This is the first in our member-written series: My Favorite Crime Movie. I graduated from the University of Florida law school at the end of 1977 and stayed in Gainesville for almost another year, trying to figure out what to do – a process I’ve since learned may pause but never quite ends. North Central Florida was rough and rural, but […]
This is the second in our member-written series: My Favorite Golden Age Mystery. Like many good stories, Dame Agatha Christie’s novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd developed from an idea tossed off playfully by two of her friends. The novel was published in 1926, early in her career, and was merely the third time Hercule Poirot, her Belgian private investigator,
This begins a new series on our blog: My Favorite Golden Age Mystery, written by our members. Her father gave her a gun. Nancy Drew, girl detective, was about to embark on the adventure of The Hidden Staircase (1930), and her father was worried. “[Y]ou’ve often said you wanted me to grow up self-reliant and brave,” she countered. And she had
CHARLES ARDAI is one of those people whose energy, acuity, and achievements make you wonder what the heck you’ve been doing with your life. He’s won the Edgar, Shamus and Ellery Queen Awards, plus he is the author of five novels, including Little Girl Lost and Songs of Innocence. As the founding editor of the acclaimed pulp fiction imprint Hard Case Crime, he
The Internet, as we’ve all discovered, is a mixed blessing. One of its decided pleasures, however, is the ease with which books can be found. When I worked in a bookstore in Los Angeles over 20 years ago, if a book was out of print, there were only two options for the reader: look for it at every bookstore you stepped
Otto Penzler knows his sleuths. Recently published, The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories is the twelfth anthology he has edited for Vintage Crime/Black Lizard (Random House). For those without a scorecard, Penzler has also won two Edgars, a Raven, and an Ellery Queen Award; served fourteen years on the Mystery Writers of America board; and is proprietor of The Mysterious
What sparks creativity in you? Music? Photography? Dance? Sculpture? For an upcoming anthology, In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper, the editor, Lawrence Block, asked 17 authors to choose one artwork and see what whispered. We all know Lawrence Block. Whether it’s from the entire shelf devoted to him at most bookstores or from
You may recognize Ken Levine as a popular culture commentator on CNN’s recent series The Eighties. His expertise comes from decades as a writer for shows like MASH, Cheers, Frasier, and The Simpsons, just to name a few. Levine also writes a daily blog laced with insight, wit, and a refreshing bit of snark that focuses mainly (although not exclusively) on the entertainment
James Patterson is about to make his mark in publishing. Again. Nobody would ever accuse the man of being a dilettante. Patterson’s debut book won the Edgar Award in 1977 for Best First Novel. His next, introducing series protagonist Alex Cross, became his first New York Times #1 Bestseller — a step on the road to holding the Guinness World
Broadly speaking, there are two types of mystery stories: whodunnits and whydunnits. We read a mystery story to find out who committed the crime (with the why, the motive, often serving to help the investigator find the culprit), or we read knowing from early on who the guilty party is as the story lays out the reasons, psychological and otherwise,
Can’t get enough crime stories from magazines, books, and cable TV? Well, they say video killed the radio star, but that case was never closed. And now rumors of the radio star’s demise seem very premature. Especially now that we have podcasts. A podcast is a digital audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to your computer or portable media
Think of Provence – and what comes to mind? Fields of lavender, groves of olive trees, terracotta tile roofs, a steaming pot of bouillabaisse, a glass of chilled rosé, the mistral blowing. (You get the idea.) That said, I’m pretty certain my own experience in the picturesque small Luberon village to which I’ve been coming for 35 years is rare.
As I write this, Thanksgiving is a recent memory and Christmas a (relatively) distant event. It hasn’t even snowed yet in an unseasonably warm city. This is my last blog post, and my thanks to MWA-NY for the opportunity to expound on a few favorite subjects. I hope I’ll see you at the Winter Revels on December 2. The Lee
Ali Karim, assistant editor of Shots eZine, stops in from across the pond to remember Edward Wright, award-winning author of the John Ray historical thrillers.
Who would have guessed that Edgar Allan Poe influenced the development of the game of Scrabble? Read how Poe’s analysis of the frequency of English letters in his short story “The Gold-Bug” served as a basis for Scrabble’s scoring system almost 100 years later.
