We teamed up with five crime writers to create a short story in real-time. The end result was “Axel’s Lament” which you can read in full below. A special thank you goes out to the participating authors (in order of appearance): C. J. Box, Ellison Cooper, Gregg Hurwitz, Michele Campbell, and Allison Brennan. The full…
The 2005 Edgar Award winner for best novel, California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker, is part police procedural and part family saga focused on the lives of the three Becker brothers caught up in a tangled web of love, betrayal, and murder. I was excited to review this novel because Parker’s other Edgar Award winner,…
Buried by Ellison Cooper is the second book in the Agent Sayer Altair series, where the FBI neuroscientist is on the trail of a serial killer who’s turned up the heat on a cold case. An FBI agent’s hike on his day off doesn’t go according to plan when his cadaver dog scents a body.…
The International Thriller Writers (ITW) recently announced the 2019 Thriller Award nominees. Join us in congratulating these worthy authors and books! BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL Lou Berney — NOVEMBER ROAD (William Morrow) Julia Heaberlin — PAPER GHOSTS (Ballantine Books) Jennifer Hillier — JAR OF HEARTS (Minotaur Books) Karin Slaughter — PIECES OF HER (William Morrow) Paul…
The Lingala Code might be the most mysterious Edgar award-winning novel out there, and I don’t just mean the plot. Even getting a copy of this book required internet research and a special order. Doing background for this review, I stayed up until 3:00 AM one night trying to untangle the biography of the author,…
Caged by Ellison Cooper is a debut police procedural and the first in a new series featuring FBI Agent Sayer Altair. FBI Special Agent (and neuroscientist) Sayer Altair really just wants to work on her special project: proving that serial killer brains are physically different from normal ones in hopes of finding a way to keep…
Now that I’ve written my debut crime thriller, I’ve been reflecting on the lessons I learned as a murder investigator and how those lessons shaped my writing. I began investigating Class 1 Felonies in Washington, D.C., in the early ‘90s when D.C. was considered the “murder capital” of the United States. Over 450 murders, mostly…
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, Linda Castillo’s 10th Kate Burkholder novel combines with a thrilling debut from Ellison Cooper to highlight a crazy week of books!…
Caged by Ellison Cooper is a debut police procedural and the first in a new series featuring FBI Agent Sayer Altair. FBI neuroscientist Sayer Altair hunts for evil in the deepest recesses of the human mind. Still reeling from the death of her fiancé, she wants nothing more than to focus on her research into the…
Caged by Ellison Cooper is a gripping thriller debut for fans of Kathy Reichs, Thomas Harris, and Patricia Cornwell. FBI neuroscientist Sayer Altair hunts for evil in the deepest recesses of the human mind. Still reeling from the death of her fiancé, she wants nothing more than to focus on her research into the brains…
