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On Cumberland Island, Georgia, between the twisted oaks of the maritime forest and the broad, white dunes of the ocean-facing coast, I met a feral horse. He—a stallion straight from the cover of Black Beauty, if a little scragglier—had positioned himself on the narrow causeway that crossed a freshwater pond, and, by his snorting and head tossing and the way he ripped at the earth with his hooves, it was clear that he did not intend to let me cross. The horse moved towards me in a kind of stiff march. My friends scattered. I turned away at an angle (would he charge if I showed my back?) and walked into the woods beside the trail. I tried not to look at the horse. I shed my red jacket (were pissed-off feral stallions like Spanish bulls?). In the scrawny pines, I felt better. I was off the trail, but the stallion was nowhere in sight. I conferred with my friends. I took out my map. We could meet the trail at a different point, but we would have to, eventually, cross the causeway if we wanted to see the dunes. Over my shoulder, there was a crackling of leaves, the sound of wood breaking. “Behind you!” my friend (actually) said. It was the stallion, only yards away. He had followed me into the woods (why hadn’t I heard him sooner?). Again, I cut my eyes from the horse and walked away, deeper into the pines. I tried to stay calm. I imagined the hard crescents of the stallion’s hooves cutting into my back, but they never came. *** While this was (so far) my most hostile encounter with the feral horses of Cumberland Island—the descendants of a population imported from Globe, Arizona by the Carnegies in the 1920s—it was one of many. During my time researching the island’s horses and landscape, tourists would sometimes ask me on the ferry from St. Mary’s, “What are the chances we’ll see a wild horse?” Though the 200-odd feral horses can be viewed reliably on the grounds of the ruined mansion, picking over the few fallow fields of the island, or walking the sand trails in small, somber trains—typically a skinny mare and her foals—there are no “wild” horses on Cumberland Island. Only feral domestic stock left to eke out what living they can on the island, where browse is scarce, freshwater is limited, and their lifespan is less than half of what it might be. (For those interested, recent journalism on the horses’ situation can be found here.) It was my fascination with the horses of Cumberland, with the words “wild” and “feral” and the way they move in our imaginations, and—yes—with the natural beauty and diversity of life on Georgia’s largest barrier island that led me to write my first novel, the coming-of-age thriller, Bomb Island. On my fictionalized version of Cumberland Island, called Bomb Island for the unexploded atomic bomb sunk off its coast, it’s not horses, but the white tiger, Sugar, that stalks people from the cover of the saw palms. First, I wanted to write Jaws, then an artists’ romance, then climate fiction. As it often goes, all of these ideas mixed and folded and accordioned into the novel as it came to be, but it occurs to me now, years later, that the deepest root of the book might be found at the base of that causeway, with that irate dude-horse tearing up the ground, looking like a living specter of comeuppance for his and his forebears’ stranding. Like the characters in Bomb Island, I grew up feeling at home in the woods, hiking and hunting; this was one of many times that I was humbled by the natural world. Like the other authors on this list, I found conflict, catharsis, even pleasure in the risk of the wild. Here are five books that will transport you to wild worlds this summer, from which you may never return: Water Music: A Cape Cod Story, Marcia Peck (2023) Lily Grainger and her family find a new home on the edge of the continent, where she grapples with fragmented family dynamics and new friendships. Set against Massachusetts’ scenic coastline, the novel explores identity, belonging, and redemption. Through Lily’s journey of self-discovery, Peck captures the beauty and complexity of Cape Cod, weaving a tale of love, forgiveness, and the small ways that we hold each other together. Swamplandia, Karen Russel (2011) A haunting, coming-of-age story that centers the Bigtree family’s alligator-wrestling theme park, located on a mangrove island off the coast of Florida. The novel follows the Bigtree children on their quest to save their home and sister—a journey that will take them to the brink of the underworld. Magical realism animates an exploration of family grief and resilience amidst lush, otherworldly landscapes and eccentric characters. Teenager, Bud Smith (2022) In an intimate reflection on adolescence, Teenager follows two lovers as they escape their small New Jersey town for a road trip across the country. Smith navigates the complexities of life in violent transition in prose that is sharp and feeling, rendering a vision of America is raw and unflinching, as likely to kill you as it is to make you whole. The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides (1993) A chilling suburban drama narrated by a group of boys fascinated by the mysterious deaths of their neighbors, the Lisbon sisters. The Virgin Suicides makes space for itself as a contemporary classic that takes on the difficult territory of abuse, oppression, loss of innocence, and intrigue in a novel that renders profound tragedy with dark humor. Alongside Eugenides’ young characters, readers are compelled to immerse themselves in a mystery hidden in plain sight. Empire of Light, Michael Bible (2018) A hypnotic novel set in the American South that follows the rambling of the hapless Alvis Maloney. In small-town North Carolina, Maloney finds new friends and trouble in a surreal exploration of companionship, belonging, and redemption. Like his teacher, Barry Hannah, Bible’s prose is cutting, bizarre, even feverish. Empire of Light evokes and updates the Southern Gothic tradition in a modern narrative rife with melancholic beauty, wanderlust, and yearning. *** View the full article

The 8:04 is coming down the tracks. Board at your own risk. This is the warning on the cover reveal for my new thriller The Man on the Train. Ever since the original damsel in distress was tied to the railroad tracks and early audiences purportedly fled in terror at the sight of the locomotive roaring into the station in an 1895 silent short by the Lumière brothers, filmmakers and novelists have explored the thrilling possibilities of this singular form of travel. What makes trains so irresistible to suspense auteurs? Because of their confined, claustrophobic interiors that force strangers into intimate proximity with few places to hide and no means of escape? The fact that they’re constantly in motion, hurtling through time and space across borders and treacherous terrain where neither the passengers nor the audience can get off? We hear it before we see it, a shrill, piercing sound that sets our adrenaline pumping, especially when it starts out as a human shriek and morphs into a train whistle in The 39 Steps, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 tale of international intrigue. Then suddenly there it is, lumbering into sight. Which means you’ll have to move with lightning speed if you’re the villain preparing to push your unwitting victim onto the tracks. Or it can be a deceptively ordinary arrival, as the Metro North pulls into the Scarsdale station where my married protagonist Guy Kingship waits with his fellow commuters for the doors to open. Then it’s every man and woman for themselves as they race aboard to snag that coveted aisle or window seat. But Guy’s everyday train ride into Manhattan becomes a journey with an unexpected stop in the past he has buried deep when a beautiful woman takes the empty seat next to him. Speaking of seats on trains, in Hitchcock’s 1941 paranoid thriller Suspicion, based on the novel Before the Fact, the heroine (portrayed by Joan Fontaine) is happily ensconced in her first-class compartment when handsome stranger Cary Grant enters and arouses her suspicions by presenting a third-class ticket to the conductor. The Master of Suspense’s love affair with locomotives included 1941’s Shadow of a Doubt, which opens at a train station with Teresa Wright’s character eagerly awaiting the arrival of her favorite uncle and namesake Charlie, portrayed by Joseph Cotten. The action climaxes with the story’s antagonist plunging to his death into the path of an oncoming train. In the 1945 film Spellbound, it’s the layout of the tracks that evokes a plot-advancing flashback in amnesiac Gregory Peck while train-bound with psychoanalyst Ingrid Bergman. Our first glimpse of the thief played by Tippi Hedren (and that infamous yellow pocketbook) in 1964’s Marnie is from the back as she walks briskly across the platform to await her train. Cary Grant meets another beautiful woman on a train in the 1959 cross-country thriller North by Northwest, which leaves the after-story to the viewer’s imagination as it concludes with Grant and Eva Marie Saint on a sleeper train about to enter a tunnel. The Lady Vanishes, adapted from the aptly titled novel The Wheel Spins, was Hitch’s only film with the action set almost entirely on a train. This 1938 spy classic, shot on a ninety-foot set in a London film studio, brilliantly captures the sense of confinement ideal for attempting to conceal sinister doings (including a scene in a baggage car) in the story of an elderly woman who disappears aboard a European express where everyone denies having seen her. With a screenplay co-written by Raymond Chandler and based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel, the seminal 1951 Strangers on a Train delivers first-class chills. Although little of the film’s action actually takes place on a train, who can forget the fateful in-transit encounter between Farley Granger’s Guy Haines and Robert Walker’s Bruno Antony, the charming psychopath who suggests they swap murders? Nowhere is premeditated evil more on display than during the train sequence in Billy Wilder’s 1944 film noir Double Indemnity, as Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray carry out an ingenious plan for disposing of the body of Stanwyck’s dead husband. What about the trains that bear witness to crimes real or imagined? The recovering alcoholic heroine in Paula Hawkins’s 2015 The Girl on the Train sees something shocking taking place in the backyard of a house she passes on her daily commute to London. Another Lady on the Train was portrayed by musical star Deanne Durbin in the 1945 film about a San Francisco debutante on a New York-bound train who looks up from her book just in time to watch a murder being committed in a nearby building. In Agatha Christie’s 1957 mystery 4:50 from Paddington, Mrs. McGillicuddy is en route to visit her friend Jane Marple when her train passes another train speeding along in the same direction, where a man appears to be strangling his intended victim. Unreliable narrators or eyewitnesses to brutal acts of violence? Trains run by timetable, and this strict adherence to schedules heightens suspense and the feeling of impending danger. The action can turn into a furious race against the clock, which happens in the climactic moments of