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Chester Himes

Roundup of Black Detective Novels from Then Until Now

By Tracy Clark

June 29, 2021

There have been black writers writing black detectives since the beginning of the 20th century. There were black Holmes’ and black Marlowes and black Marples, policemen, amateur sleuths, and private eyes, coexisting with their “mainstream” counterparts almost since the beginning of modern crime fiction, but they were ignored, unseen, unpublished. These black writers, these pioneers,…

Capturing Corruption: 10 Crime Novels That Influenced True Crime Saga I Got A Monster

By Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg

July 21, 2020

Our book, I Got A Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad, explores the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), a gun-seizing unit praised for getting guns off the streets and supposedly stopping crime while simultaneously creating crime and running what one cop later called a “criminal enterprise” within…

Fiction Is The Lie Through Which We Tell The Truth

By Paul D. Marks

October 19, 2018

Does fiction matter when reality is so harrowing? Albert Camus, author of The Stranger, said “fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” But is fiction, especially genre fiction — mysteries, thrillers, suspense, and romance — the place to talk about serious issues such as the contentious immigration debate or racism, or should…

One and Done: Vern E. Smith, The Jones Men

By Eric Beetner

July 21, 2016

The Jones Men was a thrilling novel to discover. A lost “cult” novel from the 1970s, written by veteran journalist Vern E. Smith, it is a story of the drug trade on the streets of Detroit, and it absolutely blew me away when I read it forty years after its initial publication. The novel crackles…

Nate Heller & Mike Hammer

By Max Allan Collins

May 25, 2016

Read this exclusive guest post from Max Allan Collins, author of Better Dead, comparing his own Nate Heller series to finishing Mickey Spillane's posthumous Mike Hammer manuscripts, and then make sure you're signed in and comment for a chance to win a copy of his newest Nate Heller thriller! I have been writing about my fictional P.I.…

The Historical Villain: A Whodunnit in One Dimension

By Charles Finch

October 16, 2014

The golden age of the fictional villain—twirling his moustache, laughing Frenchly, tying women to train tracks—was the 19th century. In that innocent age, you could actually spook readers with a one-dimensional madman; you didn’t have to bother much with a motivation (unless it was money). But then the modern era came along and started producing…

Movie poster for Django Unchained

Black Pulp Fictions: Yesterday and Today

By Gary Phillips

March 14, 2013

Filmmaker and sometime mystery writer Nelson George (The Plot Against Hip Hop and Night Work) wrote a commentary in the February 15, 2013, New York Times, “Still Too Good, Too Bad or Invisible.”  The piece focused on the portrayal of black leading men in recent movies, including Quentin Tarantino’s lauded and lambasted Django Unchained, for…

2013’s Audie Awards Finalists are Criminal

By Crime HQ

February 23, 2013

The Audies, sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association (APA), recognize “distinction in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment.” They offer awards in many, many different categories, and of course, we wanted to highlight both Mystery and Thriller/Suspense categories specifically for crime fans. However, since we also discuss things like horror, pulp, historical conspiracy, tales of military…

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