I’m a former psychology professor, and I find that in both my reading and writing, I wonder about individuals’ backgrounds and motivations for their actions. I particularly enjoy novels that take a deep dive into what makes individuals behave as they do. And criminal behavior, with its violations of norms and laws, offers an especially rich opportunity for writers to delve into the reasons people resort to criminality. This is why I was drawn to the characters Celia and Ed Cooney and decided to write a novel about their crime spree.
I can’t help myself—I’m an author: I love an elegantly structured novel.
Ariel Lawhon’s novel is so entertaining and so well-paced that it was easy to lose myself in it. It all starts with the 1930 disappearance of Justice Joseph Crater.
Then we get chapters told from the points of view of his wife, maid, and mistress, with the chapters alternating and dovetailing in such a way as to provide a fascinating peek into the lives of the characters who revolve around the judge.
When I reached the final chapter, I felt like a big Rubik’s cube had clicked into place.
From the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia comes a “genuinely surprising whodunit” (USA Today)that tantalizingly reimagines a scandalous murder mystery that rocked the nation.
One summer night in 1930, Judge Joseph Crater steps into a New York City cab and is never heard from again. Behind this great man are three women, each with her own tale to tell: Stella, his fashionable wife, the picture of propriety; Maria, their steadfast maid, indebted to the judge; and Ritzi, his showgirl mistress, willing to seize any chance to break out of the chorus line.
Everyone knows how the story of Bonnie and Clyde ends, but I loved how this novel delved into Bonnie’s background and life both before and after she met Clyde.
Bonnie grew up in a chaotic home, and when she met Clyde her whole life changed. She was so smitten with the charming Clyde that she just wanted to be with him—and that included tagging along on robberies and other ill-fated capers.
This novel doesn’t romanticize Bonnie and Clyde. It left me reflecting on the differences between male and female criminals—and the reasons they resort to crime.
“Absorbing...poignant, often heartbreaking...Schwarz is a vivid storyteller.” –The New York Times Book Review
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Drowning Ruth vividly evokes the perennially fascinating true crime love affair of Bonnie and Clyde in this suspenseful, gorgeously detailed fictional portrait of Bonnie Parker, one of America's most enigmatic women.
Born in a small town in the desolate reaches of western Texas and shaped by her girlhood in an industrial wasteland on the outskirts of Dallas, Bonnie Parker was a natural performer and a star student. She dreamed of being a movie star or a singer or a…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I enjoy stories about unsolved crimes, and Emma Donoghue starts with a murder in 1876 San Francisco and builds a story around a character trying to solve the crime.
The main characters, Burlesque dancer Blanche and frog catcher Jenny, quickly drew me into the story. When Jenny is murdered, Blanche believes she knows who murdered Jenny—and thinks she is responsible. I loved how Donoghue captured the rough and gritty San Francisco of the times.
I’m a great fan of author’s notes at the end of historical novels, and Donoghue’s lengthy afterword reveals much about what parts of the novel are based on fact and which imagined—and how she went about researching the story.
Inspired by a true unsolved crime, Frog Music is a gripping historical novel by Emma Donoghue, author of the multi-million-copy bestseller Room.
San Francisco, 1876: a stifling heat wave and smallpox epidemic have engulfed the City.
Deep in the streets of Chinatown live three former stars of the Parisian circus: Blanche, now an exotic dancer at the House of Mirrors, her lover Arthur and his companion Ernest.
When an eccentric outsider joins their little circle, secrets unravel, changing everything - and leaving one of them dead.
A New York Times bestseller, Frog Music is a dark and compelling story of…
I love an atmospheric read, and this one is Gothic and foreboding.
It’s 1889 Liverpool, and Constance Sullivan has been accused of murdering her husband, a chronic consumer of arsenic. At the time, arsenic was thought to have many health benefits.
Mitchell’s novel kicks off with the arrest of Constance and then unfolds into a back-and-forth narrative about their marriage and her trial. I wondered at every turn how Constance could be guilty. Even though she claims she’s innocent, I couldn’t see how she could possibly overcome all the testimony against her.
I was drawn in from the first page and could hardly put the book down.
A woman is accused of killing her husband, but is she guilty? Inspired by a true historical case, this spellbinding novel will keep you guessing until the final heart-stopping revelation…
I’m on trial for the murder of my husband William. But no one knows the truth about my marriage.
I sit in the dock each day and listen to them tell their lies. That William wasn’t taking arsenic, that he was a nobleman who would never hurt anyone. That I’m a cunning, deceitful woman who should hang for what I’ve done.
Everyone betrayed me. My best friend, the family, the…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I don’t often read nonfiction, but Kate Summerscale’s meticulously researched book, with all the gritty details about a Victorian-era matricide, reads like a suspenseful novel.
The discussions of views about insanity, criminality, penny dreadfuls (or penny bloodies as some called them), and treatment of criminals and the insane at the time absolutely fascinated me. Summerscale follows Robert Coombes, who was only 13 when the crime was committed, from his childhood into adulthood.
I found this book a completely edifying experience—by the end of the story, I felt like I knew Robert, even if I couldn’t understand his crime.
Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Book!
From the internationally bestselling author, a deeply researched and atmospheric murder mystery of late Victorian-era London
In the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes (age 13) and his brother Nattie (age 12) were seen spending lavishly around the docklands of East London -- for ten days in July, they ate out at coffee houses and took trips to the seaside and the theater. The boys told neighbors they had been left home alone while their mother visited family in Liverpool, but their aunt was suspicious. When she eventually forced the…
In January of 1924, a petite bob-haired woman and a tall, handsome man robbed a Brooklyn grocery store. Over the coming weeks, they struck time and again, making a laughing stock of the police. The newspapers couldn’t get enough of the story—and played up every detail they could gather about the pretty gun-toting dame who ordered store clerks around with the bluster of a sailor.
Celia and Ed Cooney pre-dated Bonnie and Clyde by a decade and created a sensation, not just in New York, but across the country. Whoever heard of a pretty young thing robbing with such gleeful abandon? Increasingly humiliated, the police give the order to shoot to kill. Would Celia and Ed escape the deadly dragnet?
