Jeffrey Round: On Becoming a Mystery Writer
“I’m an inveterate wanderer and snoop [….] Whether I’m on a bike or in a car, I stick my nose in places that most people avoid just to see what curiosities they hold, especially at night.”
‘Orient’ by Christopher Bollen
Bollen crafts a series of interweaving threads with impressive finesse and detail, and it’s a testament to his talent that the reader can become equally invested in them as they are in getting to the roots of the murders and arson that begin to pepper the narrative
‘Things Half in Shadow’ by Alan Finn
Alan Finn mines the fertile history of post-Civil War Philadelphia and the country’s obsession with Spiritualism during that period to craft a superbly rich, historically-detailed whodunit in Things Half in Shadow
Lesbian Mystery Lammy Finalists
Still catching up on the
‘Blackmail, My Love’ by Katie Gilmartin
Blackmail, My Love is a book to read for the page-turning mystery, but to savor for the nuance and detail and heart-breaking reality of what it was to be a lesbian or a gay man in 1951
‘The Death of Lucy Kyte’ by Nicola Upson
Nicola Upson’s series of mysteries
GunnShots: Spring 2013
This spring the books that
‘Coming Out Can Be Murder’ by Renee James
Experts estimate that the number
‘The Retribution’ and ‘The Vanishing Point’ by Val McDermid
Some of our finest writers are authors of crime fiction. Russell Banks, James Ellroy, Patricia Highsmith, P.D. James and of course, Val McDermid. These writers don’t just tell a detective tale, they peel back the layers of human experience to reveal all the gory bits we try never to see up close.
‘Trick of the Dark’ by Val McDermid
Trick of the Dark (Bywater Books) is something old and something new from McDermid. A stand-alone novel (not one of her series detectives appears) and thoroughly, engagingly, compellingly lesbian as well as being just as bloodily intense as her previous thrillers.