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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I was in a canoe on the Edisto River in South Carolina with my dad when I stumbled onto a crime story that would, over the course of many years, shake me to my core. It was a reverse murder mystery. I was presented with the killer, but not a victim. It was raining and we were sheltering beneath a bridge when I asked him why his father, who was white, had the name Hernando. My dad told me that Hernando’s father, Dr. I.M. Woods had to hide out in Texas for a time after the Civil War and a Spanish speaking woman saved his life and he promised to name a child after her husband. “Why did he have to hide out after the war?” I asked. “He killed a man,” Dad said, looking away…
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Nothing annoys me more than hearing people describe watching movies as a “brainless” activity—as if it involves somehow turning off your brain’s circuitry and relying solely on your eyeballs to coast through the movie’s run time. Plot twist: your brain is very much involved, engaged, and making the experience for you. Nothing makes this engagement more apparent than watching horror movies, where the filmmakers are crafting scares with your brain’s and body’s most likely reactions in mind. Let’s start with a scene that appears in almost every horror flick ever made. Our protagonist is home alone at night, and the house is dark. They hear sounds they can’t explain, so they…
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It is safe bet that not too many people know about the stifling Tehran night in August 1953 when the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service conspired to overthrow a democratically elected government and its profoundly popular leader, with the enthusiastic participation of right-wing elements in the Iranian military and the unequivocal backing of President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Churchill. But we perhaps should. It was a harbinger of events to come—all over the world—and remains to this day one of the great examples of the law of unintended consequences. Given that it took place in the heart of the Middle East, you’ll be much less surprised to learn—if it i…
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All reporters have to learn to deal with sources who lie. Lies were at the heart of my last book, I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad (co-written with Brandon Soderberg). The story centered around a group of plainclothes cops who lied on warrants, in arrests, and on the stand, robbing from drug dealers and selling the drugs. They lied to each other—about how much money they found, what happened to the drugs, and on overtime slips that allowed them to fleece the citizenry as well. When all of this came tumbling down with a federal RICO indictment in 2017, those with reasons to lie proliferated. Each of the eight cops initially arreste…
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I have always considered my childhood to be rather idyllic, complete with family bike rides, Monopoly marathons, my dad reading from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe after dinner, my mom making me into my bed on laundry day. Yet, even as a child, I knew my family had skeletons in the closet—things which, without anyone having to say so, were clearly to be kept quiet: my uncle’s mental illness and subsequent death by suicide, my grandfather’s tendency to drink too much in the small bar area he called “purgatory,” that stood between his workroom and my grandmother’s kitchen, the fact that the sound of ice clinking in a glass signaled my own father had arrived home. I …
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I wish I had a better reason, but the story of how I came to be interested in stories that feature collective narration is a bit petty, really. I was speaking to a good female friend who had recently started dating a man who, as it happens, I had also dated many years before (it adds a certain frisson to say that as a bisexual woman I don’t tend to fall for straight women, but it just so happened that I had an active crush on this straight female friend, because, hey—sometimes life just isn’t complicated enough). I talked to my female friend about the unusually warm weather. She said, declaratively, ‘We’ll go to the pool this weekend, it’ll be beautiful’. ‘Great!’ I said.…
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Long before undertakers organized themselves into the professional group of funeral directors, tradesmen undertakers and families battled a group of ghoulish men called resurrectionists who operated by the light of moon. The resurrectionists were body snatchers, yanking freshly buried remains from the earth and selling them to medical men. Body snatching was such an uncontrolled problem that it led to the invention of the burial vault, a device still used today. The tipping point in the ghoulish behavior was a sensational body snatching splashed across the front pages of every major newspaper. The incident involved a president’s son and a future president, and it uncover…
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Many of us are familiar with the men of the Manhattan Project: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, dozens of male scientists rolling up their shirtsleeves in the Nevada desert. You may not be aware that thousands of women also contributed to the project, both in developing the science that made it possible and in running the top secret facilities where the atomic bomb was made. The Woman With Two Shadows follows Lillian, who travels to the secret city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee where her twin sister Eleanor works on the Manhattan Project as a calutron girl. In order to find her twin, Lillian must pretend to be her. While researching Oak Ridge and the time period, I learne…
