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Revisiting In the Fog, An American’s Ode to England’s Foul WeatherAt the turn of the twentieth century, American crime fiction was at a shallow ebb. Anna Katharine Green, who had achieved great success with The...
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The Best Debut Novels of MarchCrimeReads editors make their selections for the month’s best debut novels in crime, mystery, and thrillers. Andrew Boryga, Victim...
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Our Enduring Fascination with Criminal CouplesIn a late episode of Better Call Saul , Saul Goodman beseeches his wife Kim Wexler, “What’s done can be undone.” Caught up in a web of lies and...
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Claire Coughlan Explores Dublin’s Hidden PastSometimes novels inadvertently reflect some aspect of the current zeitgeist, and Irish writer Claire Coughlan’s first one is this kind of story....
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Reading Your Way Into the Deeper Mysteries of CultsI joined my first cult when I was…just kidding. Mostly. When I was born in the early 80s, my parents were part of a church in Virginia...
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Crime Novels for People Who (Think They) Don’t Like Crime NovelsI don’t think of myself as a reader or writer of crime novels, and yet (knocking on my own skull to see if anyone’s inside) almost all of my...
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A Serial Killer in Iran“They had gold and my baby was sick.” —Mahin Qadiri About ninety-five miles northwest of the Iranian capital Tehran is the city of...
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Genre Communicates a Contract with the ReaderAnyone who knows me, or has read my second book, or has stood too close to me at a bookstore knows I despise the concept of genre. I despise the...
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‘This “survivor’s guilt” isn’t my trauma—it’s my pride.’I was 25 years old and had a novel written when someone named the feeling that has chased me my entire life. Survivor’s guilt. I sat on a...
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How Field Work Kept Jonna Mendez Hooked During Her Long Career in the CIAI’d been told to wait at the airport for an official car to arrive. There were always detailed, specific instructions in case the car was late...
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Ties That Bind: The Power of Siblings in Mysteries and ThrillersIn the labyrinthine world of crime fiction, few elements stir the plot’s pot as effectively as sibling bonds. The mercurial relationships...
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Lisa Gardner: 10 Lessons I Learned in 30 Years of Writing SuspenseWhen people first meet authors, they always ask the same question—how did you get started in this business? I’m a bit a rarity. Wrote my first...
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6 Great Psychological Thrillers Set in Washington D.C.Mention the word “thriller” in the same sentence as Washington, D.C., and most people conjure up fast-paced tales of spies, political intrigue,...
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6 Spooky and Fantastical Missing-Persons TalesWhat could be more destabilizing—or trail more fascinating narrative threads—than a person vanishing without a trace? It’s no mystery why...
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Tijuana: Crime Fiction in the BorderlandsSeems things can be fun in Tijuana, Mexico – TJ to the initiated – but things can also go very, very wrong. Of course a popular destination...
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Love Lies Bleeding is an Eerie, Electric Body-Horror ThrillerI loved Love Lies Bleeding, the otherworldly, lesbian body-horror drifter-thriller from director Rose Glass. As suggested by that long epithet,...
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In Praise of Reading Le Carré’s Entire Oeuvre In OrderThere ought to be a word for the particular form of melancholy you feel, upon finishing a book you’ve been enjoying so much you never wanted it...
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Tips and Tricks for Faster Writing from Laura ChildsIf you’ve written a few chapters and are struggling to finish your book, I know exactly how you feel. Writing is tough work. You’re constantly...
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The Women Codebreakers Who Uncovered Some of the Cold War’s Most Notorious SpiesWhen an author begins a new novel, the blank computer screen presents a terrifying challenge and a few inevitable questions rise to the surface:...
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9 Murder Ballads that SlayI am a sucker for a murder ballad, so much so that I wrote an entire novel ( The Last Verse ) around my love of the form. I can remember the...
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Death Wishes, Malingering Manuals, and Other Bizarre Propaganda Games That Actually Worked During WWIIAs D-Day approached, German soldiers, sailors, and airmen who liked to smoke self-rolled cigarettes would have felt themselves most...
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7 Modern Gothics Featuring An Intersectional Feminist PerspectiveWhen you think of Gothic fiction, the image of a woman in a diaphanous nightgown, running from a sinister house might come to mind. A classic...
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On Writing Settings that Crawl Under the SkinI once attended a writing seminar that claimed the landscape of your childhood home informs the way you move, think, and talk. A rocky,...
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Women Behaving Badly: A Reading ListI’ve always liked my women a little bad. Give me the imperfect, the wrathful, the vindictive. In my opinion, those are the women who have the...
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A Brief History of Organized Crime in the Florida KeysIf your last name was Farto, would you want people nicknaming you Bum? Evidently Joseph “Bum” Farto didn’t mind it a bit, and that alone...
