Why are so many crime authors writing historical novels today? It’s a great question with about a hundred answers. Some are writing about specific people or events in the past, both public or personal, that have piqued their curiosity. Others are writing about an era in which civilization and people were so different from today…
Ken Follett published Eye of the Needle in 1978, and the book achieved a level of success that few other Edgar Award winners have matched; I can only think of a small handful of Edgar winners that ascended to similar heights (The Long Goodbye, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and The Day…
Brother Cadfael came before fingerprinting and DNA testing, before security cameras and GPS phone tracking, back when detectives had their work cut out for them when it came to solving murders. Barring a confession or finding the bloody dagger on a suspect, it was difficult to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone…
Thrillers and mysteries have long been seen as split along gender lines, and for the first seventy years or so of the twentieth century, they actually were. But things have been changing. Thrillers were originally written by, for, and about men. The earliest thriller, The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers published in 1903,…
Oscars, Emmys, Nobel Prizes… yeah, they’re nice too. But these are the award nominations we wait all year to hear. Today, Mystery Writers of America announced the nominees and honorees for the 2013 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television, published or produced in 2012. The Edgar® Awards will…
This week, Mystery Writers of America gave us a preview of the criminal luminaries who will be feted during 2013’s Edgars Week: Ken Follett and Margaret Maron have been chosen as this year’s Grand Masters by Mystery Writers of America (MWA). MWA’s Grand Master Award represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was…
