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! A lost James Bond-inspired novel from Donald Westlake and a new James Bourne thriller by Eric Van Lustbader highlight a great…
The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka is a gripping debut and the first book in the new Roxane Weary series (available June 13, 2017). Nobody knows what happened to Sarah Cook. The beautiful blonde teenager disappeared fifteen years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend…
Read Kristen Lepionka's quick-hits list of the top depictions of queer identities in crime fiction, and then make sure to sign in and comment below for a chance to win a copy of her upcoming debut novel, The Last Place You Look! The Quiltbag Detective sounds like a great title for a cozy series, right?…
A drink order says a lot about a person—that’s maybe why there are approximately a zillion online quizzes promising to reveal the secret of our personalities based on our drink of choice. And in mystery novels, a character’s favorite drink is equally as telling. A fun way to get into a protagonist’s head is to…
Research is possibly my favorite part of the writing process. It delays the hard part—the writing words part—indefinitely. (Note to editor: that is a joke.) But also, I want to get it right, especially when it comes to police work. We’ve all encountered stories where the police work is glossed over so heavily it’s distracting,…
Any mystery lover knows how significant Agatha Christie is to the crime-fiction genre. But she wasn’t the only woman on the scene—nor the first. Women crime writers have always been influential in the world of mysteries, and here are a few who may be less familiar to even a dedicated reader. If you were investigating the case of…
To a detective character from a big city like New York or Los Angeles, the Midwest might look like one big flyover zone. But to plenty of mystery writers (myself included), the Midwest looks like home—and a good setting for a crime novel. We have plenty of cynicism to counteract that apple-cheeked, earnest idea…
