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The Mysterious Mr. Badman Is A Masterpiece of Macabre Humor
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The Mysterious Mr. Badman is a long-forgotten but entertaining crime novel, its light-heartedness all the more unexpected given the authorโs reputation as a master of the macabre. The teasing…
Troubled Teens in Crime Fiction
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Teenagers donโt have it easy. On top of navigating a microculture rife with veiled rules and unspoken expectationsโalso known as high schoolโthey often get a bad rap. Adults tend…
Tis the Season to be (Fictionally) Murdered
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Iโve never been one for a beach read at the beach. Recently in Ventura and Monterey, I read a New-Jersey-set legal thriller (Robyn Giglโs Survivor Guilt), a desert-set horror…
All the (Crime) Worldโs a Stage: The Irresistible Pairing of Mysteries and the Theater
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Crime writers utilize an extraordinarily wide range of back-grounds for their stories, but the stage is one of the most popular of them all. Stories set inโor connected withโthe…
60 Years of โThe Spy Who Came in From the Coldโ
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โAdapted from a Center For Fiction conversation between Joseph Kanon and Paul Vidich, November 9, 2023 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold was published in September 1963…
Shop Talk: Michael Farris Smith on Learning the Habit of Writing
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I cut my teeth on Larry Brown. If youโve never heard of Larry before, let me introduce you by way of Michael Farris Smith. Both are Mississippi authors who…
The Grieving Mother Who Became An Angel of Vengeance
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On January 24, 2014, Miriam Rodriguez received a call at 4 a.m. from her eldest daughter Azaleaโa call that would change her and her familyโs lives forever. Miriamโs younger…
The Root of Evil: How a Grape Plague and Deceptive Dealing Changed the World of French Wine Forever
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The source of the great Burgundy deception was the shortage of wine caused by the destructive force of phylloxera. It made its first appearance in France in the vineyards…