Author Max Allan Collins remembers that when he was a teenager back in the early sixties, he was drawn to the work of the notorious mega best-seller Mickey Spillane. While the literary establishment was blowing gaskets over sadism and masochism—not to mention sex and ultraviolence—in the work of this hardest of hard-boiled authors, Collins was […]
Lynn: Looking for a great spooky book to hand teens as Halloween approaches? Cherie Priest’s The Agony House (2018) is a perfect choice! High-school senior Denise, her mom, and new stepdad are the newest residents of Argonne House in New Orleans. Over 100 years old and standing alone on a hurricane-ravaged block, the house is literally falling down […]
Rick Ollerman remembers the spinning racks of paperback novels and their vivid painted covers. Men with chins like fists and fists like bludgeons, and always a gun in somebody’s hand. And the titles! Time Enough to Die; Devil on Two Sticks; One for Hell. “I was drawn to them because they were colorful,” Ollerman says […]
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 […]
Cindy: A pair of recent Southern historical mysteries raises the issue of racism. I read the first, Bobby Lee Claremont and the Criminal Element (2018) by Jeannie Mobley, on a recent destination wedding trip to New Orleans. I like coordinating book settings with my travel, and I was on deadline for Booklist’s #MysteryMonth, so this novel […]
Lynn: Maureen Johnson sets her latest mystery, Truly Devious (2018), at Ellingham Academy, a unique private school in Vermont where all the students have a “spark.” “If interested,” reads the school literature, “[just] get in touch.” Ellingham Academy is famous for more than its unique approach to education: It is the site of a famous, unsolved 1936 kidnapping […]
Title: Mindhunter Starring: Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Hannah Gross, Anna Torv, Cotter Smith; featuring Sonny Valicenti First Aired: 2017 Where you can watch it: Netflix (a second season is currently in production) By 1977, crucial things had changed about postwar American life: decor had taken a turn towards wood paneling, and a […]
Lynn: Many mystery fans will happily follow the trail of a good mystery into a wide variety of other genres. Mystery and fantasy fans take note: Makiia Lucier’s Isle of Blood and Stone (2018) is right up your dark alley! In the prologue, we learn of the tragedy that has befallen the island nation St. […]
A week from now, Booklist will embark on our most exciting ritual: Mystery Month! This year marks the ninth annual, month-long celebration of all things mysterious. This Thursday, April 26, we’ll host the first of two Mystery Month webinars at 1pm CST. Annie Bostrom, Booklist’s associate editor of adult books, will preview forthcoming mysteries, thrillers, and espionage […]
On Saturday, March 17, more than 30 crime writers will highlight the second-annual Murder and Mayhem in Chicago conference, showing off the varied landscape of the Midwestern murder mystery. The Midwest is a hotbed of crime. It’s not necessarily that our region is more criminal than others, or that more terrible things happen here, […]
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