The Man on the Train when Guy Kingship’s attorney wife Linda rushes to prevent a murder with only minutes to spare. Transcontinental journeys add a sense of the exotic and the unknown. Christie’s 1934 masterpiece Murder on the Orient Express, written during the UK’s Golden Age of Steam Travel and made into two feature films, is the quintessential train tale because all the action takes place on the fabled luxury liner as it wends its way from Istanbul to Paris. In a setting where physical movement is limited, you can’t commit murder and flee the scene unless you want to risk your life jumping off a speeding locomotive. Even if you happen to be seen, your appearance arouses little suspicion because you are not out of place. You are who and where you’re supposed to be: an anonymous passenger on a train. But nothing and no one is what they seem as the Queen of Crime subverts expectations and the train becomes a repository for the characters’ vengeful secrets and a place of sudden, violent death. Now it’s up to Hercule Poirot, confronted with the most challenging case of his career, to use his little grey cells to deduce the killer’s identity. Here are a few more films that feature some form of train in the title: The Sleeping Car Murders, a 1965 Costas Gravas noir film about a woman found strangled in her berth based on Sebastien Japrisot’s novel 10:30 from Marseilles reminiscent of Murder on the Orient Express; the eponymous 1929 film The Flying Scotsman, believed to be the most iconic train in British railway history; Boxcar Bertha (1972), Martin Scorcese’s second feature film; The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, the 1974 film about a subway train taken hostage; Bong joon-ho’s 2013 film Snowpiercer, based on the 1982 graphic novel about earth’s surviving humans living on an enormous train that circumnavigates their glacial planet. The list goes on. Maybe now you’re starting to get an idea of why trains make such pitch-perfect suspense and mystery settings. As Federico Fellini said: “Our duty as storytellers is to bring people to the station. There each person will chose his or her own train.” All aboard! *** View the full article

Los Angeles is the quintessential city of mystery, and I firmly believe that my decision to live here ultimately led me to write crime fiction. But that journey took decades. I wasn’t one of the starry-eyed optimists who thought of LA as the promised land. When I moved from New York City to Los Angeles 30 years ago, I did so with trepidation. Actually, that’s putting a good face on my true feelings. Though I was originally a transplant from the Midwest to the Big Apple, I’d become one of those New Yorkers with a decidedly jaundiced view of the West Coast. And as a costume designer who made her living in theater, my attitude toward the movie business was equally disdainful. At the time, I thought that making the jump from stage to film was tantamount to “selling out.” But the practical side of my nature told me it would be wise to take a closer look at the more lucrative business of film, and if I was going to do that, I wanted to do it where they invented the industry. In hindsight, I admit that a big part of my prejudice regarding the move stemmed from my fear of the unknown. Plus, I was still quite young, idealistic, and in many ways, naive. Despite my doubts, I moved to Los Angeles in October of 1990, rented a tiny apartment in Silverlake, and bought a used car. And I was lucky enough to land a job in movies within 2 weeks of landing in LA, which sealed the deal for me. I became a reluctant Angeleno and for the next 27 years, I made my living in the film industry. During those years, my relationship with my adopted city went through many phases. I was still living in that little apartment in Silverlake when riots blew up the city that still felt new to me in 1992. I’d been working over on the Sony Studios lot that day, and when the violence erupted, the studio closed early in the afternoon. As I made the 15-mile trip across town via Venice Boulevard, I drove past burning strip malls and cars full of young men who brandished baseball bats at unlucky motorists like me who were just hoping to get home. And I’m very grateful that I did make it safely to my apartment where I holed up for the next 3 days, feeling frightened and heartbroken for the entire city. That’s a piece LA’s history I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life, and though I hope we’ll never see that kind of violence again, the problems that sparked the riots have never been fully rooted out. I’ve come to understand that Los Angeles will always have a dark side. It’s inevitable in a city so vast, so populous, and so complex — a sociological stew that makes LA unique. I cherish that diversity, even though I recognize that simmering conflict is a residual element of our blended society. For this diehard LA convert, the benefits of mixing all those rich cultural influences far outweigh any negative issues created by their synergy. Over time, that realization has gradually transformed my relationship with my adopted city. Los Angeles has been such an important part of my life experience and my development as both a human being and an artist that the city and I now belong together in a way I could never have imagined when I moved here. I’ve had the great good fortune to make wonderful life-long friends and enjoyed a long, lucrative career working on the costumes for movies like Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and X-Men Days of Future Past. And when I felt it was time to make yet another major life transition, changing my vocation from working in film to writing mystery fiction, I knew the kaleidoscopic nature of Los Angeles would be my touchstone because my heart will always be at home here. But LA is not only the location for my books; I think of the city as a living, breathing character in my stories. They couldn’t be written about anyplace else in the world. In part that’s because the books are set behind the scenes in the movie business. The film industry and the city of Los Angeles were born together; it’s arguable each made the other’s existence viable — not twins but rather symbiotic partners that supported and cross-pollinated one another until both grew into the giant entities they’ve become. Now you don’t think of one without the other; they’re inseparable in the popular zeitgeist, their combined magic luring dreamers from all over the world. And though it’s certainly possible to be inspired by the sheer scope and magnificence of Los Angeles as a symbol of glamour and excitement — many artists, writers, and filmmakers have ingeniously used those qualities to great effect in their work — I prefer more intimate glimpses into the many hearts and faces that make up this beautiful, troubling, complicated city. Because that immense sprawl, the unending carpet of lights that’s often used as visual shorthand for LA is just a superficial image. It has nothing to do with the true identity of the city, which is actually a patchwork of many different communities. Some are incorporated as separate municipalities, yet they march shoulder to shoulder from the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley to the Pacific Ocean with boundaries that exist only on paper. East LA, El Sereno, Downtown Los Angeles (which also encompasses Little Tokyo and Chinatown), Echo Park, Silverlake, Koreatown, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Venice, and Santa Monica, each community with a distinct personality, some of which have blended over time, settling into various stages of overlapping influences with one another. That’s part of the real magic of Los Angeles — the schizy, unpredictable interplay between those different faces of the city is a continuous source of drama, the heart of any good story and definitely any good mystery. Anyway, that’s how it seems to me. I’m humbled to realize after all these years that my adopted city and my adopted profession are two of the greatest sources of inspiration for my writing. I’ve always been an avid reader. From childhood I dreamed of being a writer, and I’ve written for my own creative satisfaction throughout my life. But it wasn’t until I’d been in LA and working on movies for a number of years that I became a real fan of mystery fiction. And that happened almost by accident. I discovered that one of the few ways I could disengage my brain from the workday of a busy film was to read a good murder mystery at bedtime. Eventually (after reading several hundred in that genre) I started to imagine writing murder mystery stories of my own. So it was the combination of the years I’ve spent living in LA and learning to appreciate all the nuances of the city together with the variety of (sometimes jaw-dropping) experiences I’ve had working on movies that finally led me to write crime fiction. Turns out, a big movie in production is the perfect setting for a murder mystery because a movie company is its own unique community — a microcosm of the larger society that spawned it — but with its own set of relationships and always plenty of drama happening behind the scenes. Final Cut, the first book in my Hollywood Mystery series featuring movie key costumer Joey Jessop as the main character, was inspired by situations I encountered on one film in particular that I won’t name here. I didn’t stumble over the body of a fellow crew member on the set as Joey did, but many of the other incidents that appear in the book parallel actual events. Star Struck, Hollywood Mystery Book #2 was based in part on my experiences within the film world, but the incident that triggers the mystery, a fatal traffic accident near the movie set where Joey and her colleagues are working, was inspired by a startling event I witnessed in downtown Los Angeles. I watched in horror as a wild-eyed girl dashed barefoot through traffic across one of the wide north-south avenues. Fortunately, that girl made it to the opposite side of the street without being injured. But I’ll never forget her death-defying sprint or the panic I felt until she leaped safely onto the sidewalk without breaking stride. No one appeared to be chasing her, and I’ve always wondered what made her run. It’s a mystery that’s stayed with me, a seed of an idea that grew into a story. For me, that kind of capriciousness is a treasure that makes Los Angeles a Pandora’s box of imagination, a source of both great misfortune and hope — an endless well of creative inspiration for nearly any story about any sort of person who might be living or traveling through this iconic crossroads of the world. *** View the full article

