Craft
The Four Corners of Subjectivity
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One hears it all the time. A reader praises a book because they find the characters “likable” or “relatable.” Another reader dismisses a book because they couldn’t “identify with…
Shop Talk: Lou Berney Is a Fanatical Believer in Naps
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Lou Berney is one of the reasons I write crime fiction. Coming up, I cut my teeth on Southern writers like Flannery O’Connor, Larry Brown, Harry Crews, and Jesmyn…
The Western Meets Weird Fiction: A Roundtable Discussion
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Once a narrowly defined genre—set in the American frontier of the 19th Century—the definition of Western has expanded with contemporary takes from such authors as Cormac McCarthy, Ivy Pochoda,…
Spenser at 50: The Evolution of Robert B. Parker’s Iconic Character
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From where he sits and writes in his Long Island home – in longhand, 10 pages a day – Mike Lupica can see a framed photograph of Robert B….
A Roundtable Discussion on Dark Academia
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Darkened libraries, exclusive elite schools, looming Gothic towers, charismatic professors, illicit affairs, the tang of autumn in the air… rivalries and obsessions that lead to murder. Why is dark academia…
The Albatross of Smartphones in Young Adult Mysteries
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There’s a joke among millennials that our favorite childhood television shows would have sucked if the characters had owned smartphones. Videos of Buffy fighting vampires would have been uploaded…
The Sleuthing Spinster: Why Single Women Rule Cozy Fiction
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When people talk about great fictional detectives, there are classic names that come to mind: Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot; Sam Spade; Phillip Marlowe; and Columbo trip easily off the…
Reflections on The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s Classic Biblio-Mystery
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Like many great novels, the book you are about to read is one whose every page is imbued with the art of storytelling. Its first five words, ‘I still…