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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“Fair is Foul, Foul is Fair”—Macbeth Note: This essay in its original form appeared a decade ago this month in a pamphlet with a small print run published by CADS: Crime and Detective Stories. With minor modifications it appears now, on its tenth anniversary, before a much larger audience at Crimereads. Today’s readers may notice how “Corinne” anticipated other studies from the past decade of the 2010s, which collectively have greatly altered views of vintage crime fiction. –CE ___________________________________ Part I: The Members of the Club ___________________________________ Great Britain’s Detection Club, officially formed in London in 1930 by twenty-eight my…
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There is no stronger bond in this world than family, and a caring, loving parent will do just about anything to keep his or her loved ones safe. Dive into a lake to save a drowning child, or step in front of a train to rescue a toddler who’s fallen onto the tracks. Go up against a gang of human traffickers, escape from an abusive spouse, track down a band of ruthless kidnappers. As a mystery and thriller writer I’ve always been drawn to stories in which an innocent person encounters some sort of evil entity or force that causes him or her to risk life and limb in order to rescue a daughter or son, husband or wife. In my new novel Beyond All Doubt, a grieving widower/sin…
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Recently I came across a message on a Facebook Book Club, of which I’m a member, that read, “Hi bookworms, I am looking for thrillers/mysteries with likeable protagonists. Although I love this genre, I feel there is lots of books where characters are just unpleasant human beings. In lots of cases, I cannot empathize with them.” I followed the thread with great interest. I was intrigued—and, I will admit it, somewhat surprised—by the number of other people who commented that they too struggled to empathize with various killers, extortionists and sexual predators. They commented, in the same posts that they felt that in thrillers where they disliked characters they found th…
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The following is an excerpt from Russia Upside Down: An Exit Strategy for the Second Cold War, in which Joseph Weisberg, former CIA officer and the creator of the hit TV series The Americans, makes the case that America’s policy towards Russia is failing—and we’ll never fix it until we rethink our relationship. ___________________________________ Cherkashin In 2004, a former KGB officer named Victor Cherkashin published a memoir called Spy Handler. Cherkashin had run two of the most devastating moles in the history of U.S. intelligence, CIA officer Aldrich Ames and FBI agent Robert Hanssen. It wasn’t the stories in the book about Ames and Hanssen that grabbed me, thoug…
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Hello, readers of the thriller! If life isn’t rough enough for you here are some books that will make you think, Hell, she’s got it worse than I do. This is known as the First Law of Exploitation in the Official Crime Writers Handbook, which is like the DSM-IV with a body count. And the book is terribly hard to find, and quite expensive. Let’s see what the writers are up to in October. Tara Laskowski, The Mother Next Door (Graydon House) Ivy Woods Drive—sounds classy, doesn’t it? A lush cul-de-sac in a fancy suburb where the women all wear athleisure and plan parties and the men spend their time at work or on the golf course. You get it. In Mother, Laskowski has cre…
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In late October 1965, Mehdi Ben Barka, an exiled Moroccan politician, was hustled into a Peugeot by two French vice cops outside the Brasserie Lipp in Paris. He had no reason to mistrust the French police. These police were off the clock, however. He was never seen again, alive or dead. At the time of his abduction, Ben Barka was organizing the Tricontinental Conference of newly decolonized nations, scheduled for January 1966 in Havana. He was a key figure in the Non-Aligned Movement, a colleague of Che Guevara, Malcolm X, and Amílcar Cabral. In Morocco he had been sentenced to death in absentia, with eleven other politicians, for his putative role in a plot against Kin…
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There are many events and books that inspired I Am Not Who You Think I Am, from Dennis Lehane’s tragedy Mystic River and his psychological thriller Shutter Island, to my watching a barn burn to the ground one dark night as a kid. But for the deep gothic atmosphere and the unrelenting psychological disturbance that permeates my new novel, I found the greatest inspiration right outside my kitchen window, a view of a mountain known for its unsolved disappearances and a legendary ghost town—Glastenbury Mountain, or what I call Shirley Jackson and Donna Tartt Country. It is this mountain where Jackson and Tartt, two of the world’s greatest gothic writers, drew much of their …
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“L’affaire Flactif,” as it is known in France—the Flactif case—was one of the most terrifying murders that France has ever seen. Firstly, because two adults and three children (ages 6, 9, and 10) were literally massacred; secondly, because the motive, which seemed to be rather ridiculous, was in fact extremely complex. If we stuck only to the facts reported by the police and the media, we might believe that David Hotyat murdered an entire five-person family for the sake of a chalet and a few knickknacks (a camera, telephone, DVD, etc.). We would think that it was a murder committed out of jealousy. But here is the rest of the story. Born in northern France to a blue-col…
