Login / Register
Criminal Element
  • Read
    • Excerpts
    • Reviews
  • Author Spotlight
    • Essays
    • Interviews
  • On-Screen
    • Television
    • Film
    • Trailers
  • Weekly Features
    • This Week’s New Reads
    • GIFnotes
    • Pick Your Poison
    • Cooking the Books
    • True Crime Thursday
    • Perp Derp
  • Cozy Corner
  • Newsletter
  • Login / Register

Scott Adlerberg

Scott Adlerberg is the author of Jack Waters, a historical revenge tale, from Broken River Books. His other books include the noir/fantasy novella Jungle Horses and the psychological thriller Graveyard Love. He co-hosts the Word for Word Reel Talks film commentary series each summer in Manhattan and blogs about books, movies, and writing at the crime fiction site Do Some Damage. He lives in New York City.

Book Review: Shoot the Moonlight Out by William Boyle

By Scott Adlerberg

November 10, 2021

Shoot the Moonlight Out by William Boyle is a haunting crime story about the broken characters inhabiting yesterday’s Brooklyn and a riveting portrait of lives crashing together at the turn of the century. With his new novel, Shoot the Moonlight Out, named after a song by Garland Jeffreys, William Boyle continues his explorations into the…

Book Review: Coldwater by Tom Pitts

By Scott Adlerberg

May 19, 2020

In Coldwater, a young couple moves to Sacramento after the tragic loss of their baby. But instead of a quiet life in the suburbs, they find themselves involved in the fight of their lives with a group of drug-addicted squatters with a dark past.  I wonder whether Tom Pitts likes jazz. I ask this question…

Book Review: Famous in Cedarville by Erica Wright

By Scott Adlerberg

October 24, 2019

Famous in Cedarville by Erica Wright, author of the acclaimed Kat Stone series, is a standalone novel and a diabolical mystery wrapped in Hollywood tinsel. Erica Wright, creator of the Kat Stone series, has written her first standalone novel with Famous in Cedarville. Whereas the Stone books are about a former cop turned private detective…

Book Review: Miami Midnight by Alex Segura

By Scott Adlerberg

August 12, 2019

Miami Midnight by Alex Segura is the fifth and final entry in the Miami-based Pete Fernandez series, where the recently retired private investigator is drawn back into detective work by his most personal case.  Pete Fernandez is back from the dead. As Miami Midnight opens, Pete is sitting in his therapist’s office telling her about…

Hopscotch by Brian Garfield

The Edgar Awards Revisited: Hopscotch by Brian Garfield (Best Novel; 1976)

By Scott Adlerberg

June 7, 2019

Brian Garfield had written over 50 books by the time Hopscotch, the 1976 Edgar winner for Best Novel, was published. Born in New York City in 1939, Garfield started writing young, and his first book came out when he was eighteen. Throughout the 1960s, he wrote mainly westerns, churning out three or four novels per…

Book Review: Hipster Death Rattle by Richie Narvaez

By Scott Adlerberg

March 19, 2019

Filled with a cast of colorful characters and told with sardonic wit, Hipster Death Rattle by Richie Narvaez is a fast-moving, intricately plotted debut novel that plays out against a backdrop of rapid gentrification, skyrocketing rents, and class tension in New York City. Richie Narvaez’s debut novel, Hipster Death Rattle, is a classic case of an…

The Edgar Awards Revisited: Room to Swing by Ed Lacy (Best Novel; 1958)

By Scott Adlerberg

February 1, 2019

In 1958, the nominees for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award were Arthur Upfield’s The Bushman Who Came Back, Bill Ballinger’s The Longest Second, Marjorie Carleton’s The Night of the Good Children, and Ed Lacy’s Room to Swing. Of these four books, the best-known today among mystery aficionados is Upfield’s, largely because it’s part…

Lethal Lit Podcast

Podcast Review: Lethal Lit

By Scott Adlerberg

December 12, 2018

Hey, lethal listeners. Tig Torres here. Stay tuned for the next episode of Lethal Lit. These are the opening words for each of the six episodes that make up Lethal Lit: A Tig Torres Mystery, the new podcast from Einhorn’s Epic Productions and iHeart Radio. Alex Segura and Monica Gallagher are the writers, and a…

101 by Tom Pitts

Review: 101 by Tom Pitts

By Scott Adlerberg

November 8, 2018

101 by Tom Pitts is set in California only a few months before the legalization of marijuana. The game is about to change. Tom Pitts’ new book, 101, is his third novel. He has also written two novellas. Of this output, I’ve read all but one of the novellas, and it’s safe to say that…

Page to Screen: Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel

By Scott Adlerberg

Daphne du Maurier’s novel My Cousin Rachel is a study in character ambiguity. Published in 1951, it takes place—not unlike her earlier Rebecca (1938)—on a sprawling estate in the author’s beloved Cornwall. Du Maurier again works in the mystery-romance mode, and to a large degree, My Cousin Rachel inverts her most famous novel’s premise. Rebecca charts the…

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 5
  • Next Page »
  • About
  • Advertise With Us
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Notice
  • Contact Us
Site Powered by Supadu