Everyone tends to read about the familiar; I’m never as contented as when I am curled up with an English country-house murder mystery, for example. But, challenging yourself to trying something new could open up—literally—a whole new world. Just think about the places you could travel via mystery! From the remote stretches of the Arctic…
“My first case,” says Father Brown in The Mask of Midas, “was just a small private affair about a man’s head being cut off.” It’s not surprising that G.K. Chesterton’s sleuth begins with a paradox; a great many books belonging to the genre known as cozy mysteries have, in fact, a paradox at their heart.…
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! Check back every Wednesday and see what we're reading for the week!
I will tell you from the start: I’ve written a great book. Part mystery, part psychological thriller—I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written, and it’s been on my agent’s desk for the past 12 years because there isn’t a publisher that wants it. Here’s the thing: in the opening scene, we learn that…
Deadly Jewels by Jeannette de Beauvoir follows Martine LeDuc, a publicity director for the city of Montreal, who joins an excavation project searching for the stolen British crown jewels, only to discover a decades-old murder that leads her down the dangerous path to trouble (Available March 8, 2016). When Martine LeDuc, publicity director for the…
Yesterday, in History as Mystery Part I, I explored why I love historical mysteries so much and offered 10 of my absolute favorites as sort of a crash course reading list to get you started. Now that you’re clearly convinced of how great these stories can be, it’s your turn to start exploring topics for…
What’s so great about the past? It’s true that historical mysteries are rarely the most popular crime fiction sub-genre, but I’m a dreamer—I’d like to change all that. There are amazing mysteries to be plumbed; stories already pre-assembled and ready to be told. When you read a historical mystery, you’re not just looking into the…
Ah, the heist. Who hasn’t thought of it—maybe even dreamed about it—imagining both the daring nature of the action itself and the rich reward should it be successful? Turns out there are a lot of great heists, both in real life and in fiction, that have become the subject of some of the most memorable…
Asylum by Jeannette De Beauvoir is a thriller set in Montreal narrated by the city's Director of Public Relations as a series of murders unfold (available March 10, 2015). Martine LeDuc is the director of PR for the mayor's office in Montreal. When four women are found brutally murdered and shockingly posed on park…