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Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are no strangers to comics and noir, blending both primal elements of story into everything they do—whether it’s mainstream superhero work or their more recent, and more personal, forays into creator-owned, character-driven crime comics. Brubaker and Phillips have worked together so long they’ve become synonymous, a pair of names that complete each other, building a legendary reputation with series like Criminal, Fatale, Kill or be Killed, Incognito, Bad Weekend, and more. Their latest collaboration, while still firmly entrenched in the dark corners of graphic novel crime, marks a departure of sorts. Instead of releasing their stories via m…
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I can still remember the first time I saw myself reflected in a story. I had just turned nineteen years old and was nearly through my chaotic first year of university. Although I desperately needed to study for my final exams, I had opened a second-hand book I had picked up from somewhere instead. I was still recovering from a very messy breakup with my first girlfriend. In the late 2000s, the world was a very different place—I wasn’t out to anybody except a few close friends. I had nobody to talk to about it. Needing something to take my mind somewhere else for a bit, I decided this book would do the trick, although I didn’t know anything about it or the author. The bo…
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When I first started thinking about writing a spy novel, I read every book I could find about espionage. From Kim to Ashenden to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, along with every book that became a film starring Michael Caine. Having spent several years steeped in spies, I can honestly say that in books, real life is better than fiction. The best books I’ve discovered about espionage are not novels, but non-fiction works about actual spies and their remarkable, deadly exploits. These books are darker than Smiley. Funnier than Bond. More extreme than Jason Bourne. Here are my favorite, stranger than fiction, utterly gripping, non-fiction books about real spies. Operation K…
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Amina Akhtar and Erin Mayer have had fashion and media careers that people dream about. Between them, they’ve worked at every major publication, including Vogue, The Cut, Elle, Bustle, NYTimes.com and more. But they both also made the leap from fashion/celebrity editor to thriller writer. We had to know more! The author of Fan Club and the author of Kismet (out 8/1) interviewed each other to talk about their experiences, and why, exactly, fashion inspires so much rage. Questions from Amina Akhtar: What’s your fashion/media background? Erin Mayer: I have been working in media since 2014. I’ve freelanced for a variety of publications, and was previously an Associate…
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Louis Armstrong did not need to be told that the honky-tonks that were connected were the honky-tonks where you wanted to be. He learned this from King Oliver, whom he worshipped. Oliver was twenty years older than Armstrong. In many ways, the veteran cornetist and bandleader was both a mentor and father figure to the young musician. “I never stop loving Joe Oliver,” said Armstrong. “He was always ready to come to my rescue when I needed someone to tell me about life and its little intricate things and help me out of difficult situations.” Oliver had a big, bald head that he often topped with a bowler hat. He could be formal and stern, but he had a laying style on the…
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This is not a post about puzzle mysteries, but rather a roundup of puzzles for mystery readers. I believe I speak for many of us when I say that in the pandemic I’ve developed a taste for jigsaw puzzles. Yes, just like a newfound love of baking or house plants, jigsaw puzzles are the perfect hobby for home. But I haven’t been doing just any jigsaw puzzles – I’ve been doing themed puzzles! Here are a few very cool recent puzzles that appeal to horror, mystery, and crime fiction lovers. Some are based on specific books to the point of being able to follow along with the plot through solving the puzzle. Some are odes to the beloved figures behind the genre, or to the places …
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Anatomy of a Supercell Supercells are the king of thunderstorms. They can tower ten or more miles high, spin like a top, and produce some of the fiercest weather on Earth. They are elegant and destructive, and beautifully terrifying. And they are a force to be reckoned with. Supercells aren’t like ordinary thunderstorms, which clump together into clusters or gusty squall lines. Supercells are small and potent. A single storm may only be five or ten miles wide, but in that tiny space could be packed destructive straight-line winds, softball-sized hail, flooding rains, and tornadoes. What makes a supercell special is its isolation. While other thunderstorms may compete…
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Limehouse prison is, as you might imagine, horrible. Except maybe you can’t imagine it, not really. There are no games consoles and flat-screen TVs, as you have surely read about in the newspapers. There’s no friendly communal vibe, no sisterly trib—the atmosphere is usually frantic, hideously loud, and it often feels as though a fight will break out at any moment. From the beginning, I’ve tried to keep my head down. I stay in my cell as much as possible, in between meals that could optimistically be described as occasionally digestible, and attempt to avoid my roommate, as she tiresomely likes to be called. Kelly is a woman who likes to ‘chat’. On my first day here four…
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Amina Akhtar, Kismet (Thomas and Mercer) “Akhtar brings to her second novel…a gimlet-eyed view of Sedona, Ariz.’s wellness pretensions and a wicked way with one-liners…the surprises Akhtar has in store upend assumptions about trauma, healing, and the motivations of those who helicopter into lands they claim to hold sacred.” –Los Angeles Times S. S. Van Dine, The Benson Murder Case (American Mystery Classics) “Mr. Van Dine’s amateur detective is the most gentlemanly, and probably the most scholarly snooper in literature.” –Chicago Daily Tribune Tyrell Johnson, The Lost Kings …
