At twenty-six I was living in Wuhan. I had been in China for a couple of years and was looking for a change. Not ready to go back home to New Zealand, I made my way across Europe, through the USA, and on to Argentina. Since that visit, I’ve followed Argentina's economic crises and scoured its newspapers for quirky crime stories. I started to send out true crime articles to various magazines. Eventually, I had enough material to write a novel. For years I’ve wanted to find a literary yet straightforward crime novel set in Argentina. The search goes on, but below are the best I’ve come across so far.
The painter Castel meets Maria, the only person in the world capable of understanding him and his art. They start a relationship, but he becomes obsessive and wants her to live for him only. Castel describes his mind as a dark labyrinth in which occasional flashes of lightning illuminate dark corridors. The increasingly paranoid painter murders Maria and the novel takes the form of his prison-cell confession. Unable to understand why he committed the crime; he is at a loss how to justify himself. Sabato’s tortured protagonist is up there with Camus’ Meursault and Dostoevsky’s Underground Man. Femicide is a huge problem in Latin America, and Sabato was praised for being able to recreate the mind of a monster. However, I found Castel somewhat sympathetic.
One of the great short novels of the twentieth century—in an edition marking the 100th anniversary of the author's birth.
An unforgettable psychological novel of obsessive love, The Tunnel was championed by Albert Camus, Thomas Mann, and Graham Greene upon its publication in 1948 and went on to become an international bestseller. At its center is an artist named Juan Pablo Castel, who recounts from his prison cell his murder of a woman named María Iribarne. Obsessed from the moment he sees her examining one of his paintings, Castel fantasizes for months about how they might meet again. When he…
It’s no wonder South Brooklyn, in the latter half of the last century, is the setting for so many remarkable dramas for both page and screen. In fact, when legendary former NYPD Detective Thomas Dades offered to make introductions to a Colombo Crime Family associate who cooperated with the federal government, I leapt at the opportunity. I was born in Greenpoint in 1971 and grew up on 16th Avenue in the heart of Bensonhurst. It’s not just South Brooklyn’s raw, urban chaotic physical setting, but the sheer volatility of this period in time, where so many transformational trends of the larger culture were evident, and some even epi-centered.
Love to know why this murderous mob masterpiece has yet to make it to film.
This must-have for any True Crime bookshelf is from the dynamic duo of Gene Mustain (author of John Gotti bio) and Jerry Capeci (“Gangland” journalist extraordinaire). It chronicles the blood-soaked rise and demise of the deadly Roy Demeo crew, a gaggle of Gambino grunts a couple of rungs under Captain Nino Gaggi.
It’s an underworld tour of the black-and-blue-collar South Brooklyn rackets, circa 70s and 80s, often through the bloodshot eyes of Dominick Montiglio, Gaggi’s nephew, and bolstered by an avalanche of investigative research. From the innards of a Mafia street crew, to the entrails of an auto-theft ring, to the autopsy of Demeo’s whack-tastic dismemberment routine (a.k,a. “The Gemini Method”), there’s so much to digest, if you can stomach the body count.
Locations of interest: The Gemini Lounge on Flatlands Avenue; Bath Beach (Multiple…
Meet the DeMeo gang - the most deadly killers the Mafia has ever known. They were a small-time Brooklyn corner crew who, headed by the notorious Roy DeMeo, became the hitmen of choice for the Gambino family. Killing for profit and pleasure, they were ultimately feared by everyone - even the Mafia bosses they worked for.
Among other things, I'm an existentialist. A well-constructed mystery novel is an existential puzzle given to the reader to solve at his/her leisure, and the noir sub-genre has the further subtext that the protagonist—and the reader—are doomed in some way even if the solution is nailed. Romance novels are drivel and have no basis in reality, but noir and other types of mystery fiction reflect the way that the world works: you may solve this puzzle problem, but then you are left to a vast world that is rife with puzzles but without a coherent plot. The detective trudges on, achieves a kind of satisfaction, and then is thrust into the next crisis.
Watching
bad people self-destruct is hard work, but author Cain makes sure that the bad
people get what they deserve. A drifter takes a job at a roadside diner that is
run by an old man and his beautiful and unhappy wife; the two youngsters begin
a dangerous affair and then plot to kill the husband so that the girl inherits
the property. But matters do not turn out as they planned. The novel has been
adapted for film at least seven times, with the favorite being the 1946 movie
starring Lana Turner.
