Essays
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…
‘A Face in the Crowd’ Forecast Our Future – If We’d Only Been Paying Attention
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It’s a cliché to cite some decades-old book, movie or TV show and say, “This is as relevant today as it was back then.” That said, one 1957 film…
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…
When True Crime Meets Police Brutality
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In 2016, journalist Amelia McDonell-Parry and I were asked to look into the death of Freddie Gray for the Undisclosed podcast, a series that focused on wrongful convictions. Gray…
Celebrating the Iconic Suspense of Lois Duncan
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I still own three of Lois Duncan’s books. Growing up, I read so many, but these are the three I have left: Daughters of Eve, Stranger with My Face,…
Some Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the Royal House of Windsor
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One of the joys of writing historical fiction as opposed to non-fiction is that the author can take a well-reasoned conspiracy theory and run with it, imagining how such…