Culture
Stephen Spotswood On “Queering the Narrative of the Golden Age of America”
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When things seem to be going badly in a society, people sympathize with characters who distrust or operate outside of that society’s governing systems…In eras tinged with chaos in…
Getting Ready to Say Goodbye to Fargo
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This November, FX released the fifth and possibly final season of the popular anthology series Fargo. Based on the 1996 film by Joel and Ethan Coen, and set in…
“The Mousetrap”: Still Going Strong After 28,000 Performances
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On the day Agatha Christie died in 1976, London theaters dimmed their lights for an hour in a show of esteem for her. While best known as the top-selling…
Learning to Be Lost (and Found) in Fiction and in Life
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It’s 1986, and I’m lost in the forest. I’m ten years old, huddled at the base of a Ponderosa pine at the far reaches of Silver Lake, California, one…
From Academic to Crime Writer
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“You can’t be serious.” Twice in my life, academic colleagues and friends have had that reaction when I’ve told them what I was planning to do. The first time…
Kenneth Branagh and De-Poiroting Hercule Poirot
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A man with his back to the world waits for two impossible and perfect eggs. He follows an officer to the transport as a dream-generated locomotive leaves the story….
An Argument for the Unintentional Villain
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A good villain is essential to a good mystery. He or she is the author of the crime, the driver of the plot, and the key to solving the…
Healing Through Horror
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Oh, the Horror! It doesn’t often come up but when it does, people are often surprised when I tell them I never set out to be a horror writer….
How the True (and Still Unsolved) 1986 Assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister Inspired My Nordic Noir Novel
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The movie was a spur-of-the-moment idea. The prime minister had had a stressful week. Seeing a comedy with his wife and son and his son’s girlfriend was just the…