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CrimeReads editors select the month’s best new nonfiction crime books. * The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock: An Anatomy of the Master of Suspense By Edward White (W.W. Norton & Co.) White’s study of Hitchcock is an endlessly engaging and insightful read, breaking down the Master of Suspense’s life into twelve aspects, each illuminated with clever analysis of the director’s work. From Hitchcock “the dandy” to Hitchcock “the voyeur” and Hitchcock “the man of God,” White offers up incisive commentary on the multitudes contained within the man’s larger-than-life persona, and the live mind behind some of the greatest movies ever made. For fans of classic movies a…
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“In fact,” my sister murmured without looking my way, “it made me think of someone. I had an…encounter, years ago, didn’t I ever tell you? Something happened to me.” An encounter! The word sounded bizarre, what with all the shadows. I stopped singing at once. I remembered Mama’s frequent command: “Go see what your sister’s up to.” Actually, in some respects, Claire Marie reminds me of the ducks you sometimes see, ducks that look as though they’re gliding on the water without making any movement at all themselves, but under the surface, their feet are paddling like mad. There’s something trompe-l’oeil about those ducks. “A very curious story, it’s true,” my sister wen…
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By the 1890s James was confronting the painful reality that his serial and book sales were modest and his finances needed bolstering. In 1891 he confided to Robert Louis Stevenson, “Chastening necessity has laid its brutal hand on me and I have to try to make somehow or other the money I don’t make by literature. My books don’t sell, and it looks as if my plays might.” This turned out to be a vain hope. “I mean to wage this war ferociously for one year more,” he wrote William in December 1893 of his efforts in the drama field, and then “ ‘chuck’ the whole intolerable experiment.” A little over a year later, on January 5, 1895, the dismal premiere of James’s play Guy Domv…
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On August 30th, 1889, Arthur Conan Doyle attended a dinner at the Langham Hotel in London with J. M. Stoddart, the publishing agent for a Philadelphia-based magazine called Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. Stoddart had arrived in London hoping to commission brand-new works of fiction that might appeal to their American readers. Conan Doyle, who was a doctor and merely thirty, was also already well-known as a writer. He had published several novels: The Mystery of Cloomber in 1888, and the historical adventure novel Micah Clarke earlier, in 1889. And of course, in 1887, he had published his inaugural Sherlock Holmes novella, “A Study in Scarlet” in Beeton’s Christmas Annual,…
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We all know the PI. You need only rattle off the names—Spade, Hammer, Marlowe, Archer—to conjure the picture. Tough, swaggering, fast-talking, busted nose, cigs, that Webley–Fosbery revolver. They’re Bogie-like, usually, men sure of themselves and sure of their place in the world. They stand firmly at the top of society’s pecking order, even though they ply their shadowy trade by night, solo, down near the docks or in a dive bar, soaked in gin and regret. But, thankfully, the world has grown a li’l bit since Hammett set Spade off in pursuit of “the bird.” The PI has grown up, too, broadened a bit. He, or she, is not as solitary, a lot of the gumshoeing is done from the …
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Five Great Movies Based on Patricia Highsmith Books (That Aren’t the Ripley Adaptations)
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Filmmakers have been attracted to Patricia Highsmith’s stories ever since the publication of her first novel in 1950, Strangers on a Train, in which two men meet on the proverbial train and plan to murder someone that the other knows. Even now, there are several projects underway: set for a 2022 release, a Ben Affleck-lead and Adrian Lyne-helmed adaptation of Dark Water, Highsmith’s tale of a cheerless marriage between a disturbed husband and a bored wife; Highsmith’s enduring creation, the slippery sociopath Tom Ripley, will be the star of a series dedicated to his escapades in Ripley. Highsmith’s work is a well that directors draw from time and time again. Her narrati…
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There was the time I was in the hospital and my dad called to tell me that he’d just spoken with the sheriff of Desolation Valley; unbeknownst to us, my sister was missing—one of several backpackers who’d gotten waylaid by a snow storm in the Sierra Nevada. There was the time my family went backpacking in the Grand Canyon and for a period of hours we were each alone in the dark; my sister and I spent the night together, clueless as to where our parents were. There was the time my sister and I went camping in the Finger Lakes at the tail end of hurricane Ike; we laugh about it now, but it was a harrowing night in a tiny tent with constant ferocious winds. There was the …
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Rian Johnson and Olivia Rutigliano talk Poker Face, Knives Out, and Golden Age Mysteries
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Reissued for the first time this century, John Dickson Carr’s The Problem of the Wire Cage is an atmospheric and amusing Golden Age mystery with a memorable puzzle at its center. Dickson Carr is famous for his puzzling “impossible crime” plots in which corpses are discovered in scenarios that seem to lack any logical explanation. Among all of Carr’s ingenious crime scenes, the present case is one of the best known: a dead man is found strangled in the middle of a clay tennis court, just after a storm. In the damp dirt, there is one set of footsteps—his own—leading back to the grass; the court is otherwise untouched. This edition from American Mystery Classics has a new in…
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1967 saw the release of such recognized classics as Bonnie & Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, Cool Hand Luke, and In The Heat of the Night. However, the biggest box office success of the year was The Dirty Dozen. The premise of the two-and-a-half- hour film takes place during WWII when renegade Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin) is assigned to train 12 military prisoners convicted of violent crimes for a suicide mission behind enemy lines. The film is structured in three parts; the recruitment of prisoners, their training, and the climatic mission. The result is an influential classic that resonates more than fifty years later and remains one of the b…
