The year is 1956, and let us set the scene: Elvis Presley enters the US music charts for the first time with Heartbreak Hotel, and later in the year, his magic hips appear on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time; Ninety-six U.S. Congressmen sign the Southern Manifesto, a protest against the 1954 Supreme…
A mystery, a love story, and a search through a shadowy past. Two strangers unite in The Last of the Stanfields, a novel of family secrets by international bestselling author Marc Levy, the most-read contemporary French author in the world. It’s very hard to be novel (excuse the pun) with a mystery plot structure these…
Sadie by Courtney Summers is a propulsive and harrowing novel about the depth of a sister’s love, with an ending you won’t be able to stop talking about. Take a Visual Tour of Sadie with GIFnotes! “Created and hosted by one of our longtime producers, West McCray, The Girls explores what happens when a devastating crime reveals a…
New York Times-bestselling author Carrie Vaughn is probably best known in the fantasy, science fiction, and romance genres for her widely acclaimed Kitty Norville urban fantasy series. In addition, Vaughn has written several other novels, as well as more than 80 short stories—two of which were nominated for the Hugo Award. Despite all this, her…
Criminals and their heinous acts are undoubtedly something that fascinates us all, especially fans of thrillers and true crime stories. We follow the sordid details when the bad guys are caught and put on trial, but it’s not the crime itself that draws us in. It’s that unanswerable question of why. Why would someone feel…
“In Dark Company” The Amish Country of Ohio is, perhaps, one of the more unique settings for a crime thriller series, but New York Times-bestselling author Linda Castillo has proven time and again that this world makes for a compelling read. And while her short stories—set in the same world as her novels—are quick reads,…
You have the perfect life … How far would you go to protect it? The Night Visitor is the third novel by award-winning author Lucy Atkins. “But what will not ambition and revenge Descend to?” – John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book Nine. Thus begins The Night Visitor, the third novel by Lucy Atkins, the award-winning author of…
The Woman in the Woods by John Connolly is the 16th book in the Charlie Parker series, where the body of a woman—who apparently died in childbirth—is discovered, and Parker is hired to track down both her identity and her missing child. Irish writer John Connolly has won the Agatha, Anthony, Barry, Edgar, and Shamus awards…
When news broke that the Golden State Killer had been arrested, the true crime community was shaken and elated, and of course, all thoughts turned to one woman: Michelle McNamara, whose recently published, ground-breaking work of investigative journalism, I’ll be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, reinvigorated a…
When people hear the name Jim Jones, I think it’s fair to say that most would also think immediately of suicide by Kool-Aid. In November of 1978, 909 people—304 of them children—died of poisoning in Jonestown, Guyana. All were members of Jim Jones’s religious group, the Peoples Temple. Jeff Guinn’s Edgar Award-nominated work, The Road…
