Essays
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….
What Spy Fiction Taught Me About Breaking the Rules
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As a kid, I broke what I like to think was a normal amount of rules. There was the time in kindergarten when we were sitting on the rug…
The Regency Mystery Arrives to the Ball
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I’d wager a box of my favorite tea that you’ve heard of Bridgerton by now. Maybe even that it’s that occasionally spicy period drama based upon author Julia Quinn’s…
Love Behind Bars: On the Complicated World of Incarcerated Romance
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Of all the correspondents I’ve had in my life, Sam Israel has been among the most consistent. Sam was serving a twenty-two-year sentence in federal prison for fraud when…
The Best Locked Room Mystery You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
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From the very first sentence…we are into the realm of nightmare. Miracles gather and explode. A dead man returns—or does not return. A flying ghost, apparently, swoops down and…
Rhys Bowen on Using Real Experiences As Inspiration
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My new book, The Proof of the Pudding, is the 17th in the series featuring Lady Georgiana, 35th in line to the throne in the nineteen thirties. When I…
Killing the Rich: Why Privilege Has Always Been at the Heart of the Whodunnit
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For more than a century we’ve been addicted to a particular flavor of murder mystery story. A group of wealthy, upper-class people are gathered together in a country house….
Psychology Is Important For Motivation, But Your Characters Need More Than Diagnoses
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I teach creative writing at a public arts high school in Chicago. If you’re picturing Fame, with students breaking into song and dance in the hallways, you’re not far…
On Horror and Humanity’s Enduring Love Affair with Fear
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Hold, friend. I only have fifteen hundred words to save your life. You and I are bound in a bargain spanning hundreds of years, across dozens of types of…