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 the characters” or, more damningly, “didn’t care about the characters.” Why do some characters inspire empathy in some readers while leaving others cold? By what alchemy…
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 Ward. It wasn’t until I found The Long and Faraway Gone, Lou’s third novel, that I realized the full power of crime fiction. I’m not alone…
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, Alma Katsu, Jim Harrison and Louise Erdrich. And now, along comes HOT IRON AND COLD BLOOD: An Anthology of the Weird West (September 26, 2023; Dead Sky Publishing),…
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. Parker, the prolific author of the Spenser mystery novels. Parker wears a grin on his face and a Pittsburgh Pirates cap on his head. Also easily…
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 such a thought-provoking and alluring genre? That’s exactly what these six authors are trying to answer in today’s round-up. Layne Fargo, “The Ravages”: I started writing…
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 to TikTok in a second; Joey would have spent her evenings texting Dawson instead of sneaking through his window; and Mulder and Scully could have tracked…
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 tongue. In the modern era there’s even Batman, whose cool gadgets are second only to his skill as a deductive genius (he did debut in Detective…
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 remember the day’, spoken by the narrator, Daniel Sempere, open the door to what will soon expand into a complex world of both mystery and realism,…