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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Even before I sat down to write Magpie, I knew I wanted there to be a stomach-flipping twist in the middle of the book. If writing is the great vocational love of my life, the longer relationship is the one I’ve had with reading. And as an inveterate reader, there is nothing I enjoy more than being swept up in a plot and then—suddenly—having all my preconceptions pulled out from under me with a deft authorial sleight of hand. It’s the literary equivalent of swimming in the sea and being lifted up by a large wave. There’s a thrilling sense of not quite knowing what will happen next, a moment of terror…and then you’re deposited safely back, feet once again grazing the sand…
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Madness lies at the dark heart of some of the greatest and most popular novels in the world, reflecting its power to drive a narrative; readers are deeply intrigued. We are reeled in by our dread of the unknown, by the unexplored darkness out there that it represents as well as the unnerving possibility that it is also inside us Madness is of course an outdated shorthand term encompassing a variety of mental disorders and illnesses; the knowledge that so many of us are on a spectrum that ranges from mild anxiety to severe psychosis makes the literary portraits of the mentally unwell compelling as well as disconcerting. The five books I describe reflect the age in which …
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As someone who reads widely across genres, I’ve found the books I most enjoy tend to transcend genres. This is, of course, a personal preference and there are lots of readers who love the predictability of tight genres that hew close to conventions. As a writer, I find the whole notion of identifying genre at an early stage is suffocating to ideas and creativity. As a result, I largely ignore it until the editing process. It does make it difficult to pitch a new idea, so often I just have to write the book and then let my agent work out where to go from there. I have common trends: strong female characters, relationships between characters that have real depth, emotional …
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When I was nine years old, I learned what it meant to be adopted. My mother had been adopted as an infant, and always spoke about what a gift it was to be raised by her parents, my grandparents. That fact being wholly undisputed, I also recall turning to my mother one day and asking, “But what about our medical history? Do you know anything about that?” She shook her head, and a burning curiosity for answers was born in me. Decades later, I was working on my debut novel when I learned that Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. was identified as the elusive Golden State Killer. Having grown up in Sacramento, California, the area that DeAngelo first began attacking his victims, I was …
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Deon Meyer (transl. K.L. Seegers), The Dark Flood (Atlantic) “A fast-moving South African police procedural . . . The plotlines are tightly knitted together, and the story ends with a nifty twist. A well-crafted blend of suspense, culture, and humor. Meyer is terrific.” Kirkus Reviews, starred review Elle Marr, Strangers We Know (Thomas and Mercer) “…the increasingly tense plot takes turns the reader won’t see coming. Marr is a writer to watch.” Publishers Weekly Laura Jarratt, Two Little Girls (Sourcebooks Landmark) “This heartfelt story grabs the reader from the very sta…
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“I have brothers and sisters and I find that my sisters are as intelligent as my brothers.” Digitally leafing through stacks of archival documents on 20th century colonial Bangalore as part of my academic research on the city’s ecological history, this sentence struck me with force. Mr. B.V. Ramaswami, a member of the Mysore Representative Assembly, was speaking passionately at a debate on the right of women to vote, during a meeting of the Mysore Representative Assembly in 1922. Ramaswami’s statement may seem obvious to us. But a century back, the possibility that women might become as educated and empowered as men was a matter of concern—even fear—for many men. Indee…
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Solitude is a favorite hobby of mine. I’m a true introvert and turning into a bit of a hermit as the years go by, so I can entertain myself for days on end without the need to speak to another human. But even I find isolation to be such a shivery and delicious building block of suspense. The feeling that no one can help you and, in fact, they might not even be able to hear you? Ooo, that gives me goose bumps. But between cell phones and cars and the internet, isolating a protagonist isn’t as easy as it used to be, and bad situations aren’t so scary when you know the character can call 911 at any time. So how to amp up that feeling of a character being utterly alone with …
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A look at the month’s best reviewed crime novels, mysteries, and thrillers. Gary Phillips, One-Shot Harry (Soho) “Phillips’ knack for making the past feel immediate is on point in the well-plotted One-Shot Harry, his first novel about Harry Ingram … Phillips vividly depicts 1963 L.A … Phillips’ insight into racism, attitudes toward Black veterans, the Civil Rights movement, Black press and politics of the 1960s elevates One-Shot Harry. Readers will look forward to more camera work from Harry, and Phillips.” –Oline H. Cogdill (Sun Sentinel) Don Winslow, City on Fire (William Morrow) “Combustible … City of Fire, with its large cast of memorable characters and…
