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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My heart fills with a sinking feeling, a weight I can’t shake. That’s the only way I can describe it to my husband, Ted. He’s driving and I’m trying to be calm. It’s not working. “I suppose that’s apropos of something, sweetie, given we’ll be boating this weekend.” Ted grins. In front of us, the light changes. He pounds the steering wheel in frustration. “Seriously? Another red light? We’re going to be late now, for sure.” Most of the reason for our tardiness lies with me. I hate leaving the kids. Even now. They’re teenage twins, just graduated high school, and they’re fine without me for one night, I know. It’s an irrational, deep-seated-control thing called motherhood…
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North by Northwest isn’t about what happens to Cary Grant, it’s about what happens to his suit. The suit has the adventures, a gorgeous New York suit threading its way through America. The title sequence in which the stark lines of a Madison Avenue office building are ‘woven’ together could be the construction of Cary in his suit right there – he gets knitted into his suit before his adventure can begin. Indeed some of the popular ‘suitings’ of that time, ‘windowpane’ or ‘glen plaid’, reflected, even perfectly complemented office buildings. Cary’s suit reflects New York, identifies him as a thrusting exec, but also protects him, what else is a suit for? Reflects and Prote…
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I graduated college in the mid-1990’s, right around the same time my wife and I got our first Internet-capable PC. My first job out of school was writing for a consumer computer magazine, where we did stories with angles like “Do you really need e-mail?” and “World Wide Whatnow?” Now, most of us walk around with the world in our pockets. For me, there are days when the interval between then and now feels like a jump cut. It’s hard to believe that the type of touchscreen smartphone so many of us rely on today didn’t even exist until 2007—literally one generation of teenagers ago—when part of me is still a young adult myself, fresh out of school, watching “the Web” fill in…
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Is someone a liar if they tell you something that isn’t true—but they think it’s true? Is a person guilty of misleading you even if the false information they’ve given is a sincere effort to convey something to the best of their understanding? These are the sorts of questions I think of every time I hear the term “unreliable narrator.” In what ways are they unreliable, and what does it mean that we call them that? Is a confused person unreliable? An inebriated person? A traumatized person? Is a character unreliable because they’re manipulating other characters? Or because they’re manipulating you, the reader? Perhaps the term was originally reserved for characters who w…
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After I recently lamented on social media about how much I miss used bookstores, a couple of people pointed out that I could get used books here or there. They usually cited those used books superstores like Half Price Books. I replied that I’m not looking for used books – I’m looking for a used bookstore. It’s probably an odd distinction, but used bookstores had an aura – yes, probably dust and yellowing paper, but also an aura of possibility. Would you find your new favorite book among 50 copies of some bestseller from 25 years ago? I was spoiled for great used bookstores when I was younger and didn’t adequately appreciate that fact at the time. I was lucky to grow u…
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Has there ever been a literary heroine like Sherri Parlay of Miami, Florida? A stripper in her mid-30s with a weakness for men, dogs and peppermint schnapps, she starts her story by confessing to manslaughter in the first paragraph: “Hank was drunk and he slugged me—it wasn’t the first time—and I picked up the radio and caught him across the forehead with it. It was one of those big boom boxes with the cassette player and recorder, but I didn’t think it would kill him.” That’s it for Hank. Released from jail, Sherri announces her determination to “get myself out of the dark bars and into the daylight.” She lands a job at a dry cleaning establishment named Miami Purity…
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On the big screen above the bar, two teams were playing for the World Cup, and I’m sure somebody somewhere cared about it. Not me. I was drinking a cold bottle of Carta Blanca and listening to the pair next to me. Their heads were close together, but they’d had a couple and were talking the way nearly drunk people do—just a little too loud—and they were much more interesting than the TV. “Man, I still can’t believe she threw you out like that,” the guy nearest me said. “I hate to hear it.” “Yeah,” his friend said. “I mean, I guess I knew it would come sometime. She thought we was in a relationship; I thought we’s just fucking.” And now they’re neither, I thought. But …
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While many readers and writers of crime novels are female, fewer fictional murderers are. As women, we have come to see ourselves reflected most often in the victims, increasingly in the sleuths, but rarely as perpetrators. While plenty of women do kill within the pages of novels, these are often one-time acts with a single victim – a crime of passion, an act of protection or self-defense, but rarer is the woman who makes murder her life’s purpose. Until recently. When I set out to write the first Pies Before Guys book, I knew I was facing an uphill battle in making my serial killer kitchen witch someone readers wanted to spend time with – but I also knew it could be d…