'Nobody has ever quite pulled it off the way Cain does, not Hemingway, and not even Raymond Chandler' Tom Wolfe
'It is no accident that movies based on three [of Cain's novels] helped to define the genre known as film noir' NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
'The most starkly elemental thing that has been written for years' EVENING STANDARD
The torrid story of Frank Chambers, the amoral drifter, Cora, the sullen and brooding wife, and Nick Papadakis, the amiable but inconvenient husband, has become a classic of its kind, and established Cain as a major novelist with a spare and…
The Secrets She Keeps was a phenomenal intrigue because author Lena Diaz put me right there next to the characters as they made bad decisions while trying to do the right thing.
The entire book is full of twists and turns I wasn’t expecting, but that ending really took me by surprise! I loved it, but it took me completely off guard, so kudos to Ms. Diaz for pulling off something that could have upset me but instead made me stop and think.
I love cold cases, serial killers, and family drama, and Ms. Diaz delivered all of them, plus a beautiful blossoming romance, in The Secrets She Keeps!
Raine Quintero is so desperate she’s willing to kidnap PI Callum Wright, the one person who can help stay her brother’s execution. Raine raises the stakes by offering a lead on a killer Callum’s pursuing—without revealing the secret she’s actually keeping. Racing against time, they must find the answers before one man dies—and another kills again.
From Harlequin Intrigue: Seek thrills. Solve crimes. Justice served.
Discover more action-packed stories in the A Tennessee Cold Case Story series. All books are stand-alone with uplifting endings but were published in the following order:…
I’ve been researching the Leopold-Loeb case for around a decade, ever since a documentary sparked my interest back in high school. That sent me on a quest for knowledge: devouring all the books I could find on the subject, before turning to archival collections to look at the primary source material. Flash forward to today and I’ve read thousands of newspaper stories, hundreds of scholarly articles and books on the subject and travelled around the country searching in over 50 archives, trying to understand this case as much as I possibly can. Here’s a list of books I found particularly helpful or inspiring on my journey.
Despite being published in 1975, Hal Higdon’s book about the Leopold and Loeb case remains the definitive account, at least to me.
If you’re looking for a factual, in-depth look at the crime, investigation, and sentencing hearing, look no further. Higdon was able to interview and correspond with dozens of people who were close to the case and who personally knew the killers and victim. He weaved those recollections into the narrative along with newspaper reports and quotes from the court documents in addition to the rest of his vast research, which gives his book a wonderful richness and depth.
Among the criminal celebrities of Prohibition-era Chicago, not even Al Capone was more notorious than two well-educated and highly intelligent Jewish boys from wealthy South Side families. In a meticulously planned murder scheme disguised as a kidnapping, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb chose fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks at random as their victim, abandoning his crumpled body in a culvert before his parents had a chance to respond to the ransom demand. Revealing secret testimony and raising questions that have gone unanswered for decades, Hal Higdon separates fact from myth as he unravels the crime, the investigation, and the trial, in which…
I'm a recently retired Professor of French literature and cinema studies at Dartmouth College. Because I love both books and movies, I developed a course on adaptation, which I taught with pleasure for many years. I wanted to give students the opportunity to learn how to analyze literary texts and films, separately and in juxtaposition, and they especially enjoyed discovering how the “same” story works quite differently in different media. In addition to the two volumes on Tavernier, my published books include New Novel, New Wave, New Politics: Fiction and the Representation of History in Postwar France; Parables of Theory: Jean Ricardou’s Metafiction; and Rape and Representation (co-edited with Brenda Silver).
I was introduced to this book through Tavernier’s brilliant adaptation, Clean Slate (Coup de Torchon, 1981). Set in Texas, Thompson’s novel was published in 1964, during the Civil Rights Movement, and it offers a portrait of petty-minded racism in the continuing aftermath of slavery. Tavernier’s adaptation transposes the story to 1930s French colonial West Africa. I remain haunted by the ways the two settings illuminate each other. Tavernier’s blending of a deadly serious historical crisis with touches of comedy—slapstick even—brings both eras and the novel itself to life in enjoyable and instructive ways.
A classic crime novel from 'the best suspense writer going, bar none' New York Times
Nick Corey likes being the high sheriff of Potts County. But Nick has a few problems that he needs to deal with: like his loveless marriage, the pimps who torment him, the honest man who is running against him in the upcoming elections and the women who adore him.
