reading
How the Soldier-Readers of World War II Were Swept Up in the Paperback Revolution
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The Penguin contract with the army for the Forces Book Club was a coup Allen Lane plotted with long-time crony Bill Williams, now comfortably installed at the Army Bureau of Current Affairs: it brought with it a precious allocation of paper from the government reserve. The news of this exclusive contract brought predictable indignation from…
Never Vacation With Old Friends: The Locked-Room Thriller Problem
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People love to share vacation photos on social media. Some try to act nonchalant about their expensive getaways. Others aim to impress. The more remote the location, the better. Wait, you’ve never been to New Caledonia? You should go. It’s beautiful this time of year. That’s a real comment I saw on a post. I…
The Bane and Boon of an Unreliable Narrator
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There has long been a discussion of whether or not a reliable narrator in fiction is something that truly exists. Since humans are prone to biases and judgment, a purely reliable narrator just isn’t possible. Rather, degrees of reliability in literature might be a more realistic conversation. Literature, especially thrillers, often dabble in the many…
Crime Novels About Cursed Films
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In 2023, two new novels, and one older title, were published in a niche of the detective/thriller genre concerning, to coin a term of art, “sinister films:” films—often lost, frequently silent, and usually scary—that have proven deleterious to their cast and crew during and after production and/or have a deleterious effect upon audiences unlucky enough…
The Enduring Appeal of Murder and Mystery: A Brief History
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“Thou shalt not kill,” commands the King James Bible— without, as opponents of capital punishment like to point out, riders or qualifiers. Curiously, this translation of an injunction in the ancient Hebrew Torah did not lead the list of Yahweh’s rules; it arrives after other warnings, such as no swearing and no bowing to the…
Who Was Benedict Arnold, Before He Became America’s Most Notorious Traitor
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The sudden arrival of a horseman on a Friday afternoon electrified New Haven. Israel Bissell leapt from his saddle and shouted for the village selectmen. His eyes bulged with news. Citizens came rushing to the green at the center of the prosperous Connecticut seaport. Bissell, his face strained with fatigue, rattled off his brief, shocking…
Cats and Cozies, Cozies and Cats
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Cats and cozies go together like Romeo and Juliet. Mac and cheese. Ernie and Bert. The term cozies was coined in the 1990’s for mysteries that take place in a small town setting where everyone knows everybody and the murders, which occur offsite, are solved by an amateur sleuth. Agatha Christie is often heralded as…
Silver Scream: Excerpt with Audio
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Excerpt begins: With everyone gone into the yard, or upstairs, the Shadow Man enters the house. He glides into the kitchen, quickly spotting the large knife set on top of the cutting board and wielding it as his own. The figure lurks in the back hallway leading to the garage for a moment before hearing…
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 the popular imagination, noir thrives.” –Megan Abbott One of my handful of jobs–because I can’t spend every hour of the day making up murders–is teaching playwriting…
Femi Kayode Considers Groups, Belief Systems, and the Village of Readers
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When I am asked if my new novel, Gaslight, was inspired by real events, I answer no. But while the events themselves didn’t happen; the emotional center of the book originated with an incident that happened more than three decades ago. It was Sunday service like none I had ever experienced. Everything about the way…