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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What is the ideal medium for a true crime story? In the last decade, we’ve seen countless examples, from longform podcasts to feature films. Sometimes things converge in unexpected ways — a podcast begets a television miniseries (Slow Burn and Gaslit, respectively); a fictionalized account leads to a documentary (All Good Things and The Jinx, respectively). A true crime story can expose societal inequality or venture into a troubled psyche. It can thrill or enlighten; it can also take readers or viewers to places they never thought they’d go. From 1997 to 2001, a trilogy of works by writer Gary Indiana were published, each in its own way a work of true crime. Over the la…
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First, a mention of a book that I decided is not quite in the purview of this list but I need to recommend: Chris Holm’s Child Zero (Mulholland). I enjoyed Holm’s previous books about a righteous hit man, and I knew that he had a science-y background (as us English majors call it). Some will say Holm has been gifted the perfect time for his medical—specifically, bacterial—thriller, in which antibiotic resistance causes all kinds of nasty diseases to infiltrate the world population. Holm’s book is remarkable in the way it details what could happen and methodically explores what could happen after that; the fear and paranoia is never unearned. This is a truly scary psycholo…
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The bells of St. Mary-Le-Bow toll eleven o’clock. The narrow streets of London’s East End are strangely deserted. Out of the swirling fog comes the clip-clop of horseshoes on cobble. A carriage appears. I squint, struggling to decipher the crest on the carriage door. From within the passenger compartment, a gloved hand emerges. Wait—is that a gun? I flip the page, my heart in my throat, as the modern world vanishes in the foul-smelling mist. It’s London, 1850. Soon a body will turn up—floating in the Thames or sprawled in one of the brick-walled alleys. I settle in for another blissful sojourn in Victorian England. “Sexual repression, dark alleys, great detectives, orn…
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In 1996, a young couple – Julie Williams and Lollie Winans – were brutally murdered while backpacking in Shenandoah National Park. The case quickly became front page news nationwide; that media attention only intensified five years later, when Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that not only had an individual been indicted in the case, but that that person would be the first to be tried under new federal hate crime legislation. A few years later, the case against that man, Darrell David Rice, was quietly dismissed. In her new book, Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders, investigative journalist Kathryn Miles details both the crime itself and h…
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When writing my debut novella, Something Is Always Happening Somewhere, my goal was to make readers feel the sort of haunting, full-bodied mental and physical anguish I felt while grieving the loss of my mother, father, and grandmother. And based on some of the Goodreads and NetGalley reviews I’ve been getting for the book so far, which range in sentiment from “this was a beautiful depiction of grief,” to “I didn’t feel as a reader I need more misery. I was glad to finish reading in the end,” it seems like maybe I achieved that goal. I lost my mom in 2013, my dad in 2017, and my gramma in 2018. That’s my core family right there, all gone in a relatively short span of tim…
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It is often our subconscious self that underlies the decisions we make, and so it must have been with my far-reaching decision at a relatively young age to travel. That decision—more instinctive than cohesive—moved me off a single career path toward wide vistas of varied occupations. Every conceivable means of transport has taken me from one point on the map to another. Over the course of an unconventional career I have been a book publisher, the founder of a magazine, a corporate officer of a large multi-media company, and the chief-of-staff of a think tank operating in several international timezones and with a remit of global security. These decidedly different roles s…
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Biology is creeeeepy. At least, that’s the lesson I’ve learned from early readers of my new thriller, Child Zero, which takes place in a post-antibiotic near future. As a former molecular biologist, I’d been laboring under the misapprehension that biology was neato. My bad, I suppose. Lee Child, of Jack Reacher fame, called Child Zero “really scary.” New York Times bestsellers Joseph Finder and Tess Gerritsen opted for “terrifying.” So did Edgar Award winner Lou Berney, who added that it gave him nightmares “in the best possible way.” (Sidebar: is that even a thing? God, I hope so—because otherwise, Lou secretly hated my book.) Acclaimed authors Matthew FitzSimmons and M…
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Tell me if this story sounds familiar: A young woman moves to a new town and finds work caring for a little boy (or a little girl, or maybe one of each). The parents are distant or completely absent, caught up in busy careers (or possibly dead). The children have few friends, and every night the house is troubled by strange noises. The nanny suspects supernatural activity, but everyone says it’s just her imagination. These are the broad strokes of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, and my novel Hidden Pictures plays with the formula by moving the action to an affluent New Jersey suburb and adding tons of creepy black-and-white drawings (the child in my story is an art…