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I love research. I hate writing, so “research” is the best excuse to avoid writing while still telling yourself “Hey, I’m working on the book!” And it has the extra benefit of being absolutely a true and necessary part of the process – especially when writing about a time and place you’ve never lived, if you want to get it right. My stepmother was a hidden child in WWII Hungary, a 5-y-o little Jewish girl sent to live on a farm with a Catholic family, in the guise of an orphaned niece; she was fortunate to survive the war, and eventually emigrated to the US. After my first novel, A Child out of Alcatraz, was published 25 years ago, I was casting about for my next project…
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Description is critical in good, immersive fiction. It first and foremost enables the reader to richly imagine the world that a writer has created. But good description does more than provide the sensory and physical details crucial in setting, characterization, action, and world building. The ways in which characters see and describe their worlds deepen personality, establish point of view, convey motivation, ratchet up tension, and move the plot along. Ultimately, the description is the thread that connects the who, what, when, where, and why in any narrative. Creating mood and atmosphere centers on the manner in which something is described. The sound of words matter…
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Margot Douaihy, Scorched Grace (Gillian Flynn Books) “Sister Holiday, the protagonist of Margot Douaihy’s showstopper of a series debut Scorched Grace isn’t what you’d imagine a nun to be like, even in laissez-faire New Orleans . . . I cannot wait to read the sister’s next investigation, of mysteries and of her own self.” –Sarah Weinman, New York Times Rupert Holmes, Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide (Avid Reader Press) “Holmes is a gifted wordsmith whose latest is a top-notch read that both entertains and amuses. . . . Delightfully wicked . . . An amusing and…
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“Which is exactly why we have to keep startling the reader in a desperate attempt to keep one step ahead: The hero did it. The victim did it. Watson, did it, Holmes did it, it’s the butler, it’s all of them, it’s none of them—” –from Accomplice by Rupert Holmes Hey, let’s twist again! (Like we did last summer, remember?) I pick up every puzzler hoping to be both astounded and humbled by some stunning revelation lurking within. The classic mystery novel is the magic show of literature, and the illusionist’s audience can be divided into two camps: those who hope to guess the trick in advance (often incorrectly) and those of us who eagerly hope to be fooled, misdirected,…
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Steve Berry is the author of 16 Cotton Malone books, as well as number of thrillers, and runs a historical preservation foundation along with his wife. In Berry’s latest, The Last Kingdom, Bavarian separatists are trying to establish a right to a kingdom based on the mysterious papers of a 19th century king, and it’s up to Berry’s hero Cotton Malone to travel to several fairytale castles in order to find the elusive documents. We caught up with Steve Berry over email to ask about history, research, and his dedication to preservation. How do you go about making history so exciting? It’s simple. Tell a good story. People love stories. But, traditionally, history was taugh…
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One of the strange things about living in New York City is how half of your block could be nice, filled with decent citizens working steady jobs, while the other side of the street might be a creepy danger zone where drunks, junkies and mental defects dwell. On my old uptown block of 151st Street between Broadway and Riverside Drive there were two scary structures at the bottom of the hill that were sketchy for years. The first was 740 Riverside Drive, a once luxury six-story apartment house known as The Switzerland. Built in 1910, it was a towering building whose early advertising noted an elevator and spacious apartments; it also had a perfect view of the Hudson River a…
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Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Gregg Hurwitz, The Last Orphan (Minotaur) “Hurwitz takes the series to an even higher level. Pulse-pounding, heart-stopping, and thought-provoking. I loved it.” –Meg Gardiner Kathleen Kent, Black Wolf (Mulholland) “An intelligent, propulsive spy thriller . . . Kent draws on her own experience working for the U.S. Department of Defense to create an utterly convincing espionage novel full of tradecraft. Readers will eagerly await Mel’s further adventures.” –Publishers Weekly Lexie Elliott, Bright and Deadly Things (Berkley) “Chalet-based thrillers combine the luxury of a get…
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George Stebbins was tearing down a stone wall in the cellar of his home in Northfield, Massachusetts when he uncovered the bones. A skull emerged first, then the spine and the bones of the arms and legs. The remains were packed together in a space measuring less than three feet, suggesting the body had been dismembered or had decayed to a skeleton before being interred. Had Stebbins, who operated a ferry on the Connecticut River just inside the state’s border with New Hampshire and Vermont, disturbed a forgotten grave? Or was there a more sinister explanation for the discovery? “The condition of the wall appeared as if part of the wall had been removed,” he informed the …
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After I left university, I cashed in on my extended time as a student (four years as an undergrad, and three years to obtain a doctorate in theoretical physics) by joining an investment bank, where I worked for almost a decade. In the early years, toiling away as a lowly associate, I found the job involved exactly what you might imagine: high pressure and incredibly long hours in a male-dominated workplace with condescending bosses and viciously competitive peers, in return for a hefty salary and the promise of further riches if one could only stay the course and at least pretend to drink the Kool-Aid. (In the interest of a balanced account, I will say that my bosses beca…