Genre fiction is my jam, so I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes my favorite books tick. Growing up, I read a lot of macho thrillers: spies and submarines, combatants and operatives. These battles were mostly fought by well-trained experts. It’s fun to learn to pilot a submarine or stop a terrorist plot in Times Square. But the recent wave of heroine-centric thrillers is exciting in a whole new way. Many of these new titles are shelved as “domestic suspense,” aka “ordinary woman with a big, scary problem.” In these books, the heroine has to save herself. And she’s usually unprepared for the challenge ahead. On the one hand, there aren’t any Bourne-like superpowers to admire. But on the flip side, these novels ask a different question—what if it’s you in the hot seat? How fast can a nice girl from the suburbs find her dark side if the situation calls for extraordinary measures? It turns out that watching an amateur get up to speed is just as exciting as looking over the shoulder of a trained professional. There’s so much more at stake. That’s the zeitgeist I gave to The Five Year Lie. When her dead boyfriend suddenly sends her a confounding text, single mom Ariel Cafferty has a deep dark problem. The more questions she asks, the scarier it gets. Before I even wrote the prologue, I was inspired by these other domestic thrillers by female authors: The Last Flight by Julie Clark This inventive story actually has two heroines trying to save themselves via a fateful ticket swap—and identity swap—at the airport. Their stories unfold via two competing timelines and through absolutely flawless writing. I couldn’t put it down. With My Little Eye by Joshilyn Jackson The heroine of this thriller is an actress who’s being stalked by a shadowy figure who seems to know her awfully well. The police don’t seem to be doing much about it, which leaves her fighting for her own safety, and questioning every interaction with the men in her life. The writing is exquisite, and you’ll keep turning the pages, trying to figure out which of Meribel’s male acquaintances can be trusted. And which one can’t… On a Quiet Street by Seraphina Nova Glass The medley of women at the center of this drama are so well drawn that you’ll be hooked from chapter one. One woman believes her husband is cheating on her. And her neighbor, who’s trying and failing to recover from her own tragedy, offers up her services as an amateur sleuth. What could go wrong? A lot, as it turns out. This book’s power is in the way you’re rooting for everyone, even when you’re not sure they deserve it. And you won’t see the ending coming. The First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston This is one of those rare story concepts where you don’t quite know what’s going on, but you don’t mind all that much. The protagonist, Evie Porter, tells you right off the bat that she’s a con artist, willfully enmeshing her life with a certain Ryan Summer on orders from her shadowy boss. But things get wild all too soon, and you’ll be turning pages at warp speed to see if Evie can make it out of this mess alive. Girl Forgotten by Karin Slaughter This pick is cheating a little because Andrea Oliver, the heroine, is a US Marshall. But it’s literally her first day on the job! This setup proves to be brilliant and often hilarious. Thrown into the deep end of a big case, Andrea has to set aside her inexperience as well as her imposter syndrome to find the killer before he finds her. *** View the full article

Each month, I attempt to perform the Herculean endeavor of rounding up all the best psychological thrillers coming out, and each month, I must admit to myself the true impossibility of the task in the face of so many good titles. May, however, has been particularly challenging, in that there are just So. Many. Good. Thrillers. My apologies to all those that I was compelled to leave off the list below, for the simple reason of not being allowed to read, like, all the time. I still have to sleep, okay? And also, of course…do my job. Anyway, enjoy this selection of delicious scandal and disturbing insights! Ruth Ware, One Perfect Couple (Gallery/Scout) Love Island meets And Then There Were None in Ruth Ware’s latest psychological thriller as five couples in an island-based reality TV show find themselves cut off from the mainland during a ferocious storm as a killer picks them off, one by one. Ruth Ware is the new reigning queen of crime, so it makes perfect sense for her to take on a classic Christie set-up. Emma Rosenblum, Very Bad Company (Flatiron) I saw a tweet recently about how one of the most underrated possibilities for thrillers is the corporate retreat gone horribly, hilariously awry. Emma Rosenblum, author of last year’s fabulously scandalous Bad Summer People, has returned with an equally sordid and sardonic take on forced corporate fun, following a group of tech elites as their soused vacation, and house-of-cards company, quickly unravel. Andromeda Romano-Lax, The Deepest Lake (Soho) Andromeda Romano-Lax takes readers to a memoir-writing workshop as pricey as it is remote in her latest novel, a searing meditation on narcissism and motherhood. One attendee has a secret goal: discover the truth behind her daughter’s disappearance, soon after starting work as a general assistant to the workshop’s charismatic conductor. I didn’t have Grand Guignol Mother’s Day on my bingo card for 2024, but here we are. Fiona McPhillips, When We Were Silent (Flatiron) Fiona McPhillips breathes new urgency into the private school thriller with this tale of justice delayed. In When We Were Silent, Louise Manson enrolls at an elite Dublin academy with a singular goal: expose the swim coach as a sexual predator. Decades later, she must confront her past traumas when another of the school’s coaches goes on trial for abuse. McPhillips infuses her story with deep sensitivity and righteous fury, for a compelling and thought-provoking read. Omar Tyree, Control (Dafina) A frustrated psychologist puts an intricate plan in motion in this insightful new thriller: her talented but neurotic clients and their toxic personalities seem tailor-made to complement each other, and she’s ready to intervene in the name of helping them move forward (and giving herself a break). Unfortunately, the alchemy that results is rather than more deadly than she intended. Omar Tyree is based in Atlanta and the setting shines via character archetypes, with most characters based in the city’s thriving entertainment industry. L.M. Chilton, Swiped (Gallery) Another send-off of modern dating, this time with an extra-fun twist! Chilton’s unlucky-in-love heroine finds herself under suspicion of murder after the shocking demise of multiple men with whom she’s matched. Who is the culprit killing off all these (admittedly mediocre) dating prospects? And why are they so determined to pin the blame on her? Julie Mae Cohen, Bad Men (The Overlook Press) What a delightfully weird book. Bad Men continues the “sympathetic feminist serial killer” trend that I noted last year, and adds the hope for a happily ever after to the mix. When serial-killing socialite Saffy Huntley-Oliver meets her perfect man, she’s ready to engineer whatever machinations are necessary to draw him in as a potential mate, but she’s going to have to figure out the balance between her new lover and her old hobbies. Don’t worry, the dog doesn’t die. Some people do, of course. But no dogs! Elle Marr, The Alone Time (Thomas and Mercer) Elle Marr’s consistently chilling and insightful psychological thrillers have been growing in repute for some time, so I’m glad I finally dived into her latest and found it to be just as good as I’d hoped. Violet and Fiona are two sisters who survived a horrific plane crash in childhood and spent months defying death in the wilderness. They’ve always said their parents died instantly in the crash, and they’ve always been suspected of hiding some details. When a new documentary crew starts digging, the grown-up sisters must confront their own traumas and hope to keep the real story hidden. This book also confirms my plan to NEVER go into the sky in a tiny, tiny plane piloted by a cranky relative. View the full article

A look at the week’s best new releases in crime fiction, nonfiction, mystery, and thrillers. * Abir Mukherjee, Hunted (Mulholland) “A pretty much flawless thriller, Hunted works on every level imaginable. Terrific characters are subtly and mercilessly pushed along by a plot as propulsive as it is constantly surprising.” –Lee Child John Connolly, The Instruments of Darkness (Atria/Emily Bestler) “Connolly is a first-rate storyteller, and the Parker novels have always been excellent, but there’s something different about this one. The darkness that permeates the series feels darker here, as though Connolly is conjuring up an evil we’ve not seen before. This one will leave readers breathless and shaken—which is, after all, just what the author’s fans expect.” – Booklist Mailan Doquang, Blood Rubies (Mysterious Press) “An intricate plan in a far-off city to snatch some priceless gems. What could possibly go wrong?…A crisp caper whose detailed setting is its biggest attraction.” –Kirkus Reviews Marjorie McCown, Star Struck (Crooked Lane) “Sorry, Sherlock. Detective work has nothing on the perils of costume design.” –Kirkus Reviews Andromeda Romano-Lax, The Deepest Lake (Soho) “All who enjoy writer-focused thrillers will be enthralled by Romano-Lax’s morally and intellectually intricate tale, while her fans will marvel at her versatility as she shifts from complexly imagined literary fiction like Annie and the Wolves (2021), to this psychologically and culturally spiky work of suspense.” –Booklist Sarina Bowen, The Five Year Lie (Harper Paperbacks) “Bowen . . . takes a confident step into the thriller genre with this engaging debut, which combines a fast pace and an intriguing plot with pointed commentary on the way useful technology can easily create a dangerous privacy nightmare. . . . An engaging and fast-paced thriller about the abuse of technology.” Debbie Babitt, The Man on the Train (Scarlet) “A mysterious woman on the train, a disappearing husband, and secrets from the past come together in this pulse-quickening ride. Babitt masterfully creates a narrative that explores the fragility of trust and poses the question of how well we really know those closest to us. THE MAN ON THE TRAIN will keep readers guessing until the final, shocking reveal.” –Liv Constantine Elise Juska, Reunion (Harper) “A pitch-perfect depiction of New England campus culture, COVID-era child-rearing and how the complexities of adulthood accumulate.” –People Emiko Jean, The Return of Ellie Black (Simon and Schuster) “Like Jessica Knoll, whose crime novels also revolve around missing girls, Jean focuses less on sensationalizing predators and more on the tragedy of a ‘frenzy of missing girls. They do not give answers. They do not speak of what has come to pass. They whisper: Find us. Please.’ Jean has written an impressive crime novel here…. An unexpected ending and a cadre of heroic female characters make Jean a crime writer to watch.” –Kirkus Reviews Jacob Kushner, Look Away: A True Story of Murders, Bombings, and a Far-Right Campaign to Rid Germany of Immigrants (Grand Central) “This fascinating book tells two stories: first, how a gang of East German thugs turned neo-Nazi ‘bomb tinkerers’ grew into a network of domestic terrorists, and second, how German authorities let them get away with murder. Jacob Kushner tells the story with cautious condemnation and intimate detail.” –Michael Scott Moore View the full article

