Reading
A Haunting in Venice is the Best of Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot Adaptations, and an Engaging Film On Its Own
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I was impressed by A Haunting in Venice as much as I was relieved by it. I had always found it both delightful and intriguing that, of all the…
Jason Voorhees: Neurodivergent Icon?
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I was working the day that it happened, preparing meals. Jason should’ve been watched every minute! He was … he wasn’t a very good swimmer. —Pamela Voorhees, Friday the…
Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place, and the Birth of the Modern Serial Killer Novel
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Published in 1947, Dorothy Hughes’ noir novel In a Lonely Place is a masterpiece of crime fiction whose influence has extended to both books and films, including a 1950…
‘A Face in the Crowd’ Forecast Our Future – If We’d Only Been Paying Attention
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It’s a cliché to cite some decades-old book, movie or TV show and say, “This is as relevant today as it was back then.” That said, one 1957 film…
The Dark Humor of Millennial Crime Capers
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The millennial is a strange beast. Though “millennial” is factually the word to describe someone born between 1981 and 1996, hearing it conjures a number of confusing associations: we’re…
5 International Action Thrillers from Afghanistan to Shanghai
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I wrote my newly released Lily Wong novel, The Ninja’s Oath, during the pandemic when my newborn granddaughter was in lockdown in Shanghai. Twenty-three months would pass before I…
When is a Character’s Dishonesty Justified?
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Deception is elemental to a good mystery. The author misleads the reader constantly, from every angle. The characters mislead each other. Or they mislead the reader, or both. Lying…
(Un)Safe Harbor: Thrillers Set in Remote Island Locations
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I have spent a lot of summer weekends on an island in Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay. It’s a beautiful, wild, windswept place that can, as Gull Island does in…