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Shane’s Lot: How a 1949 Gun-Toting Loner Still Rides Through American LiteratureA stranger comes to town. He is stern, quiet, with a whiff of criminality, seductive to women and men alike, his life like an arrow shooting him...
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Exploring the Isolation of the British CountrysideThere is a magnificent bit in a Sherlock Holmes story, which—subconsciously in the beginning, I guess – gave me the inspiration for my first...
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Chris McGinley on Appalachian Literature and NoirThe beauty of being asked to interview Chris McGinley about his new book Once These Hills was I knew I was going to read it anyway and...
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How An Obsession With Art Crime Became a ThrillerIf you have ever wanted to know how it feels to snatch a painting from a museum wall, slide it under your shirt, and take off, then Michael...
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Passionate Distortions: Patricia Highsmith and the Female ProtagonistWhat is it about the work of Patricia Highsmith that attracts some readers as powerfully as it repels others? I’m in the first group: I fell...
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Rian Johnson on the Genius of John Dickson CarrYou hold in your hands one of Otto Penzler’s American Mystery Classics, a series that resurrects out-of-print gems in handsomely designed new...
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Crime and the City: Kinshasa and the DRCKinshasa – capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Formerly Léopoldville under the bad days of Belgian colonialism, now one of the...
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Ian Hamilton On The Joys and Sorrows of Finishing a SeriesWhen The Fury of Beijing is published at the start of the new year, it will be the 19th book in the Ava Lee series—15 featuring Ava, and 4...
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Rian Johnson and Olivia Rutigliano talk Poker Face, Knives Out, and Golden Age MysteriesReissued for the first time this century, John Dickson Carr’s The Problem of the Wire Cage is an atmospheric and amusing Golden Age...
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The More the Deadlier: Multiple Points of View in Mysteries and ThrillersWhen I first came up with the idea for Five Bad Deeds , I didn’t imagine telling the story from so many different points of view. I had...
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How an Epic History of the Mafia Came out of a Chance Meeting with a Literary LegendMy last book about the mafia, Mob Rules: What the Mafia Can Teach the Legitimate Businessman , was an international bestseller translated...
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Was ‘The Leopard Man’ Hollywood’s First Slasher Film?Cornell Woolrich published Black Alibi in 1942. His tenth book overall, it was the third in his series of “Black” novels. The Bride...
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The Most Terrifying Abandoned Train Tunnels in the WorldI’m often asked, “Where do you get your ideas?” My answer always varies, as each book is different. But for my latest, Mister Lullaby ,...
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Running Away with the FairiesHere in Avalon was never supposed to be about fairies. I’d envisioned the novel—a literary thriller about two sisters, one of whom, Cecilia,...
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Cozy Mystery Subgenres: Making the Perfect BlendCozy mystery is a subgenre of crime fiction. When readers ask what are cozy mysteries, I explain they’re mysteries without on-the-page violence,...
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Wildlife and Wonderlands in MysteriesI’m a city girl, but I really enjoy reading stories set in state parks and forests and islands and other areas where there is less population,...
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The Importance of the Plot TwistWho doesn’t love a superbly executed plot twist? One that completely takes you by surprise and turns the story on its head. One that makes you...
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The Amish FenceYou’ve seen the Amish culture in books, movies and even in exaggerated “reality shows.” Without electricity, automobiles, TV, radio or other...
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What Makes a Forest Such a Seductive Setting for Fiction?The woods have been a popular setting in literature for centuries, from the Grimm Brothers to today’s bestsellers, but what makes a forest such a...
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How to Write Fiction about True CrimeIf you are going to write a sensational, news-worthy crime story into your fiction, you have a few models for how to proceed. First, there is...
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The Rise of “Mom-Noir”It was a few weeks in that I realized why I was finding motherhood such a shock to the system. As I leaned over the sink to tearfully rinse...
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How to Corral Your Nightmares for Use in Your Next NovelWill robots dream of us in the same way that we dream about them? They say that AI can “hallucinate”, right? Hadn’t Philip K. Dick warned us...
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10 Crime Movies Set at New Year’s EveYou might remember our series “10 Crime Movies You Forgot Take Place During Christmas.” We have six installments: one from 2018 ,...
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The Best Traditional Mysteries of 2023For me, there are few things more enjoyable than a good, old-fashioned whodunnit. Or a good, new-fashioned whodunnit. I say it a lot on this...
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The Best Speculative Crime Fiction of 2023This year’s offering of scifi and fantasy crime fiction leans heavily towards alternative history and near-future imaginings, but with...