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Eight thousand meters (over twenty six thousand feet) is the place known as the “Death Zone”. Every moment a person spends up there their body is dying, the lack of oxygen causing hallucinations, swelling of the brain and fluid leaking into the lungs. It is so dangerous that death is an accepted risk in the extreme high altitude peaks—even before you add in the risk of avalanches, serac falls and crevasses. In 2019, I became the youngest Canadian woman to summit one of these 8,000m peaks, Mt Manaslu, and I experienced life in this extreme place for myself. And as a writer, I couldn’t help but wonder— where better for a serial killer to hide, than a place already known as …
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The day after spring break my son was sent home early from kindergarten. His school has been rigorous about enforcing stringent health guidelines during the pandemic. Any sign of a symptom means a parent is called for early pick-up. Since September, I’ve been called to retrieve him over a dozen times. When I arrived, my son bounced out of the building in a state of barely restrained joy. “HI MOM” he cried. “Hi,” I said. “What’s going on, buddy? You not feeling good?” My tone made his smile fade which is a terrible and tremendous parenting power. “Ummmmmm. My stomach kind of hurts,” he said without meeting my eyes. “Like you’re going to throw up?” He paused. “Yeah…
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Some of the very best limited series on TV over the past ten years have been adaptations of stand-alone crime novels. As I write this, Anatomy of a Scandal, based on a novel of the same name by Sarah Vaughan, is the number one show streaming on Netflix. Before Anatomy of a Scandal we had Pieces of Her, from the brilliant Karin Slaughter novel, also a number one show. And before that we had The Secrets She Keeps (Michael Robotham), Big Little Lies (Lianne Moriarty) and The Stranger (Harlan Coben). The list goes on. There’s more than one reason these stories so successfully translate to television. The novels they are based on were written by some of our best writers. Writ…
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Tucked under the autumn foliage and blended into spring’s vibrant colors, floating unseen in the stagnant air of a summer heatwave and drifting quietly under a winter blizzard, New England’s romantic landscapes conceal the mystical creatures, myths, and legends they harbor, affording a dreamlike setting with unsettling undercurrents. Seeded with independent spirit and rooted in puritanical values, New England’s path has been the story of America. For its climate, mythology, and history, New England continues to provide an excellent backdrop for mysteries, chillers, dark romances, and psychological thrillers. There’s no denying the suspenseful tone set by the sinister sto…
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I wasn’t a Nancy Drew fan as a child. Nancy’s life was so remote from mine that I couldn’t connect to it. She was wealthy, her widowed father respected her ideas, she went off on her own with her friends to solve crimes and came home to parental praise. I grew up with parents who were widely and deeply read. When they were calm and sober their conversation was witty and erudite. Those days were infrequent: they were prone to rages that were frightening in their violence. My four brothers and I both endured such scathing criticism when we offered opinions that we retreated into silence, and when we spoke, it was in whispers. Also unlike Nancy’s, mine was a circumscribed …
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Since I was a young child I’ve been fascinated by the identity people get from their families, good and bad, being part of a ‘gang’. The idea that for some people being in a large family gives them protection from the real world. I remember an interview with one of my favorite novelists, Kate Atkinson, who was frequently bemused at being told by adults: you’re an only child, you must be spoilt. She’d think about the houses she’d go to where the children fought and smashed each other’s toys, the constant, multi-layered land wars of siblings and she’d go home and calmly play with her unbroken toys and think: but none of this is spoilt—I’m not the spoilt one. I was once wi…
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A supertanker in trouble is a singular event. It requires the attention of naval fleets, coast guards, international marine agencies, and governments across the immediate region, as well as in the homelands of its crew. That’s not to mention those with a financial interest: the shipowners, cargo owners, bankers, and insurers backing the voyage, and a diffuse crowd of brokers, lawyers, traders, agents, and investors from London to New York, Dubai, and Singapore. If the Brillante Virtuoso sank to the sandy bottom of the Gulf of Aden, the financial blow would be substantial. Most obviously, a vessel with a nominal value of $55 million would be lost. The $100 million of oil …
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In writing my recent thriller, Hooker Avenue (2022, Level Best Books), I was inspired by a true crime involving sex workers, which occurred in the Hudson Valley of New York, and by my personal connection to those crimes. During the late 1990s, eight sex workers disappeared from the mean streets of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and for two years, the police took little action to locate them. Finally, in September 1998, after one woman escaped from the attacker’s clutches, the john, Kendall Francois, admitted killing the women whom he buried in his home. What was my connection to the gruesome crimes? Francois solicited the women on the steps of my law office. Naturally, these heinou…
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Dervla McTiernan, The Murder Rule (William Morrow) “Dervla McTiernan has become one of my favorite writers, and if you read The Murder Rule, she will quickly become one of yours. This book is diabolically clever, highly compelling, and deeply moving. I loved The Murder Rule and did not want it to end.” Don Winslow Connie Berry, The Shadow of Memory (Crooked Lane) “A seamlessly plotted mystery for fans of English puzzles.” Library Journal, starred review Jason Rekulek, Hidden Pictures (Flatiron) “The explosive third act gives this story a nail-biting ending sure to thrill. Pa…
