Books

Klara Sandberg is a reality TV producer who’s had an epiphany. In the middle of the brainstorm for MILFs Hotel season seven, she decides all the ideas are rubbish. The whole thing is rubbish. She’d rather be doing something more important, something that matters. Perhaps something involving life and death. Just as she’s about to

British author and illustrator Raymond Briggs died Tuesday in Brighton, England at the age of 88. For the past six decades, he has delighted readers with his often melancholic children’s and adult stories of everyday British life. In many of his picture books, he used unique elements, like unconventional storylines and comic book panels to

Throughout her career, South African crime author and journalist Margie Orford has dealt extensively with the way trauma manifests itself in countries with a turbulent political history such as South Africa and Namibia. She’s particularly interested in how it permeates the social structure, often culminating in violence against women. In her first crime fiction novel

“I’m not trying to ban any books. I’m trying to stop an indoctrination campaign against kids. Any person in this county that has children knows full well what I’m talking about,” said South Carolina Senator Josh Kimball in a press conference held yesterday across the street from Spartanburg County Public Library’s main branch. The senator

Alexis Hall leaps from the world of contemporary romantic comedies to the realm of Regency romance with A Lady for a Duke (15.5 hours). Justin de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood, has been moping around his family’s country estate ever since his closest friend died at the Battle of Waterloo. What Gracewood doesn’t realize is

As you may or may not know, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing to prevent Penguin Random House (PRH) from acquiring/merging with Simon & Schuster, on the grounds that it will lose authors money. Unlike many antitrust suits, it is not concerned with monopoly (not enough sellers) but monospony (not enough buyers).

Val McDermid’s cold case police detective Karen Pirie is coming to the small screen in September 2022 in a new three-part ITV crime drama. Adapted from the first novel in the six-book series, The Distant Echo, the programme will star Lauren Lyle of Outlander fame as the lead detective. Watch the trailer below… [embedded content]

I like to consider myself a curious person. I always want to know how things work, who did this thing, and why that happened. What I’m not always great about is the follow-/ through. Sometimes I look at a prose nonfiction book about a topic and think maybe I should just read the Wikipedia article

True crime and crime fiction that feels like true crime are very popular at the moment. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether the story you’re reading actually happened or not. Which is fine, as long as it’s a good story. With Rook, Buffalo-based author Stephen G Eoannou has unearthed one of the most sensational crime

Thursday 18 August will be an interesting day for crime fiction lovers this year. It’s a date when a lot of important releases hit the shelves, setting the tone for our Autumn reading. Four of our books this week will arrive on the 18th and they’re all exciting, however our lead book is The Twist

★ Invisible A fresh and cleverly conceived take on the beloved 1985 film The Breakfast Club, Invisible is a colorful and engaging tale written by first-time graphic novel author Christina Diaz Gonzalez and illustrated by Gabriela Epstein (Claudia and the New Girl).  Diaz writes in both English and Spanish, the languages spoken by her archetypal

I’ve been going through the incredible responses to a survey on what tools and information would be helpful for fighting back against book bans. One thing that popped up was having quick templates and guides to action for folks who want to do something but don’t know where to begin. Today, let’s look at how

American author Lee Goldberg returns with his fourth Eve Ronin novel, which he loosely bases on chilling series of real-life killings that took place in Malibu, California in 2018. Research scientist Tristan Beaudette was shot dead while camping in Malibu Creek State Park with his two young daughters, the latest in a series of shootings

Jamestown Conservatives, a right-wing group in Jamestown Township, Michigan, is responsible for helping defund their public library. After a year-long battle with the Patmos Library, which has included the departure of the Library Director Amber McLain after a harassment campaign by the group, the library did not win its primary ballot measure to renew its

Debut author Tom Mead is receiving considerable publicity for his historical mystery Death and the Conjuror. The story takes place in 1936 London, with its lead characters the elderly showman and conjuror Joseph Spector and Scotland Yard detective George Flint. Flint hopes Spector’s skills at misdirection can lead him to figure out what really happened

