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 CrimeReads editors select the year’s best critical nonfiction / biography books released in 2022. * John le Carré (Tim Cornwell, ed.), A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré (Viking) This collection of the author’s letters, assembled by his son, revels in much the same suggestive restraint as his best fiction: on nearly every page what is left unsaid begins, gradually and surely, to evoke another world. In this case, it’s not the world of spies, but that of a man of letters. Le Carré’s great concern was, it would seem, carving out the proper time and space to get down to his writing. Some of the more whimsical letters involve invitations to friends to vis…
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In America, especially when it comes to intellectual endeavors — race matters. Black folks are often thought of as being less smart than their white counterparts and, therefore, their work is labeled less important. In the world of literature, fiction by Black authors is rarely required reading in public schools. Many young people of all races don’t realize that Black writers exist until they either discover them on their own or take a higher education class that introduces them to the works of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin and countless others. Still, these writers are rarely “important” enough to be part of the ca…
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I’m not a risk-taker. I’m careful and safety-conscious to a fault. But as a writer, I have the freedom to take infinite risks on the page. In my stories, I can explore things I never would in real life. Often, I write about the things that scare me most. I want to understand them, to experience them in a safe and controlled way. In A MOTHER WOULD KNOW I asked myself the question: what I would I do if I suspected one of my children had done the unthinkable? How would I react? As a mom, I’m fiercely protective of my children. But what if I was faced with something I shouldn’t protect them from? Here are five other books with that same theme in mind. The Good Son by Ja…
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I think about murder a lot. No big surprise, since I write murder mysteries for a living. But I’ve been thinking about murder for a lot longer than I’ve been writing it. Since I was old enough to pull a well-thumbed paperback off my grandmother’s bookshelf. Detective fiction has been my comfort food since I was a child. And my preoccupation with murder hasn’t stopped at fictional ones. If my audiobook library can be believed, I spent a large chunk of the 2010s consuming true crime podcasts and documentaries about long-caught serial killers. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the why of it all. Why the preoccupation with murder? Why was I reading Sherlock Holmes at eight…
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I may not yet have officially reached the “old broad” stage of my life — at least, not in the sense where I might reasonably take advantage of a degree of social invisibility to try my hand at solving and/or committing crime with the same kind of impunity as the (mostly) over-sixties in the list below, but I still know how to spot a trend when I see one. And while the elderly in general — and older women, more specifically — have a long legacy as superior amateur sleuths in crime and detective fiction, there’s no denying that there has been a boom in contemporary takes on the Miss Marple model in the last few years, both on the page and on the small screen. To that end, …
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Here they are: my top ten thrillers, and a few other outstanding crime books and TV shows. ___________________________________ Top Ten Psychological Thrillers ___________________________________ Ewan Morrison, How to Survive Everything (Harper Perennial) Ewan Morrison wins the most memorable title contest of the month, though I do fear for anyone who mistakes this thriller for a handbook. Haley and Ben Crowe live with their divorced mother, but in the face of a new, even deadlier pandemic their father wants to take the children and go into hiding NOW. Yes, it’s a prepper thriller—the first I’ve encountered since we had a real-life lockdown that must have made those…
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It was half past eight in the evening and Alicia’s feet were chafing. The pumps Stella had convinced her to buy were insanely uncomfortable and far too expensive. The semester had only just begun and blowing twelve hundred kronor on a new pair of shoes was idiotic. Alicia was sitting on a divan surveying the ballroom. The manor outside Kristinehamn had been rented for the entrepreneurial program’s annual autumn celebration. With its large windows and balcony, the room was made to be filled with people dressed to the nines. She imagined the parties that had been held here in the glory days of the titans of industry. Crystal chandeliers with real candles and silk dresses w…
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Tunisia occupies 165,000 square kilometres in north-west Africa and is home to almost 12 million people. Bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the south-east, the country also claims the Mediterranean as a northerly neighbour and the vast Sahara Desert to the south. With a host of conquerors and occupiers through the ages, and most recently a French colony, Tunisia only gained its independence in 1956. Often writing these columns it’s frustrating to find great works remaining untranslated. This is certainly true of Le Fou du roi (2002), a collection of twelve crime stories by the Tunisian writer and mathematician Jamel Ghanouchi. These stories hinge on a “quasi-ma…
