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The Best Recent Nonfiction Crime BooksA look at the most notable nonfiction crime books from the spring. * Mark Bowden, Life Sentence (Atlantic) “A scorching...
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The Making of a Cuban-American Detective NovelI was born in the Bronx, N.Y. to a Cuban father and a Puerto Rican mother. We lived in a Spanish–speaking neighborhood, but just before I turned...
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Six Thrillers in Which the House Hides a Sinister PastA house whose sordid history plays into a storyline is catnip to my reader’s soul. I will invariably pounce on any cover featuring an old...
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Crafting War Games Taught Me How to Write a NovelNorman Schwarzkopf, the late hero of Desert Storm, is credited with saying, “The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war.” Though...
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How Not To Get Murdered At a Thriller ConferenceImagine being in your own locked room scenario, surrounded by thriller authors. Considering the search histories on their computers, all these...
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The Origin of the Red Herring and its Place in LiteratureWhat is a thriller or mystery without a sprinkling of red herrings? The dictionary defines a red herring in two ways: a dried smoked...
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The Ghosts of Old Hollywood“It is strange how a girl can disappear without leaving a ripple upon the waters of the Port of Missing Girls.” In 1943 Chicago Tribune...
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The Joy of a Bewildered ProtagonistI should probably raise this with my therapist, but instead I’m just going to write about it here. On both page and screen, I’ve always been...
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Crime and the City: San DiegoSan Diego, lolling in the sunshine down there on California’s southern Pacific coast. Just under a million and half people, it’s America’s...
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You’re Doing It Wrong: Fix Your Asian CharactersWhen I first sat down at the keyboard, I enjoyed inventing all sorts of characters. A little red-haired girl who can tell the future a in bowl of...
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How do You Write Compelling Characters? Find the Source of Their PainPeople ask writers about the best piece of advice they ever received. I haven’t received many, but I recall one particularly well. Many years...
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An Affair to Remember: Six Novels About Extra Marital AffairsThe extra marital affair is like a Petrie dish of great material for a writer—secrets, betrayal, danger, sex, destruction, jealousy. Right out...
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The Best International Crime Fiction of May 2023May brings with it a host of new fiction in translation that proves, once again, that by the time something is translated, a large number of...
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What are all the Genesis Allusions doing in Preston Sturges’s The Lady Eve?The serpent was the most cunning of the beasts and tempted Eve to eat the fruit. She gave the fruit to Adam and he ate, too. Then their eyes were...
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The Great Women Detectives of Historical Fiction“Women have an eye for detail and are excellent observers.” –Kate Warne In 1856, Allan Pinkerton hired Kate Warne, a 23-year-old widow, to...
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All the Monsters in Jane EyreRecently, I re-read Jane Eyre . Jane Eyre is a dark, bewitching book, and this time, I hunted for monsters in it. I found four—four specific...
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Shop Talk: Josh Kendall on the Life of a Crime Fiction EditorJosh Kendall is the executive editor of Mulholland Books. Josh works with some of my current favorite writers: Jordan Harper, Gabino Iglesias,...
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The Backlist: Revisiting Ethel Lina White’s ‘The Lady Vanishes’ with Andrea BartzIn Anthony Doerr’s great essay “The Sword of Damocles: On Suspense, Shower Murders, and Shooting People on the Beach,” he unpacks the etymology...
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Memphis Man: Cadillac Riding With Isaac HayesIt was February 24, 1995 and I was flying from New York to Memphis, Tennessee to interview soul man Isaac Hayes. As a fan of “Black Moses”—a...
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7 Great Espionage Films Set During WWIIThe art of espionage is as old as war itself, so it’s no surprise that popular books and films have long included stories of spycraft and...
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Reimagining the Scarlet PimpernelIt is a truth universally acknowledged that a widely known classic must be in want of some reimagining, reconstruction and general exploration...
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7 Fabulous Crime Novels and the Craft Lessons They Drive HomeOne of the first things I did after inking my initial two-book contract as a suspense novelist was head to Barnes and Noble and buy a couple of...
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Realism and License in Legal ThrillersI make mistakes in all my books. Once I described the USS Intrepid as a battleship. A reader who had served on her during World War II set...
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7 YA Books That Explore the Struggle Between the Haves and Have-NotsIn my book THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS , a teen on a scholarship sneaks into a party filled with her wealthy prep-school peers. As a...
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Murder or Divorce? The Sociopath’s DilemmaWhy bother with a divorce when you can have it all? For a certain type of male sociopath, the calculus is simple. I say this because I knew one....
