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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Jason De León’s second book is the result of an exemplary commitment to what he and fellow anthropologists call “deep hanging out.” In Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling, the UCLA professor and MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant recipient spends countless hours with people often written off as ruthless miscreants. On cable news and in pop culture, his subjects are known as “coyotes,” but De León suggests that guía—guide— “more directly reflects the work.” For varying fees—these depend on what route is chosen and the cost of bribes paid to gangs, drug cartels and civil servants—the young Latin Americans in De León’s book lead groups …
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“The trial of Polly Bodine will take place at Richmond, on Monday next, and will, no doubt, excite much interest,” wrote Edgar Allan Poe on June 18, 1844, for the Columbia Spy. Poe had recently moved to New York where, he declared, “I intend living for the future.” He got a temporary lift when he sold “The Balloon Hoax” story, a fictional account of the first transatlantic balloon crossing to Moses Yale Beach of the Sun. THE ATLANTIC OCEAN CROSSED IN THREE DAYS!! screamed the Sun in April 1844. James Gordon Bennett exposed Poe’s story as a hoax and Beach issued a retraction. Not even the Sun could hold its readers entirely on hoaxes. Soon, Poe was broke again. He foun…
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As the debate rages on between genre and literary fiction, I am always fascinated whenever the two converge. I am particularly excited about a new literary novel coming out, Neruda on the Park, by debut author Cleyvis Natera. As an AfroLatina author whose work in crime fiction takes on gentrification and women of color vigilante justice, I was excited to interview Cleyvis about how she deals with some of those themes in her book. Here’s our conversation: Aya de León: Although Neruda on the Park is positioned as a literary novel—and the writing definitely has all the beauty we could ask for in literary fiction—I also see it as a crime novel. Especially because it sort of …
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David Cronenberg is that rare filmmaker who is a genre unto himself, such that his name has become an adjective. Yet, when his name is invoked, it’s usually as shorthand for body horror. Certainly, and in spite of his objections, this is to be expected: more than any other director, Cronenberg has examined, in detail both coldly clinical and gleefully perverse, the ways in which psychosexual desire, trauma, and society’s increasing dependency on technology manifest in the gruesome evolution and/or evisceration of the human body. Indeed, we see a fresh example of this in the promotion and reception of his latest film—his first in eight years—Crimes of the Future (availab…
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It is hot out there, so why not read a YA mystery or thriller? Young adult crime and suspense is booming, and this list is the proof, with 18 riveting, thrilling, thought-provoking, new and upcoming YA novels. From summer camp slashers, to gothic romance, visceral horror to devastating psychological thrillers, powerful social issue dramas to crackling social parody, you’ll find everything you’re looking for on this list, and more. Check out part one of this list, which ran back in January. Jessica Goodman, The Counselors (Razorbill, May 31) Now, I am way more a fan of a good summer camp slasher than I ever was of actual summer camp, and Jessica Goodman’s The Counsel…
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Want to talk about one of the strangest, if not the strangest American crime film to emerge in the first half of the 1970s? Then, let’s talk about Michael Ritchie’s neo-noir Prime Cut, as it turns fifty this year. It would be going too far to describe it as a neglected classic, but it is a fascinating film about a divided America that, as a result, finds obvious echoes today. Prime Cut’s at times surreal nature is signalled in the opening credits. To a Lalo Schifrin score, deliberately engineered to sound like calming elevator muzak, we follow a cow being slaughtered and fed into the mechanised process of creating hot dogs. At some point, one of the male workers adds what…
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Steven James is unlike almost any writer you’ll ever meet. He has a master’s degree in storytelling. Not an MFA. Not just another undergraduate degree in English. An honest-to-God Master of Arts Degree in Story Arts from East Tennessee State University. Yep. There is such a thing and he is living proof. And if you’ve read any of his thrillers with all the suspense, serial murders, and conspiracies, then you know he can tell a story. But what you probably don’t know is James is a devout Christian. “I’ve actually written books on how to tell stories for Sunday school kids and I write serial killer novels,” he says. And how does that work? Some of his books “are pretty …
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A young mother’s mysterious death and her son’s subsequent kidnapping blow open a decades-long mystery about the woman’s true identity, and the murderous federal fugitive at the center of it all. Lit Hub and CrimeReads have an exclusive first look at the new Netflix documentary, Girl in the Picture, directed by Skye Borgman, produced by Jimmy Fox, working from source material by executive producer and investigative journalist Matt Birkbeck, who wrote two non-fiction books (Finding Sharon and A Beautiful Child) about the documentary’s subject, the young woman known as Sharon Marshall. Girl in the Picture releases globally on July 6, 2022. In addition to the documentar…