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This spring is so packed full with new and returning crime series, we decided to lay out a viewing guide to help you keep track of all the dates and streaming services. There’s almost no way you’re going to be able to watch all these shows, so plan carefully. The Staircase HBO Max – Premieres May 5th I honestly don’t know who watched Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s docu-series about Michael and Kathleen Peterson and thought it needed to be a dramatized miniseries, but somebody must have because they went and made the thing. And they went and cast Toni Collette, Colin Firth, Juliette Binoche (Binoche!) and Rosemarie Dewitt (Dewitt!) in the thing, and damn if they didn’t dra…
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Deconstructing the craft of literary fiction in order to create our own is the standard approach to “learning” to write and the foundation of the MFA workshop. Aspiring or current writers of commercial or mass-market fiction, on the other hand, have a less clear-cut course of study. While the distinction between literary and commercial fiction could certainly warrant its own essay, and has certainly been the subject of standalone debate, I’ll propose, for purposes of this piece, that aside from the obvious role of corporate marketing decisions, commercial novels are defined by reader experience. For me, it’s the sense, when I reach the end of a novel, that its parts were …
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Tonight in New York City, the Mystery Writers of America announced the winners of the 76th annual Edgar Awards. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees. ___________________________________ BEST NOVEL ___________________________________ WINNER Five Decembers by James Kestrel (Hard Case Crime) *** NOMINEES The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen (Amazon Publishing – Lake Union) Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby (Macmillan Publishers – Flatiron Books) Five Decembers by James Kestrel (Hard Case Crime) How Lucky by Will Leitch (HarperCollins – Harper) No One Will Miss Her by Kat Rosenfield (HarperCollins – William Morrow) *** Rhys Bowen on mystery series with a s…
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The CrimeReads editors select the month’s best debut crime fiction. * Samantha Jayne Allen, Pay Dirt Road (Minotaur) A young woman returned home to a small Texas town, adrift, working waitressing shifts and waiting for the next piece of life to come rushing along, joins up with her supposedly retired grandfather as a private investigator. That’s the intriguing setup to this powerful new novel from Samantha Jayne Allen, a major new talent on the crime fiction scene, whose evocative descriptions of the Texas landscape and brooding atmospherics make for a new kind of noir you won’t soon forget. Get a copy of Pay Dirt Road now and expect to be hearing a lot more from S…
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Like many young readers, I first encountered the literary device of the unreliable narrator in J. D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield. I remember feeling frustrated and confused by The Catcher in the Rye, which I read on my own one summer. Now, I blame my frustration mostly on the fact that I read it independently, away from the benefits of classroom discussion that might have been envigorating or at least clarifying. But at the time, I decided I hated being lied to or mislead in fiction, did not have any interest in a protagonist who wasn’t going to come clean to me from page one. But when I picked up The Perks of Being a Wallflower a few years later, the similar deployment o…
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People often ask me if I planned out my Gaslight Mystery Series, which is now—with the publication of Murder on Madison Square—25 books long. The answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT! In the first place, how could I have ever imagined my series would go on for so long? I was thrilled when my publisher asked for 3 books on my first contract. My series will be at least 3 books long! Maybe 6 if I’m really, really lucky! Can you imagine anyone thinking, “Well, I’d better plan for what’s going to happen twenty or more books from now just in case the series goes that long.” How often does any series go on that long? So no, I didn’t plan, but I was lucky enough to have created characters in…
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Yesterday, we ran the first part of an epic roundtable discussion with 38 nominees for the Edgar Awards on the state of the crime novel. Today, in part two of the discussion, authors talk genre classics, publishing industry issues, crossover proliferation, and of course, what to add to your TBR list. Keep an eye on the site on Thursday evening for more Edgars coverage. __________________________________ Molly Odintz: If you could pick one classic crime author to recommend to new mystery readers, who would it be? __________________________________ Naomi Hirahara (nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award – Clark and Division): I’ll have to select my go-to—Chester Himes…
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Soon Wiley’s debut novel, When We Fell Apart, is sublimely haunting and will linger in your mind long after you turn the last page. After a young woman disappears in Seoul, her ex-pat boyfriend searches for her, and in the process, for himself. Ahead of the book’s publication, Soon Wiley was kind enough to answer a few questions over email. Molly Odintz: This is your debut, but it doesn’t feel like a debut—the writing is so sophisticated. What’s your writing process? Soon Wiley: First off, thanks for the high praise! Like a lot of writers, my first foray into fiction was with the short story form. During my MFA program, I was incredibly fortunate to have some excellent …