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I was born in Hawaii and have at least one picture of my young self on the beach with a huge hibiscus in my hair. Since we moved when I was two, I don’t remember much about constantly being on a beach in a playpen, but I do have the photographic evidence to show that it happened. Maybe that’s why my perfect reading day involves sand, sea, a light breeze, a frosty beverage, and a healthy dose of murder! However, we then moved to Pennsylvania, which does not exactly have oceanfront property. We have a lot of rivers, creeks, and lakes, but not so much a seaside, with Pennsylvania being a mostly landlocked state. New Jersey wasn’t that far away though, and I took every oppor…
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One of the first public events I attended after lockdown was a Solve-Along-A-Murder-She-Wrote at a London cinema, with my mother, brother and cousin. Together, we cheered as Jessica Fletcher asked probing questions and tested alibis in a convent full of nuns. All the while our host, dressed as Jessica in various guises, asked us to judge who we thought was most suspicious—based entirely on which guest star was most famous when the episode originally aired in 1987. It was an absolute hoot, and we loved every moment of it. You see, I grew up in a family of murder mystery addicts, and a mass solve-along is absolutely our idea of fun. As a small child, my first murder myste…
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I aspire to be the feminine embodiment of California Noir. I like neon skies and neon signs. I like the way sunburns turn to freckles. And like in the Cali Noir, I have a dark angsty underlayer. I giggle flirtatiously as I describe my debut novel The Roommate as a psychological thriller when there’s a straight-up slasher scene. I like to imagine Dorothy B. Hughes did the same when describing In a Lonely Place. The Roommate is about Donna, a restless twentysomething who unexpectedly inherits a turquoise bungalow in SoCal. After settling in, she recruits a roommate to help pay the bills. But soon, she realizes her sunny, quirky comrade is not a long-lost bestie but a dange…
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As I’ve been watching an eclectic bunch of classic films lately, it occurred to me that I was unintentionally watching a series of what I came to call stealth, or unexpected, crime films. Especially in the sense of the films not being known as stories about murder and mayhem. But they were just that. Moviegoers in 1960 could almost – almost, I say – count “Psycho” among such films, just for the audacious fake-out that takes place more than a half hour into director Alfred Hitchcock’s classic. Sure, it was a Hitchcock movie, so you knew there would be violent death. But that plot twist. In Hollywood history to that time, had there ever been a more unpredictable murder? S…
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To be perfectly frank with you, August is not a banner month for crime series on TV (except for one very bright spot, the first selection below, which isn’t really a crime series). Why? It’s hard to say. Traditionally it was a dead time on the TV calendar but that’s not really the case anymore. Maybe there’s a drought in productions, but then why did the streaming services all run their best stuff in the same three week period in April? If I had to guess, the current gap is down to the juggernaut series coming at the end of the month: the Game of Thrones spinoff on HBO and the Lord of the Rings project on Amazon. So, a good month for fantasy fans. Let’s try to be happy fo…
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It’s summer and thoughts turn (after the last couple of stay-at-home years) to travel, venturing abroad, places foreign. CrimeReads’ Lizzy Steiner has recently recommended US-based podcasts so let’s look a little further afield. Here’s a summer round up of the best international podcasts you might want to download before taking off… ___________________________________ England ___________________________________ Scotland Yard Confidential (Noiser Podcasts) Bristol-based Noiser Podcasts have had great success with their Real Dictators, Real Outlaws, Real Pirates, and Real Narcos series’. Their latest is Scotland Yard Confidential, ranging from the early nineteenth ce…
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Prologue “Do you hear that?” her uncle whispered. “Hear what?” she said, refraining from taking a big bite of the caramel apple she’d made. “The rustling. Over there. In the bushes.” Her ears strained. The fire burning in the pit between their lawn chairs popped, sending up orange embers that failed to alleviate the encompassing darkness. She shook her head and lifted the apple to the corner of her mouth where she still had teeth capable of piercing the hard flesh; adult incisors had yet to fill the holes in her smile. “Listen,” he hissed, once more stopping her from taking a bite. “I don’t hear any—” The rustle of leaves sounded from far off in the yard, back where…
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Dwyer Murphy is a man of letters. Before becoming the editor of CrimeReads, Murphy was a lawyer, a litigator, and an Emerging Writing Fellow at the Center for Fiction in New York City. He also plays a mean game of pickup basketball, or so I hear. What I do know for certain is that Dwyer has written one hell of a debut. An Honest Living sings like a classic from the first page. Every line is packed in tight but still manages to dance all the way up until the novel’s brilliant conclusion. Murphy isn’t just a writer to watch, he’s a writer we’ll all be talking about for a long time to come. Which is just my way of saying, I was more than excited to get to sit down and …
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