How Moldy Paperbacks Defined My Mind

My reading habit was mostly self-inflicted, though heavily influenced by my father’s collection of boyhood books, notably the works of Edgar Rice Boroughs, Zane Grey, Tom Swift and lots of other popular action writers of the early 20th century now lost in obscurity. But the mystery addiction is all my mother’s fault.  She didn’t know the term, but she was

Murdoch Mysteries

Tired of gritty, violent cop shows? Had enough of today’s most heinous crimes retold in thinly disguised fiction?  Need a show with wit and style? Want to escape back to a more genteel time?  If you haven’t discovered this polished gem, it’s not too late to get in on the action. At first glance, Murdoch Mysteries might appear British, but,

It Was Dark, It Was Stormy, It Was Paradise

Recently, and for no particular reason, I tried to remember the first crime or mystery book I ever read. Since I am a woman of a certain age, it was, of course, a Nancy Drew book. I couldn’t recall which book, but I did remember my childhood thrill at being on a dark and stormy adventure with the girl sleuth.

Investigate Thyself: Patrick Modiano’s Missing Person

Patrick Modiano’s Missing Person focuses on a private detective, introduced as Guy Roland, who investigates himself. The location is Paris, the time period, the mid-1960s. I say “introduced as Guy Roland,” because from page one of this novel, we comprehend that we are dealing with a detective narrator with little sense of his own identity. “I am nothing,” is how the book starts. “Nothing but

I Can’t Say Goodbye to Ross Macdonald

Some writers keep drawing you back to them. Among crime writers, one who does this to me is Ross Macdonald. I first read him when I was 13 – the novel was The Goodbye Look, a Lew Archer mystery from 1969. At the time I read it, the mid-’70s, the book was contemporary, and I remember the enjoyment I felt reading

Breaking Formula: The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn

In the late 1960s, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, the most popular science fiction writers in Russia, decided to write a mystery novel. The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn was published in 1970, and its creation may have been motivated in part by the weariness they felt struggling with the Soviet authorities. Once writers of optimistic science fiction that the authorities backed, they had changed with

On All One Case and Ross Macdonald

Loneliness and frustration We both came down with an acute case When the lights came up at two I caught a glimpse of you And your face looked like something Death brought with him in his suitcase —Warren Zevon, “The French Inhaler” I don’t exactly know why I took Kevin Avery and Jeff Wong’s It’s All One Case: The Illustrated

Obsessing over Typewriters and Libraries

David Mamet once observed that writers are obsessed with office supply stores. The things these stores contain — pens, pencils, inks, paper — are the only visible proof of what we do. I thought of Mamet’s remark after seeing California Typewriter, a fascinating new documentary about the titular shop in Berkeley, California. Computers may rule the day (these words are

My Favorite Crime Movie: Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

If there’s a crime movie I would enjoy more than the 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express, based on the 1934 novel of the same name by the inimitable Agatha Christie, I haven’t found it yet. I’ve seen the movie — starring Albert Finney as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot — a number of times. And even though

Harlem’s Renaissance Man

The Golden Age of detective fiction coincided with a different sort of Golden Age among African-Americans: The Harlem Renaissance. Arguably no-one could have been described better as a Renaissance Man, than Rudolph Fisher, the author of The Conjure-Man Dies. A graduate of Brown University and Howard University Medical School, he was the author of scientific papers and political tracts promoting

My Favorite Crime Movie: In Cold Blood

As a 14-year-old in 1967, my principal reason for living was marathon listening to Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour. Distraction arrived at the end of the year in the form of a movie that immediately earned lifelong status as my favorite crime flick. From the standard list of film genres, it also rates near the top of my favorite

DOUBLE INDEMNITY — Murder Most Spousal

This is the third in our member-written series: My Favorite Crime Movie. Despite our fondness for (obsession with?) serial killers, conventional wisdom says one is much more likely to be killed by a spouse than by a total stranger. And statistics say husbands do away with wives more than vice versa. But don’t tell that to filmmakers. Much to the consternation

What I’m Watching Now

If Patricia Highsmith were writing today, she’d surely be the showrunner for one of the great psychological thrillers currently gracing the small screen. We live not just in the golden age of television, but in the golden age of my favorite sub-genre of TV crime show. Call it psychological suspense, domestic noir, or what you will. These shows mine intimate relationships,

Hitchcock’s Average American Family

This is the second in our member-written series: My Favorite Crime Movie. Alfred Hitchcock said several times that Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was his favorite of the films he directed. The film is set in Santa Rosa, California. If I tell you that the last time I was in California, I went in search of Santa Rosa, you’ll have

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