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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By and large, the private eye has never been big on family. Other peoples’ families, sure. But Sam Spade showed more interest in his partner’s wife than in finding one of his own, and A is for Alibi begins with Kinsey Milhone introducing herself as “twice divorced, no kids.” While there are exceptions, the PI has generally been a creature of solitude, give or take a sidekick or secretary. No one of his generation had more success telling PI stories in Hollywood than Shane Black. 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and 2016’s The Nice Guys, both written and directed by Black, drew inspiration from pulp writers such as Richard S. Prather and Shell Scott, adding tongue-in-cheek hum…
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During my short time as a civil rights attorney, I worked on several cases involving harassment on the job. Without fail, my clients had two things in common. They wanted the harassment to stop; and they thought retaliation for reporting the harassment was just a continuation of the abuse. They had no idea that the law, and, more importantly, juries, viewed retaliation as a separate, greater offense. I guess when you’re in the middle of such trauma, you just want it to end, and you want life to go back to “normal.” Unfortunately, a return to normal is an elusive goal, even if a complaint causes the harassment to stop. Such was the case of my protagonist Yolanda Avila seve…
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Ally Wilkes, All the White Spaces (Atria Books) “A gripping narrative that is at once explorer’s yarn, trans man’s coming-of-age story, and a tale of a survivor grappling with horrors that defy definition . . . from gritty seafaring challenges to a desperate struggle with demons that blur the line between the supernatural and the subconscious.” -Publishers Weekly Brian Hochman, The Listeners (Harvard Univ. Press) “[A] fascinating history [of] how wiretapping by U.S. law enforcement agencies went from a ‘dirty business’ to a ‘standard investigative tactic.’… This is an essential a…
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The concept of the frenemy is not new. A potent mixture of friend and enemy, this oxymoronic portmanteau first appeared in the English language in the late 1800s, albeit with a different spelling (“frienemy”). In recent decades the word has been dusted off, streamlined, and given new life. Fueled by the duplicity of social media—the ability to behave one way IRL and wear another face online—the frenemy appears in more guises than ever both in novels and in films. It’s little wonder that the frenemy continues to haunt us. It’s a powerful archetype; characters we both love and hate hold a unique fascination. They are more maddening than simple friends or enemies; because …
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This is the story of two novels, both written by me, one unpublished and one that just came out this month. The first, the one in the drawer, was a very violent tale about people who are able to regenerate. The second, a direct reaction to the first, is about a world where violence is no longer possible. But the real story here is how writing these two books led me to reconsider my own approach to writing violence in fiction, and to think more broadly about both readers’ and writers’ expectations around violence generally. I have always been a little squeamish. I nearly failed biology in college due to an inability to dissect a frog. And I’ve never gravitated toward the …
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March’s international crime fiction contains almost no fast-paced thrillers—instead, we find literary noir, coolly choreographed action, and slow-burn psychological thrillers. Along with the usual suspects from France, South Korea, and Scandinavia, you’ll find two great Latin American noirs on here, each in conversation with political upheaval in recent history. Some of us are traveling these days, but even if you’re back to jetsetting, you still won’t find anything close to the tours of the underworld that crime fiction can offer. Sit back, put your feet up, and dream of other worlds… Maria Gainza, Portrait of an Unknown Lady Translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bun…
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As the recipient for Betsy Faria’s insurance after Faria’s murder, Pam Hupp shocked investigators with her callous and bizarre attitude towards her dead friend. Hupp soon became a suspect in Faria’s untimely end. June 25, 2012—six months after the murder of Betsy Faria The big, bald cop had no reaction when his prime witness casually tossed off the most unexpected, shocking comment defense attorney Joel Schwartz had ever heard in a police interview. He watched the video of this new interview intently as murder suspect Pam Hupp explained to Sergeant Ryan McCarrick that the many personal issues she was juggling—selling a house, buying a new house, her own medical issues—a…
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I became a private investigator because of my face. It’s an ordinary-looking face, but if I ask “How are you?” sometimes people start crying. “I’m getting a divorce,” they say. “He ended our marriage by text.” Or “I was just diagnosed with late-stage Lyme disease.” Or a man grips a packet of peas in the frozen food aisle and asks, “How do you cook these? My wife died last month.” Or an immaculately dressed woman suddenly tells me, “I hate my job so much I want to kill myself. I’ve been saving up Ambiens.” Then we sit on a concrete curb, or stand in line at a train station, or clutch clear plastic cups at a party as the near-stranger in front of me dabs away mascara with…
