Some things just never go out of style. Like nostalgia. And the further we get, the more people like to look back. Folks will always love to romanticize the past; put it up on a pedestal as if it was better or more exciting than the turbulent, messy present. Since the past is an open…
The painter Paul Cézanne was never comfortable with the Paris art scene, despite claiming he would change it “with an apple” (and he did). He was mal à l’aise with people, especially the fashionable, the wealthy. He once said, “The world doesn’t understand me and I don’t understand the world, that’s why I’ve withdrawn from…
But my confidence was cosmetic. Neither I nor anyone I knew in Deaf Smith had any influence over Vernon Smothers. He believed intransigence was a virtue, a laconic and mean-spirited demeanor was strength, reason was a tool the rich used to keep the poor satisfied with their lot, and education amounted to reading books full…
Join New York Times bestselling author Shelley Noble for a look back at four iconic women and their equally memorable sleuths who would change the Gilded Age mystery genre forever and inspired her new novel!
From a writer’s perspective, the mystery genre is often a rigid one—someone committed a crime that needs solving, and the protagonist will methodically work through the clues to do so. And while that rigidity might seem downright restrictive, it’s also played into the hands of authors who want to introduce outlandish concepts and worlds: the…
This past week, we ventured to surprisingly chilly Lonestar locale of Dallas, TX, to celebrate Bouchercon 2019, and while we were there, we teamed up with our pals over at Minotaur Books to help sponsor a collaborative short story penned by a huge collection of their all-star authors. With a combination of nearly 20 authors…
As president of the Atlanta Writers Club and director of its twice-yearly Atlanta Writers Conference, I have the privilege of getting to know a diverse blend of authors in every genre. I’m particularly struck by the varied backgrounds of our mystery, suspense, and thriller writers: police officers, lawyers, journalists, soap opera assistants, corporate executives, teachers,…
There are two kinds of readers, as far as I can tell, when it comes to 1997’s Edgar Award-winner, The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook. There are those utterly perplexed by a crime novel that moves at what they deem a glacial pace and bears contents as literary as they are mysterious, and…
The Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams What is the British government to do with an abdicated king and his unpopular wife who both have Nazi sympathies and are living in exile in Paris when Germany invades? Send him off to the British colonial Bahamas as its appointed Governor! And it is here that Williams’s protagonist…
Ever read a book and think, “Wow, I wish there was a movie of this”?