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At the cross streets of Sixth Avenue, West 10th Street, and Christopher Street in New York’s Greenwich Village sits a small oasis of a garden. Bordered by a fence on three sides, the garden is adjacent to an impressively ornate 19th century brick building that is the Jefferson Market Public Library. Few who pass by the library’s distinctive, stocky clock tower know that it was originally a courthouse, or that the fenced in garden was once the site of a massive, art-deco designed women’s prison, known as the Women’s House of Detention. In his new book The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison, Hugh Ryan recovers the complex history of the build…
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The poet David Kirby once said that “only shallow people and charlatans begin with perfect knowledge of what it is they mean to say. An honest writer begins in ignorance and writes his way to the truth.” The word “truth” is a bit controversial when it comes to historical fiction. Some authors of historical novels claim they only “stick to the facts,” while others acknowledge and celebrate their expansive creative license. When I wrote Oleander City: A Novel Based on the True Story, I did so with the understanding that our notions of “truth” are complex, and that what we accept as historical actuality is often incomplete or misguided. We all know about eye-witness tes…
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Since we are spoiled for choice here at the Psychological Thriller department of CrimeReads HQ, I decided to do an experiment. There are no dead girls to put the plot in motion. There are no uncomfortable moments of sexualizing girls. There are no determined moms with empty nurseries. There are no fields of unidentified corpses that turn out to be women who were in the wrong place and took a worse turn, ending up in a mass grave. There is no gratuitous blood and gore, no mandate to raise the body count, and no sexual violence. When asked, I usually say that I don’t really react much to reading about terrible things because I do it so often, which is true. I’m not easy t…
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I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer, but every time I say this to an actual lawyer they tell me to be grateful I’m a writer instead. They may be right. Do I really want to spend three more years in school only to work 80 hours a week as an associate doing document review all day? Maybe not. But I’d love to argue for the rights of the accused in a small Southern courtroom created by John Grisham or Harper Lee. I’d love to work in Scott Turow’s Kindle County, or practice law out of the backseat of Michael Connelly’s Lincoln Town Car. If I’m being honest with myself, I think I want to be a lawyer in a story. I may never know how wide the chasm is between real lawyering and fic…
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So you finished And Just Like That, binged all six seasons of Sex And The City, yet again, and you’re still (Samantha) Jonzing for more Manhattan? Here are ten books guaranteed to fill your quota of New York minutes until season two arrives. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote Before single girls flocked to NYC in droves in search of the perfect cosmopolitan, they sauntered past the windows of Tiffany & Co. with the perfect cup of Joe in homage to Truman Capote’s most famous creation, Holly Golightly. Both Sex And The City and Breakfast At Tiffany’s are testaments to New York and to fashion in a lasting and iconic way. Did you think Holly Golightly should en…
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Excerpted from Ghost of the Hardy Boys: The Writer Behind the World’s Most Famous Boy Detectives, by Leslie McFarlane ___________________________________ This example of calmness in the face of disaster didn’t really help. It was all very well for Dave Fearless to meet catastrophe with aplomb. He could count on Bob Vilett and Captain Broadbeam to haul him to the surface, while Pat Stoodles lent encouragement by bellowing “Heave-ho, bejabers!” I couldn’t count on anyone—except, perhaps, Edward Stratemeyer. It turned out that I could count on Edward Stratemeyer. Before the week was out a long envelope brought another outline, accompanied by a letter explaining his “oth…
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Always versatile, a writer of contemporary noir, domestic thrillers, horror, graphic novels, and both Marvel and DC tie-in novels, Jason Starr has now turned to the sort of alternate-reality nightmare story Philip K. Dick might have dreamed up. A criminal attorney named Steven Blitz, who lives in the New York City suburbs, is in the middle of a murder trial for his serial killer client. At the same time, he is undergoing a difficult period in his marriage. When his wife, one evening, declares that she wants a divorce, Steven leaves the house and drives away to spend the night someplace else. A stop at a local gas station leads to an altercation with a man, and a sudden…
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There’s a lot of good crime tv happening right now. In the interest of helping you sort out viewing schedules, we bring you a monthly guide to what’s coming next. We Hunt Together Showtime – Premieres July 3rd (season 2) The British detective series returns, after a bit of a hiatus, for its second season to air in the States. Serial killers, emotional traps, sexual attraction – all still at the center of the series, which has a bit of style and wit to it, setting it apart from the usual fare with an interesting perspective and a charismatic detective pairing. Black Bird Apple TV – Premieres July 8th One of the year’s most anticipated crime shows, this one comes …
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Within St. Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium stands a masterpiece. Not the first work ever painted in oil, but definitely the first to maximize all of the advantages that new medium offered. In total it is a sublime example of Northern Renaissance expression and has the distinction of being the most stolen, damaged, and vandalized work of art in the world. It’s name? The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb or, as it is more widely known, the Ghent Altarpiece. Which takes center stage in my new novel The Omega Factor. It was created by two brothers. Started by Hubert van Eyck in 1426, and finished by Jan van Eyck in 1432. This is known thanks to a Latin poem inscribed on th…