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Stephen Spotswood, Secrets Typed in Blood (Doubleday) “This mystery, the third in a series, is as winning as its predecessors. Here, the famous P.I. Lillian Pentecost and her spiky junior partner, Willowjean ‘Will’ Parker, immerse themselves in the seedy milieu of pulp magazines, circa 1947. The novel reads as easy as fine whiskey goes down.” –The New York Times Book Review Amber Garza, A Mother Would Know (MIRA) “[P]ropulsive….Combining high drama with issues—aging, sibling rivalry, the shadow of past mistakes—to which most readers can relate, Garza keeps the fast-paced plot twi…
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The CrimeReads editors select the year’s best espionage novels. * Tom Bradby, Yesterday’s Spy (Atlantic Monthly Press) Bradby’s historical novel manages to be a nuanced meditation on a father and son’s relationship and a dizzying, entertaining swirl of international politics and spycraft. In 1952, an old hand from British intelligence, recently retired and widowed, travels to Tehran to search for his vanished son, a reporter who has published highly damaging information about government officials and the opium trade. The search takes him through an odyssey of backroom deals, foreign power jockeying, and political tensions that are quickly on their way to a boil. Bra…
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Yes, DNA technology is amazing. Roughly 99.9 percent of human DNA is identical from person to person; the other 0.1 percent is what distinguishes each of us, and scientists have long sought to pinpoint those differences. Advancements in DNA testing allow us to identify the source of a genetic profile with unparalleled accuracy and from ever smaller quantities of biological material like blood, semen, hair, saliva, or skin tissue. As a result, the tool has proved the innocence of 375 convicted criminal defendants and led to their exoneration. But DNA testing is a relatively new phenomenon. The first exoneration based on that technology didn’t occur until 1989. Also, biol…
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Can you imagine where we’d be had Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle decided the writing life was not for them? Two of the most revered mystery writers in history whose works are still celebrated today, to say the least, and whose legacy lives on through multiple reprints, audio adaptations, and film projects? Yeah, me neither. But if you’re like me and you’ve read all these two have to offer, probably more than once, fear not. We have numerous mysteries with something to celebrate for all kinds of tastes, and these are just a few of the complete series we can binge now. You’re welcome. Lilian Jackson Braun’s Cat Who… Series This beloved series first appeared …
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Bleak, bone-chilling settings. Dark days and darker nights. A cheerless snow globe filled with tormented characters doomed to collide. Where brutality rings as true for the elements as it does the violence these characters do unto one another. These are the components of Nordic Noir, a subset of crime fiction that often takes place in Scandinavian countries such as Norway, Denmark, and Sweden—to name a few. But what about the Midwest? Come along with me, and we’ll explore my world of Black Harbor, writing as a social experiment, and the Midwest’s endless potential as a setting for crime fiction. Midwestern Noir: It’s a thing Quite simply, Midwestern Noir is what hap…
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Usually, when it comes time to round up the best crime novels of the year, we cap it at 10, but this year brought such a wide variety of excellent releases that we decided to up the number to 20. And it’s that variety, rather than any particular trends, that truly distinguishes 2022 from previous years. This year’s list includes plenty of hard-boiled noir, insightful psychological thrillers, lush historical journeys, and stunning traditional mysteries. There’s also some old ladies kicking ass, a social-justice oriented procedural, two works in translation, and the most noir depiction of a football game since North Dallas Forty. Scroll to the bottom to see our list of nota…
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“Which is better—to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?” Piggy asks, in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The concept of stranding characters on a deserted island in order to test their humanity and expose their inherent flaws and vulnerabilities is not a new storytelling trope. But, like so many literary themes, for decades the concept has largely been used to shine a light on the souls and inner demons of men. There have, of course, been some exceptions: like the early science fiction allegory Angel Island by American feminist author, suffragette and journalist Inez Haynes Irwin. The novel, published in 1914, sees a group of men shipwrecked on an island occup…
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Murder is a grisly, nasty business…except in the cozy mystery subgenre, where bloodless murders are the order of the day. If the words “cozy” and “murder” sound like an oxymoron when used in the same sentence, you’re not alone. The subgenre can seem downright baffling to outsiders at first glance. There is, however, a method to the madness. Even if you don’t read cozies, you’ve seen them in bookstores—they’re the books with punny titles like Up to No Gouda and A Doomful of Sugar, frequently with cartoon covers. While cozies are typically thought of as following in the footsteps of Agatha Christie, the modern cozy has evolved into something quite different, with its own s…
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What do I look for in a good crime story? First thing first, I don’t pick a book because it is a crime story, I pick a book for the story. What I look for when I start a book, is to meet the characters. I want to know about them, about their life, about their personal story lines before the plot itself. Because I truly believe, as an author and a reader, that the real echo of a book comes from the characters. A book that really matters, a book that you will care about or will remember as a good book, is because of its characters. They are the real connection to the book, the only door to really get to the story, because the story is about what happens to the character, if…