An honorable serial killer. A hacker turned vigilante. A gentleman thief. Mysteries and thrillers are full of morally ambiguous antiheroes who challenge us to confront truths about human nature and undermine strict definitions of good and evil. From Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov to S. A. Cosby’s Beauregard, these compelling but deeply flawed characters operate outside the law, while also adhering to their own moral codes. One person’s hero is another person’s villain. Morally ambiguous characters capture this complexity, reminding us that the world is neither black nor white, but a slippery combination of both. A morally gray antihero anchors my debut, Blood Rubies, an international thriller set in the thrumming cities of New York and Bangkok. The book follows Rune Sarasin, a half American, half Thai jewel thief thrust into the unwanted role of savior after her latest heist goes sideways and her boyfriend’s sister vanishes from a Bangkok slum. I knew from the outset that I wanted my protagonist to straddle different worlds, not just racially and culturally, but also morally. Rune is an outsider in every sense of the word. Her white mother, her American upbringing, and her shaky grasp of the Thai language make her as alien in Bangkok as her Asian half makes her in the US. Rune is rebellious, self-serving, and blunt to the point of rudeness. These traits, along with her criminality, would seem to place her squarely in the villain camp. But Rune is more than the sum of her flaws and questionable actions, she’s also protective, fiercely loyal, and selfless in her efforts to save her loved ones. This combination of the good and the bad, of the admirable and the abhorrent, is precisely what makes Rune relatable. The sense that the Runes of the world are just like us, except more extreme, helps account for their enduring appeal. Morally ambiguous characters allow us to give up on the idea of moral purity without abandoning our sense of self as moral beings. Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter Morgan, bloodstain pattern analyst by day, serial killer by night, is a prime example. Dexter kills without legal authority or due process—and with immense pleasure! Thanks to his adoptive father, however, Dexter channels his homicidal impulses in a “positive” way by only killing violent criminals he believes escaped justice. Dexter’s strong moral code serves as a counterpoint to his decidedly immoral actions, compelling us to consider the ethics of vigilantism and the blurred lines between right and wrong. The same can be said of Lisbeth Salander, Stieg Larsson’s justice-seeking hacker who hunts down and violently punishes men who abuse women. Both Lindsay and Larsson foster empathy for their characters by highlighting their altruistic motives and the traumatic experiences fueling their misdeeds. Dexter was just a toddler when a drug dealer killed his mother and locked him in a crate with her dismembered body, while Lisbeth suffered repeated abuse at the hands of her father, her psychiatrist, and her court-appointed guardian. Empathizing with characters whose values don’t square with our moral precepts sends an important message: you don’t have to be a paragon of virtue to deserve understanding and forgiveness. If vigilantes are redeemable, then, surely, we are, too. As a writer and lover of thrillers, the allure of morally ambiguous characters lies in their potential for heightened suspense. Heroes behave in predictably heroic ways, exhibiting courage in the face of danger and selflessly putting the greater good ahead of their personal interests. Conversely, villains use manipulation, deceit, intimidation, violence, and other nefarious tactics to pursue their desires regardless of the harm it might bring to others. Although heroes and villains occupy opposite ends of the morality spectrum, they share several key traits, including a keen intelligence, determination, imagination, and, most important in this context, constancy. I never wonder if Jack Reacher will back down from a fight, or if Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles will wash their hands of a difficult case, despite being fully fleshed out by their authors. Their heroic attributes override whatever character flaws they might have. Similarly, I know that the Sandman will kill, that Adora Crellin will abuse her daughters, and that, if it weren’t for the creepy mask, Hannibal Lector would eat my face. Morally gray characters take away this certainty, building suspense into stories by keeping us guessing about what they’ll do next. Unrestrained by the moral code of conventional heroes, antiheroes zig when we expect them to zag, adding uncertainty to scenarios that might otherwise unfold in predictable ways. As a longtime fan of Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin stories, thieves are by far my favorite literary antiheroes and the direct inspiration for Rune. A witty, dapper, and charming master of disguise, Lupin navigates the world according to his own moral compass, only stealing from the rich, redistributing wealth to the poor, and always being a gentleman of his word. Contemporary authors have also fueled my love for contradictory characters. A recent standout is Grace Li, whose New York Times bestseller, Portrait of a Thief, tells the story of five young Chinese Americans hired to steal back looted art from world-class museums. Li’s characters are not just motivated by a $50 million reward, but also by a deep desire to combat the legacy of colonialism and to right historical wrongs. Similarly, Beauregard “Bug” Montage in Cosby’s award-winning Blacktop Wasteland resumes his life of crime both to save his family from financial ruin and for the thrill of being the best getaway driver on the East Coast. The popularity of Li’s and Cosby’s books, both of which are being adapted for the screen, speaks to the continued appeal of the antihero archetype. Love to hate them? Hate to love them? When it comes to antiheroes, you’re sure to do both. *** View the full article

I don’t usually include personal anecdotes in film reviews, lest they detract from the critical discussion at hand, but I’d just like to open this review by saying that I brought my 87-year-old Croatian grandmother with me to my advance screening of The Fall Guy in IMAX, and after we got her situated in her ADA seat and watched the trailers and the movie itself started rolling, revealing a medley of impressive stunts, she leaned over and said, in a very matter-of-fact way, “this is an action movie.” The Fall Guy has a lot going on, but the most important thing about it (indeed, the thing about itself that it most wants you to know) is that it is an action movie and that action movies are made not merely with actors and directors, but entire teams of stunt performers who risk their lives and limbs for movie magic, and do so for comparatively minuscule credit. The film is directed by David Leitch, who, prior to his career directing many memorable blockbuster action movies, including John Wick, Hobbs & Shaw, Deadpool 2, and Bullet Train, was a stunt performer and coordinator, himself. Most action movies have the feel of being driven by narrative, with stuntwork bolstering and buttressing and filling out the story. The Fall Guy, which was written by Drew Pearce and Glen A. Larson (based on the 80s TV series of the same name), feels like the opposite kind of affair: one in which the narrative exists to connect stunt setpiece to stunt setpiece to stunt setpiece. This isn’t to say that the narrative of The Fall Guy isn’t enjoyable or doesn’t make sense (because it is, and it does), but to underscore that The Fall Guy is, first and foremost, a passionate, high-octane, two-hour love letter to movie stunts and the people who make them. And more! So much more. Here’s some of the more. Our story follows Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling, locked and loaded and endearing as ever), a stuntman of many talents who falls off the map after an on-set accident results in a grievous injury. But he finds himself back in the game when he’s given the chance to help out on his ex-girlfriend Jody’s new sci-fi film, Metalstorm, a sandy, outer-space spectacle billed as “High Noon at the edge of the galaxy.” Jody (Emily Blunt) is still mad that Colt broke contact during his convalescence and resulting depression; he is still carrying a burning torch for her, upset that he didn’t do more to hold on to her during their relationship, so he is determined to be there for her, professionally, as she directs her first feature film. But he’s not simply going to help out with stunts; the film’s producer Gail (Hannah Waddingham) has called Colt to set because the film’s star, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), has apparently gone missing. No one on set knows this yet; they’re filming the action stuff and Tom doesn’t do his own stunts, so he’s not supposed to be around anyway. Gail promises Colt that he’ll be saving Jody’s movie if he finds Tom, and all Colt wants is a chance to make things up to Jody, so he agrees. But he gets more than he bargained for when mysterious, armed bruisers start coming after him, leading to a series of dazzling, jaw-dropping chase, fight, and stunt sequences—sequences which only get more and more fun as Colt starts assembling a team of helpers, including Metalstorm’s stunt director Dan Tucker (Winston Duke), Tom’s plucky assistant Alma (Stephanie Hsu), and a well-trained, French-speaking attack dog named Jean-Claude (played, seemingly, by a dog named Jean-Claude and his puppet stunt double). Meanwhile, Jody is happy to have Colt back in her life; his supportive energy provides her the inspiration to fix the film’s difficult third act. She doesn’t know that, by night, he’s taking punches and getting the stuffing kicked out of him to try to save her movie; but he’s committed to her and her work all the way, and she values this. That’s the thing about The Fall Guy; it becomes more than a movie about the undersung, hidden stunt-makers; it becomes a movie about movie-makers, writ-large. The film balances its face-value, hyper-kinetic, thoroughly cinematic diegetic action bits with other sequences that are solely, reflexively devoted to the behind-the-scenes ecosystem of film shoots. The film offers multiple peeks behind the curtain, so to speak, of making a movie like this; not only do we see the stunt performers with their cables on and watch the giant puffy landing mats get unrolled, but we also watch Jody literally direct her movie. We watch her design the shots and operate the camera, we go inside the editing room with Jody and the editor, looking through takes, we meet the writers, visual effects artists, DPs, ADs, and PAs who make the film possible. Thus, even though The Fall Guy technically gives us a single action hero (and a single romantic couple) to root for, it also effectively conveys a sense of ensemble achievement. We go with the crew to an after-work karaoke outing. We see crew members proudly wear their souvenir production jackets. The Fall Guy is about being on a team and loving that team. Movies like this (smart, funny blockbusters with wide theatrical releases) don’t get made like they used to, but they should. Much like the Mission: Impossible franchise’s commitment to impressive practical effects and denunciation of creepy human-replacing, AI technologies, The Fall Guy has a lot to say about how films are (and should be) personal. Not only do movies mean things to the characters in the film, but movies are also (the film argues) at their best when they are made by people, people who put in the hard work to make something as entertaining as possible. After the fallout from Tom’s disappearance starts hitting Jody’s set, she is given the out of leaving the shoot early to go rest on a beach, letting the producer call the rest of the shots, and letting the VFX crew take care of the rest of the stunts, and she balks at the very idea. Right on! The Fall Guy is a valuable exhibit in the case for bringing back fun movies—bringing them to theaters, and to fruition, more generally. And it’s great to watch a movie where you can sense star power. These days, we don’t have a lot of compelling movie stars holding down the fort of commercial film, but Ryan Gosling is a good choice for a movie like this. He, fresh off Barbie, is just as delightful a romantic comedy lead as he is a convincing action heavy. