More than 30 years ago, unhappy with my job as a lawyer, I read four books that changed my life. No, they weren’t self-help books. They didn’t advise me to take up meditation or yoga or psychedelic drugs. They were novels with flawed protagonists. I’ll tell you about them in a moment, but first, let…
Why was writing The Murder List like doing math? Because it’s all about understanding the properties of a triangle. One of the basic shapes of in geometry, right? And one of the basic shapes of conflict. Three points on a triangle. Or three points of view. And in a twisty triangle thriller, it all depends…
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 is all about variety, as we get ghosts, psychological suspense, true crime, and more! See what else this week…
Pardon the Ravens by Alan Hruska is a legal thriller set in 1960s New York about a young lawyer who falls for a mobster's wife and risks losing it all (available February 10, 2015). This is another good mystery with great courtroom drama and the continual inner battle of a good man who has to…
Mystery conventions are a great way to find new mystery-loving friends and hear directly from your favorite authors – and maybe even meet some of them. All of these conventions feature keynote speeches or interviews from big name guests of honor as well as author, expert and fan panels talking about all sorts of subjects.…
2014 promises to be chock full of wonderful mystery conventions and conferences ranging from Bouchercon— the world’s largest crime fiction convention—to more tightly-focused conferences like Malice Domestic, which specializes in traditional and cozy mysteries. Thrillerfest is, of course, primarily about thrillers, and Left Coast Crime is regional, but also offers the year's only humorous mystery…
Anton Chekhov is famously said to have decreed that “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” This edict has been reported by a number of his contemporaries, and it is found in one of his letters. Admirably, Chekov adhered to his own rule when…
This week, TNT premiered Scott Turow’s Innocent and Sandra Brown’s Ricochet. Did you watch either or both, and what do you think so far? (We ask, because sometimes things that seem so promising—cough- Whitechapel-cough-can take a inexplicable turn for the meh.) So, are you excited for the offerings next week of Hide by Lisa Gardner…
Tonight, TNT’s Mystery Movie Night kicks off with its first adaption of Scott Turow’s Innocent, starring Bill Pullman as an older and not-always-wiser Judge Rusty Sabich, a man long-ago accused of killing his lover who’ll be suspected this time around of killing his difficult wife, played by Marcia Gay Harden. If you loved the previous…
Thursday’s panel for TNT’s new Mystery Movie Night was a splashy event, and lots of fun for the attending crime fans like us, who got to hear from bestselling authors Scott Turow, Sandra Brown, Lisa Gardner, Richard North Patterson, April Smith, and Carol Higgins Clark, all of whom have novels being adapted for TNT’s new…