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There was one man who had lived with the stave church’s ancient smells and creaking sounds for so long that he knew its every quirk. He tended to the cold smell of old tar and pine every day, as a fearless but respectful beekeeper tends to his hive. This man was the churchwarden, Karl Gustav Emmerich. As a young carpenter’s apprentice, he had been present for the entire rebuilding of the church. He was among the few men who had got to know Schönauer, and among the even fewer mourners at his funeral. The nearer the church came to completion, the more it seemed to close about him like a home. And when the other carpenters packed up to go, he stayed behind to work on the f…
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A couple of weeks ago, my colleague Olivia Rutigliano created a fabulous list of gift items perfect for the mystery fan, and now we’re back with part two of the CrimeReads gift guide: coffee table books! Below you’ll see a host of intriguing reads, both large and small, that each bring their own particular attributes to the table. What makes a book a gift item? Well, usually, it has really nice paper. But beyond that, these works are distinguished by design, presentation, and a unique appeal to the dark-hearted loved one. Paul Gambino, Killer Collections: Dark Artifacts from True Crime (Lawrence King) What a fascinating book. Paul Gambino interviews a number of true …
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The display case outside Hoover’s office was not necessarily what Roosevelt had in mind when he called upon law enforcement to “interpret” the problem of crime. But it was a start, a hint that Hoover was taking notice of the public interest in crime narratives and adjusting his self-presentation accordingly. Another clue came when Hoover began to push for a new name to replace the “Division of Investigation.” Since the end of Prohibition, he had longed to break away from what remained of the Prohibition Bureau—technically a separate entity, but still under the roof of his division. He had also advocated for a renaming, pointing out that other government agencies maintaine…
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I’ve always been drawn to New England. Maybe it’s the dramatic change of seasons, the long history, or even the plethora of literature set there. I think it’s all three. New England gave us Stephen King, Dennis Lehane, and Robert Frost, among many others, who all have used the Northeast to great effect as a setting for their work. Whether the wilds of Maine or the urban streets of Boston, New England has a knack for inspiring mysterious and macabre fiction. I think history is part of it. New England is old by new-world standards. The narrow and sometimes cobblestone streets of Beacon Hill, the sinister graveyards with their skull and crossbones headstones, the legacy of…
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At age sixteen I was arguably a bumpkin, an utter yokel growing up in Illinois farm country with interests limited to baseball, girls and hay-baling jobs for pocket money, not necessarily in that order. Two influences worked to broaden my outlook. The first was a high school Spanish teacher who forced me, somewhat against my will, to learn the language and sent me on a student exchange program to Cali, Colombia, where I promptly fell in love with a beautiful Colombian girl and realized that feminine appeal did not begin and end with Illinois farmers’ daughters. When I returned at the end of the summer I had decided that traveling and learning languages would not be a bad …
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As a genre, crime fiction isn’t hurting for evocative settings. From stormy islands to isolated mountain cabins and desolate wintry landscapes, we’ve been plunged into every conceivable environment and invited to explore it through the lens of exciting and thought-provoking stories. Because of this, many authors find themselves searching for places to set their books that haven’t yet been plumbed. Setting can have a tremendous impact on plot, from weather patterns to socio-economic factors and cultural trends, so selecting a setting that’s less common—or even completely unfamiliar—can sometimes lead to an unexpected story. When I sat down to write The Kind to Kill, the…
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One blue-sky day this past September, I stood at the edge of the Mer de Glace in Montenvers, above Chamonix. I had hiked there along the Balcon du Nord to meet my husband for coffee. Together, we gazed out at the glacier’s dirt-grayed surface cracked throughout with crevasses and stitched with snow bridges. I told him that the Mer de Glace appears in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, when the creature challenges Frankenstein’s moral obligation to the being he has brought into the world. We joked that we knew a bit about complicated bonds and obligations now, fresh from our recent experience of glacier climbing not far from where we stood. We had just completed a trip whose mi…
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Bestselling thriller authors Kaira Rouda and Kimberly Belle write dark and twisty stories centered around a marriage. Not the happy, loving kinds of marriages they both have in real life, but marriages that are filled with secrets and lies…and murder. The author of THE WIDOW (Thomas & Mercer, Dec. 1) and THE PERSONAL ASSISTANT (Park Row Books, Nov. 29) sat down to talk about how the complexities of marriage and family life naturally lend itself to the plots of thrillers and mysteries. Kimberly: I saw the NY Post article about your upcoming book–Ex-Rep’s wife writes a novel about cheating congressman killed by wife (link: https://nypost.com/2022/10/01/ex-rep-harle…
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ALGONKIAN SUCCESS STORIES
What should you accept as credible?
Where it All Began
