Features
The Seeds of a Pharmaceutical Thriller: A Conversation Between Co-Authors
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Many thanks to Jyoti Guptara and Thomas Locke for kindly offering a conversation about their new thriller, Roulette. Jyoti Guptara: Thomas, remember when you visited me at the UN in Geneva? You arrived with this brilliant story seed: “What appears to be a simple case of overdose turns into an ER nightmare. Patients seem…
What Makes a Novel Unique? On Retellings and Plagiarism
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My latest novel, The Fiction Writer, is a modern-day gothic mystery that explore the boundaries of creative freedom. It asks questions about writing and ownership and who owns the right to tell any story. My main character, Olivia, is a writer, whose most recent novel, a retelling of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca was a flop.…
Mr. Monk’s Last Case is a Sweet and Thoughtful Return to the Classic Series
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It’s been fourteen years since we last saw Adrian Monk. Monk, the anxious, observant detective protagonist of the USA Network series of the same name, which ran eight seasons from 2002 to 2009, was a prime-time treasure, one of the greatest detectives in the annals of TV. Played to gentle, humorous (but never mocking) pathos…
The Best Young Adult Mysteries, Thriller and Horror Novels of 2023
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The young adult mystery continues to thrive, along with plenty of YA horror thrillers, and this year was distinguished by quality storytelling, careful constructions, and social justice elements placed front and center. Whether you want to defeat the monsters or be the monster, solve the murder or get your own deadly vengeance, 2023 has an…
The Many Words for Yakuza
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“It seems fairly evident that the selection of such simple terms must to a certain extent depend upon the chief interests of a people; and where it is necessary to distinguish a certain phenomenon in many aspects, which in the life of the people play each an entirely independent role, many independent words may develop,…
Peril in Paradise: A List Of Thrillers In Which Bad Things Happen In Beautiful Places
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Conflict lies at the heart of all mystery and suspense, and what could be more conflicting than taking a trip to paradise only to get caught up in the dark and deadly underbelly you didn’t know was there? Imagine your favorite or most desired vacation mecca, somewhere beautiful, maybe even exotic, somewhere you feel relaxed…
Mystical Threads: Spirit Mediums and Psychics in Crime and Suspense Fiction
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I never met my paternal grandmother. She died before I was born, but from a few family photos, I formed a picture of a smartly turned-out woman with warm brown eyes, a wavy, blunt-cut bob and a weakness for silk scarves. Deeply respected in her small north-eastern England mining town, she was a pillar of…
Dark Academia: YA Edition
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If you’re anything like me, you’ll find the winter evenings perfect for immersing yourself in a little dark academia. Whether you enjoy the prestigious school settings, the thrown-together friendships that shouldn’t work but do, or simply the higher education of it all, there is one thing in particular that brings readers to this genre in…