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Essays

Setting Up a Hunt for the Most Dangerous Prey

By Nick Kolakowski

August 13, 2018

Like most people, I first read Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” in a high school English class. Its plot is straightforward: a big-game hunter, Rainsford, is marooned on a jungle island where he meets a mysterious man named General Zaroff. The General proposes a peculiar diversion: he’ll hunt Rainsford for three days; if Rainsford…

Third Times the Charm: The Eleanor Taylor Bland Award and the Importance of Writing Characters of Color

By Mia Manansala

August 10, 2018

When I say it’s an amazing honor to receive an award dedicated to the late great Eleanor Taylor Bland, I’m not just speaking platitudes. Although I had never heard of her before I first applied for the award back in 2016 (and then again in 2017; you know what they say, third time’s the charm),…

Learn Crime Writing with 5 Novels

By Lori Rader-Day

August 9, 2018

My friend Susan, an aspiring novelist, recently told me she struggled with the concept of voice until she read one of my books. Isn’t that nice? Wouldn’t it be great if you could read one book and have some writing concept click into place for you? Of course, that’s not entirely the way it works.…

The Truth Behind the Royal Spyness Mystery Series

By Rhys Bowen

August 9, 2018

How real is her royal spyness? I receive this question a lot, so I thought I better answer it now that the 12th book in the series, Four Funerals and a Wedding, is out. First, I have to confess that if you check the royal family tree, Lady Georgie doesn’t exist. I’ve never actually mentioned which…

New England Cozy Mysteries: 7 New England Destinations for Armchair Mystery Lovers

By Shari Randall

August 2, 2018

As they say in the real estate business: location, location, location. New England is a perfect place to vacation—think of walking on the windswept Cape Cod, dining at a waterfront lobster shack, hiking the Green Mountains of Vermont, or touring a grand Newport mansion. What to do if you can’t get away? You can armchair…

A Voice Unheard: Why It’s Important to Remember the Victims of True Crime Stories

By Courtney Summers

July 26, 2018

At the heart of true crime narratives are its victims, voices (often) lost to brutal acts of violence. Their lives are hopefully painted in the recollections of their friends, family, acquaintances, and colleagues while we, the audience, circle their bodies in search of truth and justice. If we’re lucky, we uncover both in what remains.…

Hitmen, PIs, Cowboys, and Cops: How My Favorite Screenwriters and Directors Inspired My Fiction

By Daniel Cole

July 24, 2018

In my rather limited experience of being a writer, I’ve learned that the only thing more certain than being asked on an almost daily basis what my influences are is the disappointed look on the asker’s face when I give them my, apparently, unsatisfactory reply: “movies and television.” I’m not entirely sure what they’re hoping…

Have You Ever Questioned the Nature of Your Reality?

By Gray Basnight

July 20, 2018

Flight of the Fox is my latest novel. Published by Down & Out Books (available July 23!), it’s a run-for-your-life thriller set in the very near future: the summer of 2019. That’s close! In addition to a plot that pits a courageous private citizen against a paranoid federal government police agency, the story also forecasts…

The Story of Max Hochstim: The Jewish Immigrant Who Lied, Cheated, and Stole His Way to the Top

By Alice Sparberg Alexiou

July 19, 2018

Last summer, on a Sunday afternoon, I schlepped out to Washington Cemetery in a very ungentrified stretch of Brooklyn. Some 200,000 graves—almost all of them Jewish—occupy the 100 acres of this marvelously shabby necropolis along Bay Parkway. I was looking for the grave of Max Hochstim, a vicious Jewish racketeer who, during his heyday 100-plus…

How History Shaped My Mystery: The Remarkable Rivalry of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas

By Jonathan Putnam

July 17, 2018

Stephen Douglas was a towering figure of the mid-19th century in every sense but the literal one. Standing barely five feet tall, Douglas acquired the moniker “Little Giant” early in his public life, and he kept it until his death. And his outsized life fully justified the nickname. Born into modest circumstances in Vermont and…

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