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In his new creation, Investigator Melchor Marín, the Spanish author Javier Cercas has created an almost unique character in the history of contemporary western crime writing. A hardworking, honest, police officer in the Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalonia’s autonomous police force), who doesn’t have a drink or drug problem, doesn’t womanise, and isn’t in a constant daily battle with his bosses. He’s a family guy, devoted to his wife and young daughter, pays his mortgage on time, works hard to get home in time for dinner, stays in at night and reads. Melchor Marín appears to be a content man, living and working in a rather dreary far flung and anonymous suburb of Barcelona, a hun…
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What is it about a baffling poisoning that is so—dare I say?— intoxicating? For me, it’s the mystery of figuring out where the poison came from. Was it something deadly mixed up in a lab, or something pretty growing in a garden? And how does one find out? Poisoning has long been one of the most popular ways to rid oneself of a person, mostly because there was so little means of proving not only who had done the crime, but that poison was used at all. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that science began to even the odds between poisoners and those tasked with bringing them to justice. While I write mainly about botanical poisonings in the Saffron Everleigh Mystery …
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My first hero as a kid was Nancy Drew. My English teacher dad had handmade bookshelves in the den (1970s word for study or office) where he’d grade papers and work on lesson plans, and they were filled with hardcover Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene novels. He also had most of the Hardy Boys mysteries and tons of classic literary fiction, but from the first few pages of The Hidden Staircase, I was hooked. I know now that I read the second book first, but it didn’t matter at the time. Accompanying Nancy Drew on her secret, compelling adventures, I reveled in the idea that a girl could take it upon herself to solve mysteries while aiding her dad in the process. A girl. Nancy was…
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As a girl, I believed in fairies. Did you? Did you believe in ghosts and goblins? There was a house in a forest near me that my friends and I were certain was inhabited by a witch. She had at least thirteen cats, and, for sure, I thought her cats—as well as my own—had mental powers beyond the human realm. Needless to say, as a child, I had an actively creative life. I loved making up stories. I didn’t need my parents or friends as an audience. I usually dug into my imagination to entertain myself. One of my favorite holidays of the year was Halloween, where I could dress up and “be” whatever magical creature I imagined. I was a genie. A mermaid. A witch. A fairy. Did y…
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There’s an episode of Columbo I really like to watch. The first episode of the second season, “Étude in Black.” John Cassavetes guest-stars as a conniving orchestra conductor who murders his piano-virtuoso mistress after she threatens to go public with their affair, jeopardizing his marriage to Blythe Danner and the related funding he receives from his mother-in-law Myrna Loy. James McEachin’s in there, as is Pat Morita. As is often the case with Columbo villains, Cassavetes almost commits the perfect crime except for a small dumb error, and he would certainly still get away with the whole thing if any other detective were on duty. Like most episodes, this one is around a…
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Julie Mayhew, Little Nothings (Raven) “Mayhew explores both the affirming side of female friendships and the darker currents of judgmental talk, financial peer pressure, and neediness. . . . Driven by an honest, authentic main character who is imperfect and damaged.” –Kirkus Reviews Javier Cercas (transl. Anne McLean), Even the Darkest Night (Knopf) “Cercas delivers masterful storytelling here, weaving a compelling drama . . . Moving . . . A winning choice for both literary—and crime-fiction book groups.” –Christine Tran, Booklist, starred Rosalie Knecht, Vera Kelly: Lost and…
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Gone Girl is ten, and the virtual ink of the think piece is spilling all over the internet. As I read them, I sank into a familiar disappointment. The monotony of one writer after another discussing the book as a publishing phenomenon, the near ancestor of a proliferation of books categorized as domestic suspense or psychological thrillers, is not only not a novel observation it’s dismissive of Gone Girl as literature. Of course, Gone Girl has spawned a genre’s worth of books about troubled marriages and pretty missing white women. If anyone knows from this phenomenon, it’s me: I cover these books, and month after month I sort through a pile of them and find a few to reco…
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As a reader, I’ve always been drawn to first person fiction. I love that it allows such a deep dive into a character’s mind while limiting my access to information, which I find crucial in building suspense. Mostly, I love that first person narration is conversational. It’s as if I’m pouring myself a couple fingers of bourbon, pulling up a rocking chair alongside an old friend, and listening to their most intimate, honest recollections. Of course, an hour in, I might feel that the narrator wouldn’t make much of a friend at all and that they’re completely full of shit, but that’s left up to me, the reader, to decide. And I like that responsibility. Since my personal libr…
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