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Like many of the best noirs, Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” is all about doom. Deep in the Texas desert, Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon the aftermath of a cartel shootout and decides to take the money he finds there—which puts him firmly in the sights of the unstoppable Anton Chigurh, a boltgun-wielding psychopath who’s tasked with finding the cash. The film adaptation of “No Country for Old Men,” written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, is a masterclass in tension. As played by Josh Brolin, Llewelyn comes across as steely and capable—much more so than the various cops, assassins, and cartel members who end up splattered by Chigurh (Javier Ba…
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In Mango, Mambo, and Murder, Cuban-American food anthropologist Miriam Quiñones-Smith turns amateur sleuth when the socialite sitting next to her faceplants into a chicken salad. With this tale, the first of her Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series, Raquel V. Reyes takes the comforting cozy recipe and tosses in her own sofrito, adding Latine flavor to an increasingly diversified genre. The book earned praise from the New York Times, which said “it executes its mission — mixing standard tropes, memorable characters, the importance of family and murder in unexpected quarters — with panache,” as well as an Agatha Award nomination. A sequel, Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking, is due …
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One of the most valuable qualities of books is their ability to introduce readers to perspectives very different from their own. Some authors play with that ability in unusual ways, taking on perspectives that are particularly strange or unfamiliar. In my novel Reptile Memoirs, part of the story is told from the perspective of a pet Burmese python. Here is a list of six other novels told from an unusual perspective. Ian McEwan, Nutshell Nutshell by Ian McEwan builds on the story of Hamlet but with a highly original twist. Trudy is married to Johnand is carrying his child, but she is secretly meeting with Claude with whom she is plotting to kill her husband. What they …
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6:20 a.m. When I was a young woman at the police training academy, I learned two important things. First was that you never forget your first dead body. And second was that behind every dead woman was a man who would swear that she was the love of his life, even as he stood there in a blood‑soaked T‑shirt with the knife still gripped firmly in his hand. But that was a long time ago, thirty years to be exact, and things have changed since then. We’re safe in our homes, because it’s easy to escape a bad relationship now. And we’re safe in public, too. That’s what makes today unusual. She’s been found on an otherwise normal October morning, when the sky is a soft gray, t…
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I’ve been a mystery lover since I picked up my first Nancy Drew book. For me, reading mysteries is about enjoying the writing while trying to figure out “who done it.” As an adult, many of the mysteries I’ve been drawn to feature a main character coping with grief while trying to navigate their way forward. Sometimes there’s an added twist of the protagonist being falsely accused of the crime and the situation forces them to prove their innocence—in addition to bringing the guilty party to justice. With the worlds of these protagonists no longer making sense, they often take risks outside their norms, making life or death choices as grief fuels their quest. But by taking …
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When I was a kid, I always struggled to make conversation with my grandmother, who was from County Meath, Ireland. Sometimes I’d try to bridge the gap by bringing up things related to Ireland, and shortly after seeing a certain movie listed below, I tried to describe “the Danny Boy scene” to her. She was a little hard of hearing and my mother, somewhat annoyed, eventually clarified what I was talking about. “They’re gangsters, ma, criminals,” she said. Movies have always had an odd relationship with the Irish-American gangster. Perhaps the two most celebrated gangster movies of all time, “Goodfellas” and “The Godfather,” prominently feature Irish-American characters desp…
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A moment of reckoning took place earlier this month in the “stolen art” arena: After a years-long investigation, the Fine Arts Museum of Bern, Switzerland announced it is “giving up” 40 paintings from the massive Gurlitt treasure trove that they concluded to be Nazi-looted artworks or of “questionable” origin. The Bern Museum’s handling of Nazi-looted art is a fascinating case study of doing almost the right thing. In 2014, the museum became the beneficiary of the Gurlitt collection when, in an unexpected move, the reclusive German-Austrian art dealer Cornelius Gurlitt bequeathed practically his entire collection to the museum when he passed amid scandal. Gurlitt wasn’t…
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When I decided, a few years ago, that my next crime novel would be a noir murder mystery set in the 1975 comic book scene of New York City, I honestly thought it’d be…well, easier. I figured I had the knowledge, based in my almost-two decades of experience working in comics, to get the basics on the page. I was wrong—and that’s often the most fun part about writing. Realizing you have to dig deeper if you really want your book to sing. I wanted my book to be more than just a typical mystery set in the world of comics—I wanted to create a sense of verisimilitude that would allow the reader to suspend their disbelief long enough to think that, maybe, just maybe, there had …
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Women have been in the workforce since practically the beginning of time, but it was never more apparent than during World War II. With a good portion of young men joining the military or being drafted, women came out in force to do their part for the war effort. Whether working for newspapers like my protagonist Irene Ingram in Front Page Murder, or working in factories manufacturing equipment for the war, they gave their all. When most people think about the women working during the war, the first thing that pops into their minds is that iconic poster of Rosie the Riveter. Rosie showed that women could do anything men could do. My mother wasn’t a Rosie, but she did wo…