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Something happened on my way to writing my next novel, The Fervor (Putnam): it became personal. The Fervor marks the first time I’ve written a main character with the same ethnicity as mine, Asian American. I had no idea what a different experience this would be. Like my previous historical horror novels, The Fervor has multiple POV characters. The main character is Meiko Briggs, a Japanese woman who was sent by her family to America to wed a Japanese man in the Seattle area. (In the years before the war, there were 30 Japanese men for every Japanese woman on the west coast and a thriving matchmaking business back in Japan.) Her life is upended when she falls in love an…
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In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet reexamines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. In the following passage, she examines Dorothy B. Hughes’ In a Lonely Place and the cultural perception of a link between returned veterans and criminal behavior. ___________________________________ Upside-Down Cases Among the most disturbing “upside-down” cases of postwar noir is Dixon Steele, the serial-killer protagonist of Dorothy B. Hughes’s novel In a Lonely Place, published in 1947 and adapted, with considerable…
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Howdy, crime friends! It’s that special time of the year when crime writers, publishers, and critics dress up in their best evening wear and head to the New York Marriott Marquis Times Square on Thursday, April 28, for the 76th Edgar Awards, hosted by Mystery Writers of America. Ahead of the award ceremony, as has been our tradition here at CrimeReads, I sent out questions to all the nominees and special award winners for a wide-ranging discussion on the past, present, and future of the genre. I’ve divided the responses into two parts—below, you’ll find a more craft-oriented part of the roundtable, while tomorrow’s post will include takes on genre and industry concerns. S…
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I am a lifelong lover and obsessive consumer of all kinds of genre fiction in many mediums, from the original Star Trek series to yakuza and samurai films, from JG Ballard’s sci-fi nightmares to PG Wodehouse’s sparkling farces. But if there is one genre form that attains a kind of Platonic perfection, the genre of genres, I believe it has to be the mystery, specifically the detective story. In The Wild Life, the newest novel in my Bouncer series, Joe Brody, a strip-club bouncer who sidelines as a fixer for New York’s mob bosses, is given a new kind of assignment: detective. Sort of. A number of the city’s most sought after sex workers have disappeared and the bosses fear…
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Over the last ten years or so there’s been a growing recognition that Don Winslow is after something epic with his crime fiction. Take that word, epic, however you like, and it pretty much applies, whether you’re talking about his sweeping indictment of the War on Drugs (The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, The Border, among others), his look at corruption and abuse inside the NYPD (The Force), or the old surf noirs (The Dawn Patrol, The Gentleman’s Hour). Now you can add the more classical variation to that list, as Winslow brings out a new novel charting the clashes of New England organized crime in the 1980s and beyond, while mirroring the movements of Greek epic poetry, …
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Dick Lipez—who published as Richard Stevenson, his first and middle names—spent the last days of his life listening to Ella Fitzgerald, receiving family and friends at the Berkshire home he shared with his husband of 32 years, the artist, Joe Wheaton, responding to emails and phone calls from more distant friends, and kicking around ideas for a new book. He died on March 16, age 83, from pancreatic cancer. He was my friend of many years and fellow gay mystery writer. I’m publishing one of his last books, Knock Off the Hat at the end of April through Amble Press. Dick’s first mystery, Death Trick, published in 1981 introduced the world to Donald Strachey, a gay PI based i…
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The appearance of E.C.R. Lorac’s Two-Way Murder as a British Library Crime Classic represents a landmark in vintage detective fiction publishing. A novel by a well-regarded female author is finally seeing the light of day after being ‘lost’ for more than sixty years. The Crime Classics series has achieved astonishing success around the world, as long-neglected books have returned to print in highly collectible new editions with lovely period-style cover artwork. A very wide range of books originally published between the 1920s and the 1960s have found an enthusiastic readership in the twenty-first century. But Two-Way Murder is the very first novel in the series that has …
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Alma Katsu, The Fervor (G. P. Putnam) “Katsu has no peer when it comes to atmospheric, detail-rich historical horror, but this volume is more unsettling than anything she’s written yet, because its demons attack readers uncomfortably close to home. A must-read for all, not just genre fans.” Library Journal, starred review David Gordon, The Wild Life (Mysterious Press) “In the caper tradition popularized by Donald E. Westlake and Lawrence Block, Gordon uses humor to good effect… Delightful misadventures include a wild chase on a yellow-and-orange Ducati motorcycle and a luxury car h…
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My love for twists started at a young age when I cracked open my first Lois Duncan novel. I couldn’t believe the thrill I could get from reading a book, nor how exciting it was to follow along with a story while making my own predictions as to how it would end. Then I started encountering the ‘knock you off your feet’ twists in books and in film. You know? The twist that leaves your jaw hanging open, that has you questioning how you didn’t see it coming, or how the writer pulled it off. I’ve always been a reader that picks up on the clues carefully laid out and the red herrings that were tossed in to pique my suspicion, so when a twist comes along that I don’t see coming,…
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