The Arnifour Affair by Gregory Harris is the first book in the Colin Pendragon historical, detective mystery series (available January 28, 2014). A genius detective and his faithful partner are sitting in their London flat having a quiet evening at home when a rich woman of a certain age arrives on their doorstep. She’s ushered…
It’s become standard practice for us to talk about the novelistic nature of series television, but this shorthand is somewhat misleading. Certainly, now that shows like The Sopranos or The Wire can be viewed in their entirety we can appreciate the long character arcs, the deliberate progress of narratives over the course of a season,…
Racist stereotypes are, unfortunately, everywhere. We may be more progressive today than we were fifty years ago, but society is far from color-blind. In a lot of ways, the most insidious forms of racism persist in our entertainment. In horror, the “token” black man is usually one of the first to die. He’s frequently dressed…
A crime is a crime, isn’t it? Well, jaywalking is a crime. (Though when was the last time you even heard that term used, much less heard of someone being cited for it.) So is murder. So is conspiracy to commit treason. So all crimes are not created equal, and such is the glorious nature…
There seems to be a growing sub-genre these days of books drawing on the life and/or work of Edgar Allan Poe. Is some profound cultural force at work? I suspect the motives are more commercial. The fact is, Poe conjures—in a way that helps sell books. I don’t fault authors for appropriating Poe. Poe himself…
What is the story told between the lines of crime fiction? More than a genre with deep literary histories in many cultures, it is a mirror of how law, politics, and society are perceived. Be it procedural, cozy, or noir, it often deals with injustices faced by the marginalized, the displaced, the underdogs. In the…
Yes, I read cozies. No, I don’t own a cat or an antimacassar. I don’t grow roses, I can’t knit and I once owned a teapot, but it broke. I prefer coffee anyway. Crime fiction readers feel it’s their right, if not their obligation, to malign cozy mysteries in the same way that genre fiction…
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Two of my great loves are reading and eating. I find both very satisfying and, with the exception of sleeping, I’d rather do either of them than just about anything else. When I approach either a book or a meal, however, I anticipate certain experiences and no matter how delectable the fare, if it doesn’t…