And it turns out that Nick isn't anything like as amiable, easy-going or as slow as he seems. He's as sly, brutal and corrupt as they come.
Not my usual genre--a black humour novel about a young female serial killer--but I spent evening laughing out loud as I read it, and quickly devoured the whole series. It does have some gory bits, but they humour is great, especially the MC's daily lists of those she wishes she could kill, which included vapid celebrities, conspiracy nuts, and antivaxxers!
'If you like your thrillers darkly comic and outrageous this ticks all the boxes' The Sun
The last person who called me 'Sweetpea' ended up dead...
'I haven't killed anyone for three years and I thought that when it happened again I'd feel bad. Like an alcoholic taking a sip of whisky. But no. Nothing. I had a blissful night's sleep. Didn't wake up at all. And for once, no bad dream either. This morning I feel balanced. Almost sane, for once.'
Rhiannon is your average girl next door, settled with her boyfriend and little dog...but she's got a killer…
I don't usually care for thrillers, but as it happens, this novel had me eagerly turning the pages. The author is a very skilled writer and has you in the palm of his hand as he propels you from one turn of events to another. This isn't just a read for entertainment, though -- it has something to say about human nature. Yet it's never fussy or pretentious, far from it.
“Spectacular. . . . Ten shades blacker and several corpses grimmer than the novels of John Grisham. . . . Do yourself a favor. Read this book.” —Entertainment Weekly
Two brothers and their friend stumble upon the wreckage of a plane–the pilot is dead and his duffle bag contains four million dollars in cash. In order to hide, keep, and share the fortune, these ordinary men all agree to a simple plan.
Sylvia Shults is a librarian by day, a ghost hunter by night, and the “hostess with the mostest ghosties” of the Lights Out podcast. During her twenty-plus-year career in libraries, she has managed to smuggle enough words out in her pockets to put together several books of her own, including 44 Years in Darkness, Fractured Spirits: Hauntings at the Peoria State Hospital, and Spirits of Christmas. She sits in dark, spooky places so you don't have to, and shares her experiences of her brushes with the other side of the Veil.
The Lore series, based on the World of Lore podcast, is a wonderful collection of the strange, bizarre, and creepy. This particular book focuses on people who gained fame through their disturbing hobbies and unpleasant predilections: serial killers, criminals, psychopaths, and other associated weirdos. I've always been drawn to collections like these, and this is one of the best. Check out the others in the series too.
A chilling, lavishly illustrated who's-who of the most despicable people ever to walk the earth, featuring both rare and best-loved stories from the hit podcast Lore, now an online streaming series.
Here are the incredible true stories of some of the mortals who achieved notoriety in history and folklore through horrible means. Monsters of this sort - serial killers, desperate criminals, and socially mobile people with a much darker double-life - are, in fact, quite real . . . including H. H. Holmes, the infamous Chicago serial killer; William Brodie, the Edinburgh criminal mastermind who inspired The Strange Case of…
As an investigative journalist, I’ve spent my career interviewing and trying to understand the worst of humanity: murderers, child molesters and rapists. They are all predators, but rape is personal for me. I was a young journalist starting my career when a serial rapist assaulted my neighbor. He entered many things uninvited—homes, bedrooms, and my mind. For twenty years, I was obsessed—learning everything I could about him and sexual assault. I read these books to understand why the justice system and society sometimes fail survivors. Yet these remarkable survivors still manage to heal their trauma–at least, that’s what I found in each of these books.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve often fantasized about revenge. I think anyone who suffers some sort of trauma thinks about righting the wrong. In cases of rape, the punishment often does not fit the crime. And many women never get justice at all—if the rapist is not caught.
But in this book, that’s not the case. It could be argued that justice comes in the form of revenge when three women strike back at their abusers. Elizabeth Flock’s intimate narrative stems from her own experience as a young woman who was drugged and raped while in Europe in her twenties.
This beautifully investigated book forces you to contemplate the true meaning of justice.
'An arresting, deeply reported new book' Washington Post
'This gripping, inflaming book, itself an act of fury, shows how revenge can transmute into politics or be crushed by it' Larissa MacFarquhar
'Flock has a novelist's knack for creating suspense . . . This one will stick with readers' Publishers Weekly
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In this profoundly moving book, Emmy-winning journalist Elizabeth Flock explores the stories of three women living in deeply patriarchal places with destructive cultures of honour, places in which institutions - government, police, courts - failed to protect women from violence, leaving them no option but to stand up and…