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The mystery genre has a long and varied history, going back close to two centuries in its present form. (What actually constitutes the origin of the genre is a subject for an article much duller than this one.) There’s a lot to be gained from dipping into the older stories that inform and influence current books, but where to start? You could go from the beginning and work forward in time, seek out the most popular in their era, the most enduring, the most highly regarded by critics or widely cited by present-day authors as their inspiration. Or, if you like, you could trust your zodiac sign to help you choose. Aries (March 21 – April 19) Wilkie Collins Aries love dr…
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Crime fiction, what is it, anyway? And how can it be spun out of sources as divergent as both retiring old ladies knitting charmingly dumpy cardigans and perversely wrong-headed but wholly sympathetic psychopaths? Regarding the corpus of crime writing, it might seem the only common element in these narratives is that a crime is or has been committed. One which begs redress—be that through the full force of justice or simply the reader’s disapprobation, granted not even the apprehension of murderers here is a given. Look a little deeper, though—and far broader—and one can see the entirety of crime writing falling into either of two camps, each evolving out of sources th…
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In July 1945, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis docked at a tiny island east of the Philippines. There, it delivered its top secret cargo: parts for two atomic bombs the allies hoped would end the war. Four days later, a Japanese U-boat intercepted the Indianapolis and fired two torpedoes. Both hit their mark. The ship sank in less than twelve minutes. Three hundred of its 1,200 crew accompanied it to the sea floor. For the 900 survivors, the nightmare had only just begun. Hundreds of tiger sharks, attracted by so much spilled blood, closed in. They started on the dead and dying. Once those were gone, they attacked healthier prey. By the time help arrived four days lat…
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As a prospect, I was considered a servant, a slave, or even less. It’s like college fraternity hazing, except that you can be beaten into a coma or killed at any moment. Hogman wasn’t technically a prospect, and because he was Roadblock’s brother, he was a de facto member. His status protected him from the relentless mental and physical torture that Bob and I and other prospects endured. We busted our tails and stood guard duty, but most of that weekend consisted of me being bossed around, belittled, and disrespected. “Prospect, go get me a burger.” “Prospect, go get me a beer.” “Prospect, go wash my bike.” “Prospect, give me a cigarette.” “Prospect, I need a spark p…
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It may come as no surprise that my bookshelf is dominated by spy novels and non-fiction books about the CIA and the KGB. While I prefer novels, there are several non-fiction books I consider essential to understanding the world of espionage. But first, the novels: ___________________________________ Fiction ___________________________________ A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles) While not a spy novel, per se, A Gentleman in Moscow is an exquisitely written tale about a Russian nobleman who finds himself on the wrong side of history after the 1917 Russian Revolution. When the new communist government declares Count Alexander Rostov an unrepentant aristocrat, he is sen…
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To say that Alex Segura has a nerd’s dream job, or several dream jobs, is getting it backwards. In fact, he has forged a highly successful career out of turning his personal fascinations – with crime novels, comics, sci-fi and music – into unique artistic projects. The author of the acclaimed Pete Hernandez PI series, set in Miami, he has also written a Star Wars novel, Poe Dameron: Free Fall, and worked on a series of comics, including the The Black Ghost, the YA music series, The Archies, and the Archie Meets crossover series, featuring The Ramones, B-52s and others. Now many of these threads come together in Secret Identity, a thrilling noir novel set in the world of c…
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Running from the law does not belong to America. It is, rather, as human as our own skin. The very first people to ever waltz the earth, Adam and Eve, went on the lam directly after eating that forbidden fruit. Their son went on the lam after killing his brother, sweet Abel. Abraham, father of nations, went on the lam to Egypt. Moses went on the lam out of Egypt, four hundred years later, after killing a whip-happy Egyptian guard. Etc., etc., and on up to this modern American minute. America didn’t invent the outlaw, no, though the Land of the Free did turn outlaws into proper, transcendent stars. And by “proper” I mean famous with movies, television shows, serialized …
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As a lifelong reader of classic whodunits, I’m always a little disappointed when the first murder that occurs is the only murder in the story. I always crave that mid-point killing, the one that completely changes the dynamics of the narrative. The truth is, I want multiple murders. My favorite Christie is And Then There Were None, which comes right out and tells you that there will be no one left standing at the end. Of course, I’m probably not the only one amused by the fact that the great detectives of fiction often don’t catch the murderer until half the suspects are dead. Hercule Poirot in Christie’s Death on the Nile gets all the credit for eventually uncovering th…
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