Warner Bros.’ Batgirl movie has officially been canceled. It was originally approved in 2021 as the studio was making efforts to make more movies for HBO Max, but now it won’t even show on the streaming service. The decision to forego releasing the movie— which starred Leslie Grace, J.K. Simmons, and Michael Keaton— comes not

Texan author Gabino Iglesias’ two previous novels, Coyote Songs and Zero Saints, earned him an enviable reputation for being able to blend genres. Writers who can pull this off successfully – like Elizabeth Hand, Laird Barron and Cynthia Pelayo – manage to meet readers’ expectations for what a good crime novel should provide while also

Born in Harlem in 1924, James Baldwin began his life as a child out of wedlock and rose to prominence virtually unseen by other Black authors or queer authors of his day. Though he’s best known for collections of essays such as Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time, his eloquent, thoughtful

The comic book industry and crime fiction are intertwined. For example, the pulp comics of the 1930s such as Black Mask and The Shadow led to the superhero comics we know today as well as the pulp fiction novels of the 1950s and 60s. New York author Alex Segura knows this history well and has

In Craigslist’s “Missed Connections” section, you can almost always find a titillating headline or two, something like “Goth Woman in Piggly Wiggly Produce Section” or “Saw You at Six Flags’ Drop of Doom, May 17.” We all have a story about the one that got away, but not everyone takes that obsession to the lengths

Sean Munger is an Oregon-based LGBT crime author who loves the freedom that writing crime novels gives him. He sees his books as a place to craft characters and narratives, turning over a variety of social issues and exploring different areas of the world with his readers. His latest, The Son Thief, arrives on 2

Larry Beinhart. There’s a name we haven’t seen in a while. The American author behind the 1993 satirical novel American Hero – adapted for film as Wag the Dog – is back. He’s a funny and incisive writer of crime and conspiracy fiction, and his novel The Deal Goes Down is our lead book this

Many of us feel trapped in a grind of constant change: rolling news cycles, the chatter of social media, our families split along partisan lines. We feel fearful and tired, on edge in our bodies, not quite knowing what has us perpetually depleted. For Katherine May, this low hum of fatigue and anxiety made her

Translated by Alison Watts — If you enjoyed Riku Onda’s previous mystery translated into English, The Aosawa Murders, you’ll find many of the same attributes in her new psychological thriller, Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight. It offers that same dreamy feeling and a quality of uncertainty about the characters’ perceptions. It’s almost as if the

When you’re a spy, regime change is tricky. Even positive shifts can make for treacherous times. Two novels uncover the messy, uncertain lives of intelligence operatives in times of tectonic political change: Allison Montclair’s The Unkept Woman explores English life after World War II, at the dawn of the Cold War, while Dan Fesperman’s Winter

I am the absolute last person who needs this information so please, let me pass it on it on to you: The Center for Fiction has announced its longlist for the 2022 First Novel Prize. The longlist is twenty-four books long, narrowed down from more than 140 titles that have been or will be published

English crime author Mick Herron didn’t begin his writing career with the Slough House series, but there’s no doubt these novels represent his most successful work. The London setting, cast of memorable characters and espionage storylines have made the series ripe for adaptation, and it’s no surprise Apple pulled all the stops, casting such famous

Katie Gutierrez’s debut novel is a story of family, secrets, trauma and the complexity of relationships, told through the eyes of two women – Dolores Rivera and Cassie Bowman. Cassie is an aspiring true crime writer, but for the moment she earns her money by blogging part-time for H20, a television network making low-budget romance

The Ringers, the aliens that descend to Earth at the beginning of Ruthanna Emrys’ A Half-Built Garden, are perhaps the best-case scenario as far as aliens go. They’re a multicultural community made up of different interstellar life-forms, they value parenthood to the point that they show up to negotiations with children in tow, and they’ve

I do not keep a TBR nor do I have any method of determining which book to read next. I mostly keep my “to read” on Goodreads to remember titles I’m interested in, and I also make ample use of book website wish list features for the same reason. They end up being really handy