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, has natural comic timing, and can unleash a very good scream. The Fall Guy is good at balancing different kinds of “funny,” from recurring gags to witty banter to quality throwaway jokes. I laughed very hard, at one point, when Colt is mistaken as an intruder by Tom’s girlfriend (Teresa Palmer) while he is in Tom’s house, investigating his disappearance. “I’m on Metalstorm too,” he tells her, trying to get her to lower her weapon. “Liar!” she screams. “We’re on Metalstorm ONE.” Gosling yells back at her, with palpable frustration, “I MEANT ‘ALSO!'” I should also add that Gosling and Blunt have charming chemistry, building a movie-inspired, movie-adjacent love story that works on its own, too. I genuinely wanted them to be able to work things out. I have few slight issues with some aspects, but I don’t want to spoil anything in listing them. I will say that, when the villain of the movie appears, we don’t get to feel their threat as powerfully or ride that actor’s charisma as much as we should. It’s always a little bit of a letdown when the heroes are so lovable and the villains turn out not to match them in intensity. But this is a quibble. The whole thing is a rollicking good time, pure cinema. “I love when I get to call a movie ‘pure cinema,'” I said, as I left the theater, pausing to ask my grandmother, “Did you like it?” She responded, “it was entertainment!” View the full article

From the time gold was discovered here in 1871, Alaska has been a magnet for a certain type of risk-taker. Daredevil fortune seekers came, seduced by the area’s seemingly infinite riches – miners, traders, trappers, and crab fishermen all answering Alaska’s siren song. Throughout Alaska’s recorded history, yet another kind of risk-taker has gravitated to The Last Frontier. Lured by the vastness of the terrain, its Wild West lawlessness, its endless winter nights, or all of the above – serial killers have left their mark. I set my debut mystery/thriller Cold To The Touch in this locale because of its unique, stark beauty and its ability to harbor the darkest and most sinister of predators. Edward Krause, Alaska’s first known serial killer, is said to be responsible for the deaths of at least ten men between 1912 and 1915, killing them for their real estate holdings and bank balances. His true identity was Edward Klompke, a U.S. Army deserter. He was sentenced to hang but escaped two days before his execution. He met his end when a homesteader shot and killed him for a $1000 reward. Klutuk, “The Mad Trapper of Bristol Bay,” was a Yupi’k trapper named for a small tributary of the Nushagak River in Western Alaska. Between 1919 and 1931, he stalked trappers and prospectors in the wilderness between Cook Inlet and the Kuskokwim River. Fiercely territorial, he supposedly killed twenty or more men he perceived as infringing on his domain. After an exhaustive manhunt that covered several thousand square miles, a U.S. Marshal found remains he claimed to be Klutuk in a cabin near the Mulchatna River. Harvey Carignan killed 58-year-old Laura Showalter in the Territory of Alaska in 1949, while stationed in the U.S. Army in Anchorage. Although Showalter was his only Alaska victim, Carignan also killed two young women in Washington – one who answered a “help wanted” ad he posted for his gas station – and two women in Minnesota. He died in prison in Minnesota. Thomas Richard Bunday was serving at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks when he murdered five girls and young women between 1979 and 1981. With no physical evidence to hold him in Alaska, Bunday was able to transfer to Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas. He finally confessed in 1988, but killed himself before Alaskan detectives could apprehend him. Joshua Alan Wade claimed to have killed his first victim on an Anchorage bike trail when he was fourteen. He went on to kill four more people, including his neighbor, a nurse practitioner. After forcing her to give up her ATM and PIN, he shot her in the head and burned her body. He is serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Indiana. James Dale Ritchie started killing in 2016, when he shot a homeless woman and a male acquaintance. Twenty-six days later he shot a young man, presumably for his bicycle, which he rode away from the scene. A month later, he killed a homeless man and a young environmental activist out on a late-night bike ride. Ritchie himself was killed during a gunfight with Anchorage police. Robert Christian Hansen was the most notorious of the Alaskan serial killers, called the “Butcher Baker” because he owned a bakery a short distance from Merrill Field, where he kept his plane. From 1971 to 1983, he abducted, raped and murdered at least seventeen Alaskan girls and women, many of whom were exotic dancers or sex workers. Some he flew out to a remote location in his Piper Super Cub and hunted them in the wilderness with a semi-automatic rifle. When Hansen was apprehended, investigators found an aeronautical chart with thirty-seven “x” marks on it, leading officials to believe that he was responsible for far more deaths than he claimed. Hansen was only formally charged with the murders of four victims – of these, only “Eklutna Annie” has not yet been identified. He died of natural causes in 2014 while serving a life sentence. Long-haul trucker John Joseph Fautenberry confessed to killing six people across five states, including Jefferson Diffee, a miner at the Greens Creek silver mine near Juneau. After pleading guilty to killing Diffee and given a 99-year prison term in Alaska, he was extradited to Ohio. Here he was sentenced to death for previously killing and robbing Joseph Daron, Jr., a Good Samaritan who had stopped to offer him a ride. Fautenberry was executed there by lethal injection in 2009. Although Israel Keyes is believed to have committed multiple murders from 2001 to 2012, he has identified only three by name: William and Lorraine Currier of Essex, Vermont, and Samantha Koenig, a barista in Anchorage. In 2007, after living for six years on the Makah Reservation, Keyes left Washington state for Alaska where he started a contracting business. It was during one of his many trips to the Lower 48 that he meticulously stalked William and Lorraine Currier. Two years prior to the killing of the Curriers, Keyes had buried near their home a five-gallon drum of guns, ammunition, a silencer, zip ties, and duct tape. Using the contents of this “murder kit”, he tortured and murdered the Curriers, a middle-aged couple he had never met before, and left them to rot in an abandoned farmhouse. The Curriers’ remains were never found. Eighteen-year-old Samantha Koenig was a barista at Common Grounds coffee stand when Keyes abducted her at gunpoint on February 1, 2012. He took her to a shed just a few feet from his home where he sexually assaulted and killed her. Then he left on a two-week cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. When he returned, he applied makeup to Koenig’s face, sewed her eyes open with fishing line and photographed her with a four-day old issue of the Anchorage Daily News to make it appear she was still alive. He posted a ransom note demanding $30,000 in a local park, after which he dismembered Koenig’s body and disposed of it in Matanuska Lake, north of Anchorage. Officials tracked the use of the dead woman’s ATM card as Keyes moved across the southwestern United States. He was finally arrested in Texas and extradited to Alaska. He died by suicide on December 2, 2012. Keyes was born in Utah to a Mormon family. Fautenberry was from Connecticut, Bunday from Tennessee, Hansen from Iowa. For these killers, Alaska was as far as they could go – literally and figuratively. Alaska encompasses 365 million acres – only 160,000 of which have been settled by humans. Only 1580 sworn law enforcement officers safeguard this landmass, twice the size of Texas (2024 World Population Review). Maybe these killers believed their unthinkable crimes would be undiscovered or unpunished in this sparsely policed wilderness. Victims are lost here as well, never to be found, like so many of Hansen’s and Keyes’ casualties. Bodies decompose, undisturbed, in pristine lakes or are scattered by animals, strewn into the darkness of the long Alaska nights. *** View the full article

One of the most creative avenues for genre exploration today is found in young adult fiction. The following new and upcoming releases are distinguished by nimble use of tropes, deep love of references, intricate plotting, and a passion for justice. They are also, and I cannot emphasize this enough, incredibly entertaining. God speed, ye readers. Tyffany Neuhauser, Not Dead Enough (Viking, January 23) This novel uses the undead as a perfect metaphor for PTSD—the main character is literally haunted by her abusive ex-boyfriend, a duplicitous soul whose harmful ways were invisible to all other observers, and a brutal confrontation with this zombified incarnation of trauma is necessitated in order to move on. Sami Ellis, Dead Girls Walking (Amulet Books, March 26) Sapphic romance and serial killers at summer camp! Sami Ellis seems to have included every trope I have on my checklist, and they all work together seamlessly for an irrepressibly entertaining horror experience. Ream Shukairy, Six Truths and a Lie (Little Brown, March 12) Shukairy’s haunting noir of justice delayed and denied is an essential read for our times. Six Muslim teenagers are targeted by police after a Muslim student gathering on a beach is interrupted by mysterious explosions. Shukairy divides the narrative between these disparate narrators, with slow reveals leading to maximum emotional impact. The novel’s scenes of protest are especially evocative given recent events in which student voices have been violently repressed. Freddie Kölsch, Now, Conjurers (Union Square, June 4) New voice Freddie Kolsch has written a queer horror novel for the ages, in which a charismatic quarterback’s failed quest for absolution is the catalyst for an epic confrontation between his coven and his killer. Not to be a pest, but you must read this book. No excuses. Now you must be wondering, why does every sentence in this blurb begin with an “n”? No cheating—you’ll have to pick up the book to find out yourself. Tess Sharpe, The Girl in Question (Little Brown, May 14) In this intricately plotted nesting doll of a thriller, the sequel to her novel The Girls I’ve Been, a camping trip meant for solace instead goes horribly awry. Nora, Sharpe’s “girl in question,” was raised by a con artist mother and broke free from her family only through turning snitch against her violent stepdad. Now, he’s out of jail, she’s in the wilderness with her closest friends, and someone’s on their trail. Sharpe has been a personal favorite for some time, and this latest novel should continue her journey into becoming a household name. Joelle Wellington, The Blonde Dies First (S&S, July 30) I loved Joelle Wellington’s debut thriller with its epic party gone terribly wrong, and she continues to wreak gleeful havoc with traditional tropes in her new thriller. This one features an epic summer party interrupted by a demon hell-bent on picking off guests. Gigi Griffis, We Are the Beasts (Delacorte, December 10) Gigi Griffis breathes new life and intrigue into the historical tale of the Beast of Gévaudan, the mythical monster blamed for a rural murder spree in Ancien Regime France, as two teen girls take advantage of the chaos to fake the deaths of their nearest and dearest and thus save them from more human terrors. Griffis has an eye for historical detail and a deft hand when it comes to plotting. View the full article

