When it comes to mystery novels, there’s a host of ways to die. Scuba mishap. Nicotine patch overdose. William Tell re-enactment. Yet when I set out to write As Directed, I never dreamed I’d nearly succumb to death by book. You see, I not-so-affectionately called the third book in my… Read more
I lucked into reading crime fiction at a pretty young age. I was eleven or twelve when my father passed along some of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels on one of my weekend visits with him. From there, I had no real guidance. As a compulsive movie watcher, I read… Read more
The eyes of the crime fiction writer see the world differently than normal people, or even normal writers. The eyes of the crime fiction writer, for example, watch television differently. Most people watch crime shows for the schadenfreude, for the cheap thrills. But a crime fiction writer is different. A… Read more
Writing fiction is not a matter of choice, for me—any more than it is for others, I think, who do it every day of the week. So the question presented really breaks down into three: What makes us write at all? What made us write about the particular characters we… Read more
I have a thing for unreliable narrators. I’m suspicious of polarities, of the black and white, and I tend to gravitate toward the grey area where, ironically, not-completely-trustworthy characters reside. I think I’m drawn to them because I see myself there. Not because I’m hiding bodies (or am I?) or… Read more
Like many other distinguished science fiction and fantasy authors, Jack Vance won multiple Hugo awards, a Nebula award, a World Fantasy Award, and plenty of other honors. Unlike most other holders of these awards, Vance also has the highest award in the field of mystery writing, an Edgar Award from… Read more
Like any writer, I live to procrastinate. If I don’t get my thousand words in between five-thirty and seven in the morning—when I am not fully conscious and therefore don’t yet know to be scared of the page—I will try to talk myself out of it. And while I should… Read more
In a culture of prequels and sequels, origin stories and franchise reboots, it seems no box-office hit can be considered safe from the recycling junkies in Hollywood. Psycho, Minority Report, The Karate Kid, Fargo—all have been variously updated and rebranded for the 21st century, with wildly different results. For every… Read more
I grew up in Cyprus, with an English mother and Greek Cypriot father, in a house full of books. I remember so clearly when my mother took me to the British Council library for the first time and helped me select some “proper” books. I must have been around 10 or… Read more
Once upon a time, in a land frozen with snow and ice, I was a police officer. I was a cold case homicide and sex crimes detective, to be exact, and because of the long, dark winters, I spent many a night reading or watching TV, waiting to be plowed… Read more
