San Francisco, 1947. Bartender Sammy Tiffin falls head-over-heels in love with a beautiful girl named Stilton. Sammy’s boss, the revolting Sal Gabelli, is working on a special project for an Air Force muckety-muck that involves Sammy rounding up wholesome girls and hooking them up with members of the powerful Bohemian Club. Through no fault of […]
Title: Evil Genius First aired: May 11, 2018 Where you can watch it: Netflix Although Alice Bolin recently (and perhaps rightfully!) advised women against consuming true crime to benefit our mental health, that hasn’t stopped me from consuming every true crime narrative I can. My latest wallow took place over Memorial Day weekend, when I wolfed down […]
What a Character! In a recent post, I touched briefly on Hemingway’s influence on crime fiction and shared three books whose plots are derived from a real-life unsolved Hemingway mystery. But Hemingway, whose life story often reads like fiction, has served another purpose for mystery novelists seeking inspiration: Many of them have decided to use […]
#MysteryMonth special to The Booklist Reader Bestselling romantic suspense author Colleen Coble’s novels have won or finaled in awards ranging from the Best Books of Indiana, the ACFW Carol Award, the Romance Writers of America RITA, the Holt Medallion, the Daphne duMaurier, National Readers’ Choice, and the Booksellers Best. She has nearly four million books in […]
Lynn: Charlie Tickler’s awful parents dump him wherever and whenever they can to go off and save an animal. This time around, it’s the Golden Mole, and Charlie is stuck with his TV-obsessed grandparents in the village of Castle-on-the-Hudson, the home of a famous school for the deaf. “Why have a nanny when there are grandparents […]
Crime and detective stories have long been a part of television programming, with many of fiction’s most famous sleuths—Ellery Queen, Philip Marlowe, and Mickey Spillane, to name but a few—starring in their own small-screen shows. With such a rich and varied trove of viewing options, how can a mystery fan find the wheat among the […]
#MysteryMonth special to The Booklist Reader Clea Simon is the author of 25 mysteries (including the 2009 fourth Theda Krakow mystery called, yes, Probable Claws). All except for her rock ‘n’ roll noir, World Enough, involve cats. She can be reached at www.cleasimon.com Say “pet mystery,” and most readers will automatically think “cat cozy.” After […]
Every weekday we feature a different review on Booklist Online. These reviews are notable for different reasons—they may be starred, or high-demand, or especially relevant to the current issue’s spotlight. We’ve collected the reviews from May 21–25 below. Monday, May 21 Death Notice, by Zhou Haohui When Captain Pei Tao of the suburban Longzhou police is found crouched over the […]
For last year’s #MysteryMonth, Michael Cart gave us a list of his top suspense films of all time. However, most films are nowhere near as good as Double Indemnity or Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The sad truth of it is that some films are just the worst. And some of the very worst thrillers are adapted […]
In “The Clues to My Crime,” authors explain the influences behind their latest works of crime fiction. In this installment, former Congressman Steve Israel tells us about what inspired Big Guns, his latest satirical novel, which targets the firearms industry and the Washington political establishment. Catch 22, by Joseph Heller (1961) A satirical novel […]
Encouraging Middle-Schoolers to Choose Books
There’s been a lot of discussion among the librarians I know about what to do with middle-schoolers: they just don’t seem to read as much as they used to. I know that here in Chicago, we have a unique perspective on this situation, since our schools run K–8. In my former school system in Maryland […]
Getting Started with the Global Read Aloud
The 2017 Global Read Aloud kicked off yesterday, and I’m here to help. Author and educator Pernille Ripp founded the program as a way to connect students and teachers from different locales around the topics of books. (Think One Book One School or One Book One City, but on a global scale.) Each year, Ripp […]
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: Practice Recognizing Fake News
Cindy: There have been a number of YA fiction books with the title “Two Truths and a Lie,” but we’ve found a creative, informational book for middle-grade students that reinforces evaluating information for truth. Fake news, anyone? Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive (2017) by Ammi-Joan Paquette and Laurie Ann Thompson is the first […]
Encouraging Middle-Schoolers to Choose Books
There’s been a lot of discussion among the librarians I know about what to do with middle-schoolers: they just don’t seem to read as much as they used to. I know that here in Chicago, we have a unique perspective on this situation, since our schools run K–8. In my former school system in Maryland […]
Getting Started with the Global Read Aloud
The 2017 Global Read Aloud kicked off yesterday, and I’m here to help. Author and educator Pernille Ripp founded the program as a way to connect students and teachers from different locales around the topics of books. (Think One Book One School or One Book One City, but on a global scale.) Each year, Ripp […]
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: Practice Recognizing Fake News
Cindy: There have been a number of YA fiction books with the title “Two Truths and a Lie,” but we’ve found a creative, informational book for middle-grade students that reinforces evaluating information for truth. Fake news, anyone? Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive (2017) by Ammi-Joan Paquette and Laurie Ann Thompson is the first […]
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