My TBR Confessions include a smoking beagle, a wizard cop, and “ghosts” who aren't by Stephen Dobyns, Ben Aaronovitch, and Mary Roberts Rinehart. CURRENTLY READING: Is Fat Bob Dead Yet? by Stephen Dobyns, which comes out September 1st. The novel begins with a shocking motorcycle accident in downtown New London, Connecticut. A nearby witness is…
Three Graves Full by Jamie Mason is a thriller with a twist and a macabre sense of humor (available February 12, 2013). Three Graves Full is a crime novel that begins with a twist. Our protagonist, Jason Getty, spends the opening chapter getting over the fact that he’s killed a man and buried the corpse…
Three Graves Full by Jamie Mason is a humorous crime novel about a man who finds himself in most unusual circumstances (available February 12, 2013). Sad sack Jason Getty has lived in fear ever since killing a man in a rage and burying the body in a remote corner of his yard some 17 months…
Ranchero by Rick Gavin is peopled with real characters in an authentic South, the Mississippi Delta to be exact, who think and speak with the natural wryness of the place. That makes it twice as funny as the usual caper, and I’m not just whistling Dixie. Forget silly cariacatures from people who don’t really know…
I don’t know about you guys, but when it comes to capers, from swiping the Hope Diamond to cracking a bank vault, I like to envision some complicated, timed to the microsecond, Oceans 11/ Mission Impossible-type scheme. The one where you need 1000 ft of nylon rope, multiple pulleys, cat suits, space mirrors, and a…
Since Jake Hinson’s been discussing the 5 best classic heist flicks, we share this trailer for a thoroughly modern entry among comic bank capers. Flypaper stars Patrick Dempsey, Ashley Judd, the dazzling Timothy Blake Nelson, Jeffrey Tambor, Pruitt Taylor Vince, and Mekhi Phifer among others. Dempsey plays a man caught between competing teams of bank…
Unlike most classic film noir, heist movies are not about passion but process. If all noir taps into its audience’s guilty desires—to murder or lie or commit adultery—the heist film taps into a particularly cool-burning flame: the desire to be a professional crook. This being classic noir we’re talking about, the heist team is always…
If the detective mystery is the father of crime fiction and noir the alcoholic uncle, then the caper is the lovable nev’r-do-well cousin. Well, I take that back. Capers are doing quite well, thank you. Just look at box office heists like The Italian Job and the remake of Ocean’s 11 (also 12, and 13). The…