Not coincidentally, I quit my great love, horror movies, right around the time I became a mom. Perhaps it’s because new terrors haunted me: SIDS and school shootings, poison in Halloween candy, toxins in the water, plastic in our bloodstream, creepy lingerers in Golden Gate Park, a planet on fire, a child poisoned, a child with no future, a child lost forever. That was enough horror for me at that point in my life. Or maybe it’s because becoming a mom brought to my attention how many horror movies make moms into monsters. Moms are the ugly reason behind Jason and Norman Bates and Carrie. They’re the evil antagonists in Ma (2019), Mama (2013), and Mother’s Day (1980/2010). It’s easy to demonize mothers, to make them the villains, the origin stories behind killers, the lost souls who hit their breaking point, turn their torment on others. And sure they have power, but isn’t it convenient, always blaming mom? Horror movies put a microscopic lens on our troubles, reflecting them back at us with heightened paranoia and terror. But some things aren’t all that exaggerated for the screen. In the horror world, as in ours, if you’re not a perfect mom, what are you? You must be a monster. As a new mother, I didn’t need the reminder, thank you. So, I gave up on horror for a time, turning my back on monsters. I told myself, hilariously, You’ll never be one of them. But in the horror that was lockdown, we were all on the verge of monsterdom. I was a single mom alone with my kids, a classic horror setup, very cabin in the woods even if we lived in the city. It was sweet, the way my kids wanted to sleep with me, but we were together all day. And at night? We were a pile of bodies, me in the middle, our limbs indistinguishable, breathing in each other’s hot exhales. One night, unable to sleep, feeling very much confined, I slipped out of bed and felt an old, familiar urge, so I turned on the TV, found the first horror movie that didn’t look terrible, The Babadook (2014). In one of the opening scenes, a single mom, Amelia, is in bed with her young son, Samuel. He’s got a leg thrown over her body, a hand at her neck; he grinds his teeth audibly. She escapes to the edge of the bed, lying there uncomfortable and sleepless. I understood her immediately. As a single mom, I have room for kids in my bed, but having room doesn’t mean I always have space. During an especially grabby hug, Amelia shouts at her son, “Don’t do that!” Too much, too close, the heat of a small human body that can shift from warm to oppressive in an instant. My first taste of monsterdom came years earlier, well before lockdown, when my neurodivergent preschooler would struggle at school. In The Babadook Samuel faces similar troubles. A couple of stuffy administrators tell Amelia: “The boy has significant behavioral problems,” to which Amelia replies: “Please stop calling him the boy.” Raising a child on the spectrum, I have sat across from many teachers and administrators with similar attitudes: You’re on your own. I’d have to walk out of that office, past the parents who appeared smug at the periphery of my rage. Were they really smug, or was my vision distorted by my monstrosity? I’d spend hours pondering this question, whether I was imagining that smugness—a horror movie in the making. Parenting shouldn’t be a solitary act, but when your child misbehaves publicly, there’s no one more judgmental than other parents. It’s easy to turn inward, to make your world smaller, to tread in shrinking circles, and isolation is one of the key ingredients to horror. For a time, I gave in, not accepting my monstrosity so much as reveling in it. I gave myself weird haircuts and wore monster-sized clothing and stopped smiling so much, and as a result people stopped smiling back at me. I’d hear about family parties to which my kids and I didn’t receive invitations and think, Fine, I can be a monster in private. Later in The Babadook, Samuel is uninvited to his cousin’s birthday party, a particular slight with an exquisite sting. He can’t go back to school, so Amelia and Samuel are alone in the house, listless until a mysterious book about a monster arrives. After reading it, Samuel warns Amelia not to let the monster in. But she does—she can’t help it—and the monster possesses her. After lockdown, I no longer had the ability to perform perfect, even if I wanted to. I’d spent too much time alone, embracing my monsterdom, to play pretend. So, when we all reemerged, I started talking about my fears openly, my frustrations, my pain, cracking jokes at my own expense and laughing too loudly, identifying the moms who laughed with me and making them my friends. Maybe it was lockdown, or perhaps it was just age, experience after experience settling on me, dust matter that I couldn’t wash away, but it occurred to me that I was neither perfect nor a monster; I was just a mom who was doing her best, and why wasn’t that enough? Now I’ve let my great love, horror movies, back into my life, though I still yearn for more movies that show the complexity of motherhood. More than that, I want a world that asks for less of mothers and offers more. But in the meantime, my neurodivergent child has become a teen, and she’s doing great. Great by a standard we’ve set, her and I. Other parents might think differently but that’s not my concern. I’m no longer shaken by their opinions about my kids or my parenting. The monster inside me sleeps, for now. But she’s there, always, if I need to call upon her. *** View the full article

April 2024 It is springtime in Paris. I am in Paris. I know now that this, what I am experiencing, is the perfect combination of a time and a place, a season and a city. It rains a lot, but only a little. The sun is chilly but the wind is warm. At lunchtime, I walk to the Place Dauphine, a shady courtyard on the west side of the Île de la Cité, the island in the Siene that bears up Notre Dame, listening to the hurried French of elderly couples. In the evenings, I stroll through the Latin Quarter, weaving around clusters of American students on study-abroad. I’m staying with a friend in an apartment in the 20th arrondissement, near Père Lachaise, the old cemetery. In a few days, I’ll be by myself in a hotel in the 16th, in Trocadero, across the river from the Eiffel Tower. I’m fond of the Metro, and the bus, but I’ll spend most of my time in Paris walking from neighborhood to neighborhood. I like to climb the hills, wander through the streets, feel the contours and furrows of the city in the soles of my feet. 29 Rue de Courcelles. Paris 8. I don’t walk near there, but it’s on my list of places to visit, if I can find the time. I don’t really spend much time in the 8th, partially because it’s crowded. I grew up in New York City, and it’s symptomatic of this geographic upbringing to develop a sort of psychosomatic skin allergy to throngs. I tend to shiver a lot in crowds. So, I avoid the Champs-Élysées and the Arc du Triomphe, shimmy north whenever I hit the Place de la Concorde. I never make it to Rue de Courcelles, even though I want to. Or I think I want to. In a way, I know that spot in Paris rather well already; it’s the setting for a favorite film, Louis Malle’s Ascenseur Pour L’Échafaud (1958). The film was re-titled Frantic for select audiences but is better known now with the title Elevator to the Gallows. It is a crisp, bleak, dreary film noir, black and white and morose, but also heartbreaking and gutting. I saw Elevator to the Gallows in college, homework for a course titled “Paris in Film,” a class whose enrollees, I imagine, expected a rosier overall patina in the assigned films. Instead, we watched Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (1972), Alain Corneau’s Serie Noire (1979), Leos Carax’s Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, Michael Haneke’s Code Inconnu (2000). The happiest film we watched was Agnes Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962). I think about this course, and Elevator to the Gallows, as I walk around Paris. I don’t want to, but I can’t help it. Perhaps there’s a simple reason (one character traverses the city on foot in most of her scenes). Perhaps I’m remembering it because it was the first time I was exposed to Paris as a city, rather than as a dream. The film tells the story of Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet), a cool-headed businessmen who plans and executes the perfect murder. After pretending to leave for the day and then climbing back up into the building (on the outside), he sneaks back in, and kills his boss, Simon Carala (Jean Wall). See, Julien and Simon’s wife, Florence (Jeanne Moreau), are in love and they want Simon out of the way. But then, after Julien kills Simon, he gets trapped in an elevator on his way out of the building. Once planning to rendezvous with the newly widowed Florence, Julien now must spend the majority of the film desperately trying to free himself. After waiting a long while, Florence assumes she has been stood up by her lover and falls into a depressed stupor. She wanders through the city as a score from Miles Davis cries, non-diegetically, around her. But that’s not all. A young working-class couple, Veronique (Yori Bertin) and Louis (Georges Poujouly), steal Julien’s expensive car, which lies abandoned on the street. Because he leaves his identification in the car, the kids also steal his identity, spiriting away to a nearby motel and checking in under Julien’s name. There, they commit a terrible crime that ultimately leads the police back to the entrapped Julien, still frozen in his escape from the original murder. In Elevator to the Gallows, Malle illustrates that, regardless of one’s initial (physical and financial) place in society, personal misery is rampant and leads to selfishness, which in turn leads to cruelty. Moreover, the film says, it is impossible for anyone to truly escape who they are—a theme Malle particularly emphasizes by trapping his transgressors in torturous solitude across the isobaric regions of the city. The film takes place within three different