Culture
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…
When Characters Fake Their Own Deaths
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Pseudocide, or faking one’s own death, offers a tantalizing escape from reality, and the possibility of starting fresh. There’s something thrilling about the idea of disappearing and starting over,…
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…
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…
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…
Writing a Domestic Survival Thriller
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I’ve always been obsessed with survival stories—people braving the elements, or out-scheming malevolent captors or striving to survive the end of the world. The apocalyptic trope might be my…