crime
Queer Crime Fiction Coming Out This Fall
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With the exuberance of Pride Month in June, it’s easy to get excited about new queer crime fiction in the summer months. But, with shortening days, ubiquitous Pumpkin Spice lattes, and of course, Halloween—arguably the queerest holiday of the year—the fall is the perfect time to pick up a mystery or thriller exploring the complex…
10 Thrilling Books with Twists You Won’t See Coming
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I love trying to guess the ending. When picking up a new thriller, I’m almost immediately immersed in the mystery and the twists and turns. I greatly admire authors who keep their secrets under wraps, because I feel pretty smart when I figure out what an author was trying to hide from me. Here are…
When It Comes to Solving Mysteries, Aunties Get Things Done
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Most people have aunts, but not everyone has aunties. It’s hard to explain the difference to the uninitiated–aunties have nothing (or very little) to do with blood relation or age. To be an Auntie requires a certain kind of energy or vibe, that perfect storm of love and judgment, and the ability to strike fear…
The Enduring Appeal of the Christiesque ‘Closed Circle’ Crime
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The first crime novels I ever read were by Agatha Christie. I was probably about thirteen at the time and I remember being blown away by how clever she was. The way she could hide her killers in plain sight, or contrive a plot as deviously intricate as Murder on the Orient Express, or manipulate…
Murder Ballads, the Original True Crime
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It’s hard to spend much time online these days without bumping into true crime of one form or another. Countless podcasts examine murders and trials, and television offers an overwhelming array of both docuseries and fictional reenactments. Meanwhile on social media, influencers create content about sensational crimes in almost real-time, as investigations are unfolding. Even…
Bright Young Women
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January 15, 1978 Five minutes before It must have been more than hunger pains that roused me, but at the time all I wanted was to go downstairs and make myself a peanut butter sandwich and fall right back to sleep. I rolled out of bed, stretching, groaning when I saw myself in the small…
Crime Novels Featuring Interpreters, Transcribers, and Other Invisible Law Enforcement Professionals
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It’s the detectives, the private investigators and the lawyers who are usually front-and-center in crime fiction, but there are scores of professionals working in the criminal justice system to whom most of us give little thought. There are archivists who manage police records, people who clean police stations, who service their cars, and IT specialists…
Port-au-Prince: Crime Fiction as a Window into a Nation’s Soul
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Haiti has never been an easy place to live. From colonialism to liberation by the ex-slave revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture at the start of the nineteenth century – the largest slave uprising since Spartacus – it’s been a country wracked by violence, foreign interference, and division. A country that seemingly has no luck – dictators,…