This searing debut mystery novel pulls no punches as it examines life in pre-COVID India. While her main narrative centers on the murder of a young girl in the small village of Teetarpur, author Nilanjana Roy deftly moves the action back and forth in both time and place, from the quiet of the foothills of…
You’re reading a winner when before you’ve even finished the first chapter you’re thinking, When’s the movie coming out? This is like Crazy Rich Asians with a murderous spin. Clarissa Song, freelance journalist’s Khin Haymar’s demanding boss, dangles the assignment of a lifetime to Khin, an opportunity to profile Tyler Tun, Hollywood’s hottest male lead.…
Charlie Hudson has worked hard her whole life not only to get by, but to live up to her mother’s high-flying aspirations for her. It’s not easy growing up in a small town like Sawyer, Pennsylvania. Sawyer’s particular mix of unyielding social prejudices makes life difficult not only for a teenage mom having a baby…
When I started my debut novel, I didn’t know anything about writing fiction. I’d always been a voracious reader, and I loved to write. But constructing a novel—a traditional murder mystery—involved skills that were all new to me. So I gave myself a crash course in crime fiction. I read craft books. Listened to podcasts.…
Whether it’s crime fiction in the style of Michael Connelly or a legal thriller like John Grisham writes, Robert Dugoni is the grandmaster of them both. His Tracy Crosswhite police series has been breaking sales records, and Dugoni’s latest, Her Deadly Game, launches a new legal series that will surely be another bestseller. Keera Duggan…
If you haven’t watched the movie, stop reading since there are massive spoilers ahead. Photo Credit: T-Street Productions Can we take a second and fully inbreathiate what an extraordinary movie Glass Onion was? Simultaneously layered as a whodunit and a revenge story, Rian Johnson creates something so complex, so outlandish, and yet at the same…
When I started writing space murder mysteries, I went to the master for inspiration: Agatha Christie. I didn’t read all of her books, but I read my favorites multiple times, trying to coax out every clue, red herring, and other uniquely-Christie nuggets she slipped in. Her books are obviously brilliant, but as I delved deeper,…
When Isla Larsen Sanchez was eight years old, her mother Elena sent her to Puerto Rico by herself for the first time, flying from New Jersey in the care of a flight attendant, as was usual for the 1970s. Ordinarily, Isla would spend summers in the town where her mother grew up, with both her…
So, full disclaimer, I’ve been a huge fan of Fabian Nicieza since the 1990s, when he wrote multiple X-Men titles for Marvel Comics. When I heard that he had moved into writing novels, I was ecstatic. Mortifyingly, I have not yet had time to pick up the first book in the Suburban Dicks series, but…
