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WHEN BLOOD RUNS COLD
Why is spying often referred to as a game? There is nothing remotely diverting about it.
Sounds of Suspense
Audiobooks Reviewed
Very Original Paperback Originals
While Bailey Cates’s Witches and Wedding Cake(Berkley, $7.99) is the ninth in her Magical Bakery series, it was the first for me, and I appreciated that I could slide into the narrative effortlessly.
What About Murder?
Reference Books Reviewed
RAYMOND CHANDLER & THE BRASHER DOUBLOON
Sometime in 1960, a friend’s enthusiasm for coin collecting proved contagious, and I began sorting through pocket change and noting dates and mint marks.
Small Press
Reviewing the Independents
LOVE ON THE RUN
LOVE, BULLETS, AND THE OPEN ROAD. CRIMINAL COUPLES ON THE RUN ARE A HOLLYWOOD MOVIE STAPLE—AND IT’S ALL DUE TO A PAIR OF DEPRESSION-ERA HELLRAISERS.
JENNY MILCHMAN
It’s that enticing-yet-elusive hook that often draws readers back to a writer’s work. Sometimes it’s characters that compel.
CAMILLA LÄCKBERG
Before Camilla Läckberg’s debut novel was published, the Swedish author devised an ambitious, yet workable marketing plan. Among other things, she would visit, if possible, every bookstore in the country to do book events, sign stock and meet and greet as many booksellers and readers as she could.
A MARY HIGGINS CLARK ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
It’s easiest to say she had magic. Anyone who has ever been in the room with Mary Higgins Clark understood there was some sort of aura around her, a force field of joy and delight, an authentic pleasure in being wherever she was. (If that wasn’t true, all the more brilliant. You would never have known it.)
R.G. BELSKY
Social distancing may have been common among working writers before it was a necessity, but not all members of that tribe adhered to the stereotype.
What About Murder?
Reference Books Reviewed
VAL,QUEEN OF SCOTS
ONE OF THE LIVING LEGENDS OF MYSTERY WRITING, VAL McDERMID HAS ENTERTAINED READERS AND DRIVEN THE GENRE FORWARD FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS, BUT SHE WAS NO OVERNIGHT SUCCESS
THE BEAUTIFUL DARK
Barry Gifford and the Noir Revival
the Hook
Intriguing First Lines
IVY POCHODA
It may seem odd to equate Greek drama and athletics with contemporary mysteries. But author Ivy Pochoda sees a logical intersection with the violence, structure, and drive inherent in these subjects.
PUSHING WATER
Write what you know” is the hoariest piece of writing advice, as well as the one most often misapplied. As Stephen King said in his outstanding book On Writing, what if you want to write about serial killers or intergalactic space flight?
Grand Dame Guignol
Sometimes over the top, other times way over the top, Grand Dame Guignol was grisly, memorable entertainment buoyed by the sort of movie stars they no longer make: actresses whose talent, intensity, and willingness to take risks with their images made the wildly melodramatic seem frighteningly real.
EDITH MAXWELL aka MADDIE DAY
Cozies certainly provide solace from many of the dark edges of the actual world,” says Edith Maxwell.
AN OATH AND A TERRORIST
It was the late 2000s and the United States government was engaged in a global hunt for Osama bin Laden.
PHILLIP MARGOLIN
If asked to account for his career(s) in crime, Phillip Margolin would probably offer evidence that it was inevitable. “I have been a voracious reader starting in elementary school and I tore through Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason novels and the Ellery Queen mysteries,” he says. “By the seventh grade, I had decided that the only thing I wanted to do was try murder cases.”
ERICA SPINDLER
Inspiration comes in mysterious ways. New Orleans novelist Erica Spindler—the New York Times bestselling author of 30 titles, including January’s The Look-Alike—can pinpoint the exact moment a lifechanging creative epiphany literally fell into her hands.
Small Press
Reviewing the Independents
DEX PARIOS
Will She or Won’t She? Only Her Stumptown Producers Know for Sure
NICK PETRIE THE WILD ONE
The idea that led Nick Petrie to create his character Peter Ash, a decorated Marine combat veteran whose PTSD makes him so claustrophobic that he is most comfortable outdoors, came in a basement.
CRIME AUTHORS CAUGHT ON CAMERA
Ready for a Close-Up
MIDSOMER MURDERS
Cozy English villages rife with deceit and death
COURT BRIEFS
RECENT LEGAL THRILLERS
William Kent Krueger
This year marks the arrival of Kent Krueger’s highly-anticipated standalone novel, This Tender Land, a coming-of-age tale about a band of four children and a horrific crime that sets them on a journey down the Mississippi à la Huckleberry Finn.
When The Nights Were Deadly Wide World Of Mystery
Today “late-night television” means only one thing: hour-long comedy/ talk shows that are virtually identical in format.