spaces (three neighborhoods, three sets), but all of these characters are united by the single crime perpetrated by Julien against his innocent boss. Julien’s action, therefore, begins a chain-reaction of anguish that ripples through various degrees of people who know him, but also through various degrees of the city. Moreover, as the individuals least involved, Veronique and Louis attempt to get farther and farther away from Julien, by moving to the peripheries of Paris; their desperation to abandon their former lives grows stronger until they, in turn, commit a crime to do so—a crime that is on par with the murder Julien had committed in Paris. Therefore, Paris is symbolically a uniting force—a haunting being capable of reaching out to its exiting parts and drawing them back in, forcing them to reconcile with their both their past selves and the origin of their circumstance. Film noir is about solitude, bleakness… reaching for someone and failing to hold on, solving a mystery and finding out that the answer means nothing. It is often about the relationship between a solitary figure and a single, large impersonal environment. Usually a city. Sometimes, even Paris. In noir, despite traversing a place from end to end, it is often impossible to extricate oneself from certain troubles and futile to attempt to move to a better place; ultimately, attempting either thing can only contribute to more destruction in an otherwise depraved world. Though they are equally just as lost, the young lovers Veronique and Louis are separated from the couple Florence and Julien by miles of pavement. However, Veronique and Louis are able to suffer together, while Florence and Julien are not. They are both in the center of Paris—but frustrated Julien is stuck in a fancy office building, while disheartened Florence wanders the Champs-Élysées. They both do not know where the other is, even though they are close; they are divided only by vertical structures, as opposed to horizontal planes. However, even before they are separated by Julien’s detainment, Paris separates them; in fact, they are never in a scene together. The film opens on a phone conversation between the lovers, and there are numerous crosscuts between close-up shots of their faces as they clutch the phone receivers and murmur adorations to one another. The intrusiveness of this shot removes the concept of “setting,” so the lovers aren’t positioned in the physical city of Paris so much as in their own, un-geographical, all-consuming world. However, when they hang up, the camera pulls back, and captures Julien setting down the receiver on a desk while zooming out to reveal that he has been standing in a high office in a building in the financial center of Paris. Only after their phone conversation ends, do the burdens of physical spaces (as opposed to emotional ones)—namely the realistic city of Paris—become relevant to the characters, and the story. This crosscutting technique, featuring shots of the lovers from different angles, also creates the illusion that they are looking at one another, or are at least near one another, when they are, in fact, vastly separated by the same Parisian structures that will divide them when they are detached from one another. However, when they are truly separated, they are still united by similar editing—scenes of Julien’s escape attempts from the elevator are often followed by shots of the miserable Florence, dolefully wandering around the streets of Paris; they are united with one another in and out of contact. In addition, though Florence has the ability to walk wherever she wants, she is just as trapped as Julien, who cannot extricate himself from his metal prison. She does not know what to do or where to go, as she does not know where her lover is or what has happened to her husband, so the wide streets of the Rue des Champs-Élysées serve as a contrast to her worried and despondent psyche. Though she is mobile, and he is not, they are equally held captive by Paris for what they have conspired to do. They are further cornered by the city when their ability to see structures diminishes. As Florence walks through Paris, night begins to fall, and soon, she is barely lit among the shadows. The severe use of chiaroscuro by cinematographer Henri Decaë turns her into a ghostly figure, almost glowing and gliding. Similarly, Julien, stuck in a metal box after hours in an office building, is shrouded in darkness as well, and uses a lit cigarette lighter to provide a little illumination. This same chiaroscuro unites them in darkness, but also melts the barriers presented by Paris and presents a tragic, romantic view of their relationship—they are two halves (quite literally, because their dark clothing and the scant lighting only illuminates half their bodies) searching space for completion in one another. Here, the lighting not only gets darker, but the camera also captures more close-ups of her troubled face, and she begins to walk into buildings (such as a café, and the police station); the highly characteristic Paris begins to disappear from behind her, and soon, she is merely a miserable figure wandering in a city. Similarly, in the dark of his elevator, it is impossible to tell that Julien is in Paris, or, rather, that he is anywhere near Florence. Therefore, although Paris is an impenetrable urban obstacle course for the lovers during the day, it is an unrecognizable purgatory by night. Malle stresses Paris as a presiding force that spatially manipulates transgressors and traps them for their crimes until their actions are brought to light. He uses the genre’s preoccupation with solitary location to illuminate the pessimistic themes of the fruitlessness of mobility to better states, and the destruction caused by those who dare to challenge the order of life, blowing up and scaling down Paris to show the chain reaction of cruelty brought on by human selfishness, explaining that any amount of freedom within a physical space does not represent freedom from a physical space. Anyway, I think about this as I walk home from the Eiffel Tower, as it glitters behind me in the dark. View the full article

It’s no secret I love historical mysteries. I spent my childhood reading Nancy Drew, The Famous Five and Secret Seven, progressing to Agatha Christie in my teenage and adult years. I rejoiced when the genre moved away from bumbling women who solved mysteries purely by luck to strong, interesting and diverse characters solving crimes through pluck, grit and intelligence in a variety of settings, with a motley crew of supporting characters. In the real world during these time periods, women would have been confined to strictly domestic roles, but in the realm of historical fiction, they emerge as powerful figures, breaking free from patriarchal constraints and asserting their agency in male-dominated spaces. While the upper class and titled gentry still reign supreme (pun intended) within the historical mystery genre, there are plenty of unique and interesting settings and characters to keep the most mystery addicted reader engaged. In my new release, The Mayfair Dagger, Albertine is unusual in that she was raised by a scientifically minded father who prided himself on educating Albertine and her brother as equals, however upon his death, due to the inheritance laws of the time, she finds her utterly untrustworthy cousin named as her ‘guardian’. So, she does what any self respecting woman would do – she steals a dogcart and travels to London with her friend-cum-maid and sets herself up as a lady detective hoping to earn her own money, and gaining control over her life, with hilarious results (none of them money making results, much to her chagrin). Female detectives in historical mysteries highlight the resilience, intelligence, and resourcefulness of women in the face of adversity. These strong and unique women serve as inspiring role models for readers, as they often fight against wider social injustices and help shape readers’ understanding of historical events and women’s roles throughout history, as well as supporting readers to develop empathy and understanding for people from different backgrounds. Take Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock series – Charlotte Holmes ruins herself (scandalous!) to remove herself from the oppressive upper class society she lives in. Pretending to be a man ensures she can earn money as a detective and is able to dedicate herself to solving the most puzzling of crimes. The greatest riddle for her though, is emotion. Described by Thomas as “on the very high-functioning end of the autism spectrum” we have front row seats to Charlotte’s internal dialogue as she struggles to understand her friends and family, and show love in a manner that is understood and received by the ‘Neurotypicals’ in her life. And who isn’t a sucker for the ol’ dressed as a man going adventuring trope?! Laura Joh Rowland’s Victorian Mystery series, beginning with The Ripper’s Shadow, is another outstanding example. Set in Victorian England, this series follows Sarah Bain, a photographer of risqué images of, ahem, ladies of the night, she hunts for Jack the Ripper with a diverse bunch of friends including a street urchin, a gay aristocrat, a Jewish butcher and his wife. Where does one find friends like this, one asks oneself? I’d sign up immediately! The Harlem Renaissance Mystery Series by Nekesa Afia follows Louise Lloyd, a Black journalist in the 1920s Harlem, as she becomes embroiled in murder investigations while navigating the vibrant cultural scene of the Harlem Renaissance. Think shimmery gowns, dancing, bootleg alcohol and a serial killer hunting young girls…ok, ok, you got me. Nekesa Afia’s own promotional copy beats anything I could write: “if you want a jazz age murder mystery starring a tiny, tired lesbian, look no further than DEAD DEAD GIRLS.” The recently published The Mayor of Maxwell Street by Avery Cunningham is a delicious addition to the historical mystery genre. Wealthy (albeit newly minted, but one can’t have it all) debutante Nelly Sawyer works secretly undercover as an investigative journalist, who becomes embroiled in a hunt for, you guessed it, the missing mayor. Cunningham does a magnificent job at placing us in 1920’s Prohibition-era Chicago, and the cast of characters include a speakeasy manager, not one but two love interests for Nelly and ALL the fashion. Sujata Massey writes historical mysteries set in Asia, with her most recent – The Mistress of Bhatia House – gives us India in 1922. Featuring an amateur detective in the form of Bombay’s only female solicitor, Perveen Mistry, grapples with class divisions, sexism, and complex family dynamics. Massey shows beautifully what a complicated country India was at that time, colonised by the British as it was and does an excellent job of defining the social issues in an entertaining and intriguing way. These characters, among many others, represent the diverse and dynamic portrayal of women in historical mysteries, where strong, dynamic protagonists challenge convention and shape the genre. From Victorian England to 1920s Harlem and beyond, these characters defy societal norms, navigate complex social landscapes, and pursue justice with unwavering determination. Through their stories, readers gain insight into the resilience, intelligence, and resourcefulness of women throughout history, while also confronting important social issues and expanding their understanding of the world. As we immerse ourselves in the rich tapestry of historical mysteries, we celebrate the diversity of women’s experiences and the enduring legacy of their courage and strength. Now, pour me a gin darling, I’ve got some books to read! *** View the full article

