Mysteries and thrillers have long been set in institutions of learning. Many of these novels play out in universities and elite boarding schools in New England and in the British countryside. With their remote campuses and secret student societies, novels like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and Tana French’s The Secret Place make wonderful gothic…
The Turnout by Megan Abbott is a tale both alarming and irresistible, a sharp and strange dissection of family ties and sexuality, femininity and power, that displays the underbelly of the dancing world. Dara and Marie Durant are sisters but, more importantly, they’re dancers. Like their mother, they both showed early talent as ballerinas and…
I picked up The Stranger Beside Me at a garage sale in the spring of 1983. Thirteen years old, I was deep in my V. C. Andrews phase and searching for books that awoke that same forbidden thrill.
My first novel, a thriller called Burning Under, is coming out this fall. Set in southwest Pennsylvania – including the coal region, the Rustbelt, and Pittsburgh – it revolves around a deadly coal mine explosion owned by a corrupt mining company. Between college and my MFA, I spent seven years practicing corporate law in the…
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, David Rosenfelt’s 17th Andy Carpenter novel combines with a terrifying debut from Zoje Stage to highlight a killer week of books! See…
The Mystery Readers International have announced the nominees for the 2017 Macavity Awards. The Macavity Award—named for the “mystery cat” of T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats—is an annual award celebrating the year's best in the mystery genre.
I’m a fan of all kinds of crime novels, but a lot of my favorites tend to be linked by one thing: unexplained disappearances. The idea of somebody vanishing fascinates me because it throws up so many intriguing questions: How and why do people disappear? Where do they go? How do they stay lost? What…
Crime and mystery fiction’s diversity attracts a broad readership. For instance, I prefer the soft stuff and am attracted to the puzzle rather than grizzly details, while many of my friends enjoy peeled skin and body parts. Knowing that, it seems immensely impertinent for me to try to compile a “best of” list on my…
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, we get some great cozies, a couple of kickass thrillers, and a ridiculous anthology edited by Lawrence Block and…
In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper, edited by Lawrence Block, is a newly-commissioned anthology of seventeen superbly-crafted stories inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper (Available December 6, 2016). Edward Hopper is probably the first—and possibly the only—famous visual artist you’ll think of when discussing noir. His Nighthawks encapsulates…