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The ad copy called him, “the biggest thing in the entertainment world since The Beatles.” The New York Times labeled him Ian Fleming’s successor. The Daily Mirror called the title character in his first book, “the most modern hero in years.” However, almost 50 years removed from these headlines, few people recognize the name of Adam Diment. Readers can be forgiven being in the dark about Diment; at the height of his fame, he just vanished. Diment was a sixties icon through and through. In style and in substance, his ‘about the author’ photo was the kind of thing you’d find in an encyclopedia under the heading, ‘mod.’ Diment came to prominence in 1967, when he landed a si…
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Erle Stanley Gardner was in a quandary. Even something of a snit. The year was 1936, and as crime writer/critic Dorothy B. Hughes recalls in her 1978 biography, Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Real Perry Mason, Gardner was seriously entertaining the notion of phasing out Perry Mason as a protagonist. By then, he’d already published nine novels featuring that Los Angeles criminal defense attorney; his younger secretary with the “perfect” legs, Della Street; and Paul Drake, the droop-shouldered private eye whose 24-hour investigative agency never seemed to find time for clients other than Mason. The books had sold well, allowing Gardner to end his own marginally sati…
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It was a very good year for movies. It seems like everyone made a movie, this year. We got new movies from veteran auteurs like Martin Scorsese, Wim Wenders, Michael Mann, Sofia Coppola, Paul Schrader, Todd Haynes, Kelly Reichardt, Christopher Nolan, Alexander Payne, Ava DuVernay, Wes Anderson, Hayao Miyazaki, Greta Gerwig, David Fincher, Frederick Weisman, Ira Sachs, Nicole Holofcener, and Rebecca Miller. We got a slate of masterpieces from new-in-town filmmakers like A.V. Rockwell, Celine Song, Nida Manzoor, Cord Jefferson, Kitty Green, Daniel Goldhaber, and Juel Taylor. We were, in a word, blessed. But we didn’t get Richard Linklater’s Hitman movie, and that’s because …
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Whether it’s the language, the tradecraft or the folk legends of American Mafia life, The Godfather reads like a voyage through the underworld with Mario Puzo acting as our Virgil. The Godfather also functions as a classic of another genre: the immigrant story. Vito is the new arrival who works around the clock to establish himself in his new land, getting his hands dirty, while his more privileged and better-educated son longs to succeed like a native. Michael Corleone’s dreams are of assimilation. He marries a willowy WASP beauty, her family rooted in the New England of the Mayflower. He wears the uniform of the US Army. He is adamant that ‘his children would grow i…
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Because we were all stuck inside for most of last year, it feels easy to suggest that television took on new meaning for us—most simply, as something to actually do (inside). I don’t know, though, if this is especially different from how television normally functions for many of us; we have always looked forward to episodes, counted down until premieres, and we certainly have been binge-watching whole-series for years. But, yes, in 2020, television may have felt more soothing to many of us, for breaking the pervasive monotony or calming our nerves or distracting us. Or informing us! This year, we watched strange-community-fostering shows like Tiger King, and streaming-se…
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In December of 1927, Al Capone treated his family to a Christmas vacation in Los Angeles. Some years earlier, Capone had sent one of his minions, “Handsome Johnny” Rosselli, to Hollywood to form relationships with movie industry movers and shakers, and develop “business opportunities” for the Chicago mob. Rosselli found plenty of opportunity, so Capone decided it was worth a personal visit to check it out for himself. Shortly after he arrived, he was paid a visit at his hotel by the Los Angeles chief of police, who told him he had twelve hours to get out of town. Al packed up and left. The powers-that-were in Southern California didn’t want the Chicago Outfit sticking it…
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Okay, everyone, it’s time to rank Prison Escape Movies. What are the parameters? The criteria for this category seem straightforward, but might involve even more hair-splitting than usual, so please read the guidelines, or what we’ll have here is… failure to communicate. First of all, not every movie that features a prison escape or escaped prisoners is a Prison Escape Movie. To be on this list, a movie must centrally feature the escape, both tonally and practically, emphasizing the conditions that create the need for the escape, the process of planning and strategizing the escape, the actual escape, being on the run or pursued or recaptured, and/or a general atmosphere…
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Quite how Ian Fleming got to Portugal in June 1940 is unclear. To have gone overland would have been extremely unlikely, and as his objective was to get to Madrid if going overland, why go to Portugal? He could have gone by sea, but he would have had to obtain a visa from the Portuguese Consul in Bordeaux. These were freely obtainable, thousands being issued by the consul, Aristides de Sousa Mendes. However, most people traveled by land and the influx was so great that it led to the Spanish closing the border with France, and an increase in tension between Lisbon and Madrid. Sousa Mendes paid for this humanitarian act with his career and the ruin of his family by a furiou…
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