire and wish we could be more like them. I say “presumed” because Rushdie posits that perhaps there are even more of these outcasts than we know—perhaps even we are among them, born with the same inherent proclivities, but we hide among the ranks of the upstanding citizenry because we’ve repressed ours…
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