Prologue On the early evening of November 6, 1990, forty-eight-year-old Eddie Lino drove his black Mercedes east through a clog of rush-hour traffic on the Belt Parkway, along the rounded southern belly of Brooklyn. Lino was a short, hard-bitten capo, or captain, in the Gambino crime family. He led a crew that trafficked heroin and…
Although it might be hard to believe, there were some good things that came out of 2020. We were charmed by Millie Bobby Brown’s Enola Holmes, and we laughed, cringed, and were unable to look away from the glorious trainwreck that was Tiger King. Sure, some days melded into each other. And fine, we’re all now Vitamin D-deficient.…
When Prohibition shut off the taps on January 17, 1920, everything changed. The roaring twenties came on “with a bang of bad booze, flappers with bar legs, jangled morals and wild weekends,” the singer Hoagy Carmichael said. For mobsters, the explosion of speakeasies and illicit nightclubs was an unexpected windfall. Men who had scrabbled for…
Read Michael Cannell's exclusive guest post about Dr. James Brussell, the psychiatrist who pioneered criminal profiling, then make sure you're signed in and comment below for a chance to win a signed copy of Incendiary! It’s impossible to switch on a television these days without running across a profiling drama. They’re everywhere—Criminal Minds, The Blacklist,…
From Netflix's The Keepers to HBO's Mommy Dead and Dearest to NBC's Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, true crime has had quite a year. But the documentary format isn't the only thing sweeping true crime by storm—true crime books are, for lack of a better term, alive and well. To prove it,…
This year's Thrillerfest was a blast! Hosted at the Grand Hyatt in New York City, it was five glorious days of meeting authors, hearing their stories, getting advice and writing tips, and schmoozing with authors, industry, and fans alike. Criminal Element was lucky enough to be there for it all, and in case you missed…
Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber, and the Invention of Criminal Profiling by Michael Cannell details the search for a serial bomber who stalked the streets of 1950s New York. The race to catch him would give birth to a new science called criminal profiling. Grand Central, Penn Station, Radio City Music Hall—for almost two…
Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber, and the Invention of Criminal Profiling by Michael Cannell details the search for a serial bomber who stalked the streets of 1950s New York. The race to catch him would give birth to a new science called criminal profiling (available April 25, 2017). Grand Central, Penn Station, Radio City…
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're enjoying a trip to the past thanks to Michael Cannel's new true crime thriller and William Christie's riveting…
The concept of criminal profiling is not new to those of us who read crime fiction or watch TV shows such as Law & Order and Criminal Minds, but I’m willing to bet that the landmark case that ushered forth criminal profiling as a new method of crime-solving is relatively unknown. Even more startling, given…
