One of my favorite elements of storytelling is momentum. Reading a well-written thriller is a bit like standing in a river current—whether it’s a violent tug or a steady pull, the narrative is always moving inexorably forward and taking you along with it. With escalating stakes, white-knuckle action, or a dazzling concept explored to its…
David Joy returns with a fierce and tender tale of a father, an addict, a lawman, and the explosive events that come to unite them. Opiates steal thousands of souls every day. A modern pestilence, that feels biblical. In North Carolina, in 2018, an estimated 79% of drug overdose deaths involved opioids. During the same…
Every Wednesday, we here at Criminal Element will put together a list of Staff Picks of the books that published the day before—sharing the ones that we are looking forward to reading the most! This week, Allison Brennan’s fifth Max Revere thriller combines with Lisa Scottoline’s sixth Rosato & DiNunzio novel to highlight a great week of books!…
When I was a kid, I didn’t much care for books. I spent my time outside building forts, climbing trees, running from cows, and fishing. I can count the number of books I fell in love with as a kid on two fingers—Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet and Walter Dean Myers’s Fallen Angels. Unlike a lot of…
The Line That Held Us by critically acclaimed author David Joy is a remarkable novel about the coverup of an accidental death and the dark consequences that reverberate through the lives of four people who will never be the same again. When Darl Moody went hunting after a monster buck he’s chased for years, he never expected…
The way I heard it, William Gay came home one evening and found his girlfriend sitting at the kitchen table with his contributor copy of Harper’s in front of her, and the first words out of her mouth were, “What the fuck’s wrong with you?” While he’d been off hanging dry wall or painting houses,…
Every Wednesday, we here at Criminal Element will put together a list of Staff Picks of the books that published the day before—sharing the ones that we are looking forward to reading the most! This week, Nicolás Obregón publishes his debut novel—a gripping tale of vicious murders in Tokyo—and Allison Brennan releases the 12th installment in her…
In The Weight of This World, David Joy returns to the mountains of North Carolina with a powerful story about the inescapable weight of the past (available March 7, 2017). There’s a strong thread of uncompromising, dark fiction that's weaved its way back through the literary epochs. I’m not referencing trailblazing titans from Hemingway and…
In The Weight of This World, David Joy returns to the mountains of North Carolina with a powerful story about the inescapable weight of the past (available March 7, 2017). A combat veteran returned from war, Thad Broom can’t leave the hardened world of Afghanistan behind, nor can he forgive himself for what he saw…
The Mystery Readers International has announced their nominees for the 2016 Macavity Awards—an annual award for excellence in mysteries, named for the “mystery cat” of T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. *Follow the linked titles to excerpts or reviews on CrimeHQ!