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The pandemic that started in 2020 affected a lot of people in a lot of ways—including writers. Like me. I write mysteries and romantic suspense. I’m used to sitting at my computer and writing. Copiously. Continuously. That didn’t change. However, I was also used to attending conferences, several a year, to meet with writer friends and participate on panels and promote my books. To meet more people, including readers who enjoy the kinds of things I write. Not during the pandemic. Most conferences were canceled anyway. Same thing regarding local book signings and in-person chapter meetings of writers’ organizations. I missed them all. I did, however, attend quite a few of…
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Let’s start with a little story about rejection. Because, who doesn’t love a good rejection story? A few years ago, I was out on submission trying to sell my newest manuscript. Submission means your agent pitches your book to publishers, while you, the author, chew your nails right down to the bone while doom-checking your email. People call this “submission hell” for good reason. Unless you’re extremely lucky to get an offer right away (or offers, or even OMG an auction!), you wait. And wait. And if you’re not a patient person by nature, this is not easy. Then the rejections, or more politely-termed “passes,” start rolling in. Editors will send an email extolling your …
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When Prime Video’s moody, Los Angeles-set detective drama Bosch took its final bow last June, it did so as the Amazon streamer’s longest running original series. Seven seasons! A feat in any television context, never mind in the world of streaming. Still, novelist Michael Connelly has been writing the books that Bosch was adapted from since 1992, with this November’s forthcoming Desert Star marking Bosch’s twenty-fourth literary outing. So while seven critically acclaimed seasons may be nothing to sneeze at, the Prime Original’s 2021 exit still left dozens of storylines on the cutting room floor. Of these, perhaps the most interesting—in terms, at least, of potentially …
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Back when I was a thirteen-year-old regular at my local used bookstore I discovered the novels of John D. MacDonald, those beat-up little paperbacks with lurid covers and great titles. Over the years I’ve grown to love MacDonald’s standalone thrillers, some of which are true pulp classics, but as a young bookworm I was obsessed with the Travis McGee series, easily identifiable because the titles all included a color. Finding one of those meant you were set for a great afternoon of reading, plunked down into seamy, seedy Florida in the 1960s with one of the best detective heroes ever written. Travis (Trav to his friends) McGee is a wiry, knuckly, very tan, very tall boat …
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Since the dawn of humanity, since the moment we’ve been able to think, games have been part of our interactions with others. From the imagination games of children to interactive video games of teens, and even the sudoku puzzles and crosswords of adults – as social creatures, there’s a reason why our brains delight in games. The rules give us enough structure to keep us from going off the rails but enough wiggle room to keep our attention. I would even argue that it is what make the game worth playing–especially when some rules are more flexible than others. Horror movies are their own game of survival. There is a formula, a set of rules that are meant to be followed. Y…
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Ever since Medea took her revenge on her two-timing husband by icing her own kids, examinations of the darker aspects of motherhood have proven a regular fixture in the literature of crime and punishment. The following books range across a wide variety of subgenres—from hardboiled noir, to straight horror, to conspiracy thriller, to the uncategorizable—but at the heart of each is an exploration of the depths a mother is willing to go to either save or damn their offspring. For Mother’s Day, here are 7 dark novels about motherhood. Mildred Pierce, James M. Cain The American roman noir as we know it was practically invented by James M. Cain by way of his first two …
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Military thrillers often feature strangers who become brothers after enduring combat’s fiery furnace. In Hostile Intent, the latest book in my Matt Drake series, the relationship between Matt and his best friend, Frodo, forms the novel’s centerpiece. At first glance, these two men have very little in common. Matt is white, college educated, and grew up on a Utah ranch. Frodo is an African American native of Philadelphia who enlisted in the Army straight out of high school. But their shared combat experience transforms what would otherwise be a surface level relationship into a brotherhood of arms. To accurately portray Matt and Frodo’s friendship, I drew upon my own deplo…
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Fifty years ago, Milano Calibro 9, or Calibre 9 as it was released in the United States, hit Italian cinema screens. A small time mafia foot soldier, Ugo Piazzo (Gastone Moschin, a famous Italian comic actor at the time), leaves prison only to be caught up in a conspiracy around the disappearance three years earlier of $300,000 from a Milanese crime boss known as the Americano. Believing that Ugo took the money and stashed it while he was in jail, the Americano sends Rocco (German Italian actor Mario Adorf), a clownish but lethal mob enforcer, to retrieve it. Ugo denies he had anything to do with the missing cash, but no one, including the police and his ambitious strippe…
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