I don’t quite know how it happened, but in 2016, I noticed a shift in my own tastes. It happened as a gradual thing and snuck up on me—it was only when I saw that my to-be-read pile had changed complexion did I notice it. I’m sure a lot of authors have two separate TBR…
One of the most memorable highlights of the five years I lived in London took place one sunny summer afternoon when I was invited to Buckingham Palace to have tea with the Queen of England. Okay, I was one of 10,000 people who also attended that garden party, though you wouldn’t have guessed—the Queen has…
Like a Norman Rockwell painting hanging prominently inside our heads, many of us cherish memories of Thanksgiving gatherings with loved ones complemented by honey-glazed turkey and succulent desserts. A heartwarming tradition believed to have originated in 1621 by the Pilgrims, now celebrated every fourth Thursday of November since Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving Day a national…
I write books, mostly thrillers. But earlier, and for many years, I tried civil cases, large and small, of almost every variety. I never thought of it as research for writing, but of course, it was. I also never thought that any of it—being almost entirely civil not criminal—would lead me into Mafia territory, much…
To a detective character from a big city like New York or Los Angeles, the Midwest might look like one big flyover zone. But to plenty of mystery writers (myself included), the Midwest looks like home—and a good setting for a crime novel. We have plenty of cynicism to counteract that apple-cheeked, earnest idea…
The balance between fact and fiction can be a tricky one for a historical novelist. Playing fast and loose with the facts can leave a writer open to accusations of inauthenticity. Yet, if there is anything I have learned from studying history, it’s that it is not static, it is open to interpretation, and what…
Submarines have been known to collide in fiction, but do they occur in reality? The short answer—yes. I’ll have to credit Wikipedia with a list of the more well-known submarine collisions since 2000: 2001 – USS Greeneville collision with Ehime Maru 2002 – USS Oklahoma City collision with Norwegian tanker Norman Lady 2005 – USS…
For the past year, I’ve been wrapped up in a project that, to be honest, has taken a lot more of my time than I suspected it would. It’s a TV show, Berlin Station, that I’ve been creating and writing with the help of a small staff of writers in a room in New York…
Fingerprints as forensic science seem routine to the modern crime story fan, because they know humans are born with loops, arches and whorls on their finger pads. But in a true-life manifestation of existential philosophy, these obvious physical markings didn’t exist as forensic evidence until their usefulness was discovered. The initial classification of fingerprints occurred…