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There’s something about a poisoning plot that gets me every time. Over the years, my husband and I have become avid watchers of Dateline. Sometimes it can be overwhelming scrolling through all the available episodes and choosing one to watch. Personally, I’m always intrigued by murders involving poison. The covert nature of the act is chilling—not at all in-your-face like a murder with a gun or knife. It may also be that poison is so often the weapon of choice for women in caretaking roles. We’ve all heard the tales of women who slipped poison in their husbands’ food or drink, which turns the stereotype of the gentle, loving homemaker on its head. In seventeenth century…
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Then—in my childhood—in the dawn Of a most stormy life—was drawn From ev’ry depth of good and ill The mystery that binds me still— —from Edgar Allan Poe’s “Alone” Having completed just forty years of what was without question a most stormy life, Edgar Allan Poe took leave of this realm early Sunday morning, October 7, 1849. Nobody knows precisely why. Indeed, like so many aspects of his life, his death has been the topic of endless debate, conjecture, speculation, guessing, and second-guessing. Nobody can tell you with anything resembling certainty why, while traveling from Richmond to New York, he ended up in Baltimore. Nobody can tell you what happened to him durin…
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Why do so many journalists turn to writing fiction? The list is legion. Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Bram Stoker, H.G Wells, Joan Didion, George Orwell, Geraldine Brooks, Margaret Mitchell, Susan Sontag, and countless others. Perhaps I should narrow down the question. Why do many journalists embark on a life of crime? I speak from experience. I began my writing career at the age of seventeen, as a cadet reporter on an afternoon newspaper in Sydney, Australia. It was a typical tabloid ‘red top’ with bold and breathless headlines, full of clickbait stories before ‘clickbait’ was even a word. The Sun was sold at newsstands and on street corners…
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Monasteries are easier to get away from than to get into. As a young man I tried to get into one but the vocation master, well-trained in such matters, knew as soon as I opened my mouth that I was for this world, not his. He sent me on my way, but I never lost the desire to experience his world of ritual chant followed by hours of profound silence. Since writing is a profession of profound silence requiring intense ritual, I’ve found my own form of monastic life, and my latest hero is a monk. So I’ve got it all, and I’m grateful to that vocation master of long ago who steered me toward the only monastery in which I could be comfortable, the one in my own mind. Each time …
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You don’t know this person, so don’t even try to figure this out, because you won’t be able to. (Seriously. And she is not part of the book world community). I’m telling you this because it’s a cautionary tale, and one that’s more reassuring to believe isn’t true. But it’s true. It’s also the genesis of THE HOUSE GUEST, and more on that in a minute. There’s a woman I once knew who was happily married. She’d go to work every day and send her husband off to do whatever he did; accounting, or insurance, or something financial. And to hear him tell it, the next big sale or the next big deal was always around the corner, and she was incredibly supportive. Then one day the po…
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I’m not going to say, “winter is coming,” one, because by the time this goes to print, the first season of House of the Dragon will have wrapped up, like, two months ago (aka two decades in GoT years). Totally unscientific fan theory that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately (maybe I should write an article for The Cut about it?): Dramione shippers like me grew up to be Daemon fangirls. Two, would I ever be so trite as to co-opt that most memorable of Starkisms? Copywriters of the world, please stop using the first family of Winterfell’s motto to sell your coats/sweaters/scarves/etc. In my case, winter isn’t coming. I’m headed home to Florida for the holidays, aka the …
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“I’d always been a sucker for a creepy old house, with or without a creepy old housekeeper.” ~Greer Hogan, Three Can Keep a Secret It began with Scooby Doo. Show me a decrepit old mansion with a wailing ghost that sends Shaggy and Scooby running in terror, and I was glued to the screen. By the time I was ready for chapter books, I was constantly on the hunt for any story featuring an eerie house harboring dark secrets and strange residents—living or dead. Dog-eared hand-me-down copies or crisp new pages, it didn’t matter. I was happy to unearth The Secret of Terror Castle along with The Three Investigators, or winkle out The Secret of the Mansion with Trixie Belden. If …
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On February 24th, 2022—a week after I’d submitted the first draft of my Soviet spy thriller, Black Wolf, to my publisher—the world watched in dismay as Russian troops occupied the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine. While the alarming specter of a wider nuclear attack loomed, raised once again by our old Cold War enemy, Russia, I also wondered how many of the thousand Russian soldiers I was seeing retreat through the Exclusion Zone would eventually die, slowly and painfully, because of their exposure to the radioactive soil. In some ways, the fact that I’ve managed to become an author at all is surprising. Despite being born in the early 1950’s, I’d stubbornly, and stead…
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