I love writers who mix genres. It’s like an athlete who plays sports and somehow, improbably, manages to be good at all of them. C.J. Tudor’s novels cross boundaries between mystery, horror, and thriller, managing to bring out the best in each of them while creating something wholly new. Her newest novel, The Gathering, delves into the aftermath of a grisly murder that may have been committed by an isolated community of vampires in rural Alaska. As one online review put it, “You never know what you’re going to find in a book from C.J. Tudor—other than a great read!” Recently we sat down to talk about another genre-crosser, Michael Marshall Smith’s 1996 novel Spares. Why did you choose Spares by Michael Marshall Smith? Well, it’s one of my favorite books. I love Michael Marshall Smith. He’s one of my top favorite authors, along with Stephen King. I picked up Only Forward first, and I absolutely loved it. It was completely different from anything I’d read before in the way it mashed up genres. It was crazy and inventive, and I fell in love with his writing. After that I was waiting for another book of his to come out, and then I saw Spares in an airport book shop. I loved it right away. It’s sci-fi, it’s noir, it’s a mystery. But I love most about it is the way Smith writes about the human condition. It’s very poignant and darkly funny at the same time. The novel is set in a futuristic world, and the main character is a guy called Jack Randall, a washed-up cop and former soldier. Early on in the book, you find out that in this world, if you’re very rich, you can have a clone made of yourself. Then if anything bad happens to you, you can get a spare body part from this clone, essentially. The clones are kept in these places called farms, but it’s quite a horrific environment. They’re not educated or even taught to talk or walk. They’re living meat. Jack Randall becomes a caretaker at one of these farms, which are basically automated and run by robots, but he’s there to make sure everything runs smoothly. He sees guys come in the middle of the night, and they’ll take a clone away that will later come back minus a body part, and he decides he wants to help. He starts to teach the clones some things, but of course the more human they become, the more they realize what’s happening to them. Eventually he goes on the run with some of the clones, and then the book takes a turn and becomes more of a noirish thriller. The clones are kidnapped and he has to chase them down, and then he ends up in this place called the Gap where there’s a war being fought. It sounds kind of crazy, but he takes all these elements and makes them come together. It just works for me, because I love authors who take risks with genres. You can read it as a thriller, or sci fi, or a sort of social commentary. It’s just a great book. I’ve definitely never read anything like it. I wanted to ask you more about the narrator. When we first meet him, he’s addicted to a designer drug and kind of a mess, but later he redeems himself. Why is he an especially good guide to this world? I think as readers, we quite like reading about flawed characters. We’re all familiar with this character of a cop who has a bit of a drink or a drug problem and a tragic past, but it works so well in this novel. Jack is a fairly unsympathetic character to start with. He doesn’t want to help the spares; he wants to be left alone to stagnate in his self-pity. Then they kind of bring him back to humanity, so to speak. His voice is very darkly comic, and the dialogue is great—Smith is really good at writing black humor. So I think we kind of warm to this character as things go on, even though he does some bad stuff. That’s a great point. I hadn’t really thought about the fact that Jack fits into that ex-cop archetype, even though he’s in this really strange world. Exactly. All writers use tropes, but it’s all about how you play with it. You could give half a dozen writers the same setup and the same characters, but they’ll each take them in a completely different direction. That’s what’s so interesting about writing fiction. I’d never heard of this novel before you chose it, but the concept immediately reminded me of a book I love, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Then when I was Googling the book, I found a Reddit thread that said it had a lot in common with Michael Bay’s film The Island. Do you think Spares could have been an influence on either of those works, or are writers just naturally intrigued by these questions about the ethical uses of scientific discovery? (Spares was published in 1996; The Island and the novel Never Let Me Go came out in the same year, 2005.) I can’t say much about the novel’s influence, but I think it’s funny that you’ll often find that books that come out within a few years of each other will have similar subjects. Cloning was talked about quite a bit in the Nineties, so it was definitely in the air, but again, writers will approach it in different ways. It makes sense that writers wondering where cloning might go would arrive at the idea of human clones. Where there’s science and innovation, there will often be a dark side. We’ve talked a little about the mixing of genres and why that’s appealing to you. At the same time, the publishing world often wants writers to pick a genre and stick with it. Is it hard to market a book that mixes genres? I think it’s getting easier. It’s nice to be able to put the book in a certain place, but I think that increasingly, people are mixing things up a bit. My books can be defined as horror or crime or thriller, because what matters to me is telling a great story. I read all kinds of genres, and I think it was Michael Marshall Smith who made me realize that you didn’t have to restrict yourself in terms of genres. You didn’t have to confine yourself to writing a particular type of fiction. And that has been one of the biggest inspirations and biggest influences on my writing. That’s really great. Do you think UK audiences are more friendly to mixing genres? I think we’ve seen quite a few successful books come out in the UK lately that have been doing that. The current number one hardback here is The Last Murder at the End of the World by my friend Stuart Turton, which has done quite well in the US as well, and he really mashes things up. His first novel was described as an Agatha Christie mystery mixed with Quantum Leap, with time travel and body swapping. The new one is an apocalyptic murder mystery among the last one hundred or so people left in the world. It’s so fun, because the great thing about murder mysteries is you can set them anywhere. You can make them historical, you can set them in the future. Certainly in the UK, readers are really up for that. And I think in general, readers’ tastes are wider than we sometimes give them credit for. In my opinion, horror and crime work especially well together. Some people call The Silence of the Lambs a crime novel or thriller, but of course it’s quite horrific, whereas I’ve read lots of books classed as horror or supernatural that are much more psychological. There’s a lot of crossover. We’ve talked a lot about the mixing of genres, but is there anything else you’ve taken from this novel that you might use in your own work? Well, I’ve never written sci fi, but I love futuristic stuff, and I have some ideas for stories in a futuristic setting. Every book for me has to be different. I’m always like, what can I do this new and exciting to me? Smith does that, and his books have been such a big inspiration for me. Without his books, and Stephen King’s, I probably wouldn’t have started writing what I write. View the full article

Perched on a stool at the end of the bar of the Elks Club lodge 656, Gary Webb answered his black Nokia flip phone like a celebrity fielding live calls at a telethon fundraiser. After so many decades as a farmer, political agitator, activist, competitive fisherman, football coach, school board member, and historical preservationist, Webb, 69, was a well-established connector, the hub at the center of a giant wheel of people. That was part of why he’d finish one call, clap the phone closed, and it’d start ringing again. The other part was my fault, since before I’d made that reporting trip out to Missouri in August of 2013, I’d told him I’d like to meet anyone he thought I should talk to about the murder. He was, after all, the person who’d introduced me to the case—in a sense, it was only because of him I’d gotten involved at all. Broad in the shoulders with a snug short-sleeved button-down of checkered reds, Webb wore white New Balance sneakers with thick rubber soles flecked in mud, clean white gym socks bunched at his ankles, and pleated, baggy khaki shorts. The bartender came over with my beer and Webb sipped from his Styrofoam cup while he worked the phone. As we left, I thanked him for his offer to arrange interviews. “At your disposal,” he said, climbing into the driver’s side of his Chevy red pickup. “Now let’s go get it.” Like so many of the other 10,000 residents who lived around Chillicothe, a farming town in northwest Missouri, Webb was a native to the area. And like most everyone else in Chillicothe over the past three decades, he had developed rather strong feelings about the murder investigation and subsequent courtroom battles that followed that one horrible night in November, 1990, when Cathy Robertson, a mother of five, had been shot and killed in her home. The town was thrown into turmoil by the shooting, Webb said, suffering the deep fear and surreal shock of a mother slain while she slept down the hallway from her small children. But that fear would soon give way to intense disagreement between two opposing camps, divided on the guilt or innocence of a young Chillicothe man. A teenager at the time of the shooting, Mark Woodworth would eventually be tried and convicted for the killing. “A raw deal,” Webb said. “But there were sides even before there had been sides to take,” he explained. It would take me several years to fully appreciate what Webb had meant that day. We kept the truck windows down while Webb sped around Livingston County’s long, solitary gravel roads, plumes of dust rising behind us, in search of those associates of his who he thought would be better to approach about the sensitive topic in person. On the porch of a general store, then in a kitchen fragrant with a roast in the oven, then outside a farmstead drinking sweet tea, I encountered what would become the running theme while I was in Missouri — everyone had a different interpretation of the case. My own sense of the case would change, too, as I acquainted myself more fully with the police investigation, the legal files, and the full range of grievances. Both advocates for Mark’s innocence and those convinced of his guilt laid out disparate criticisms and accusations of wrongdoing, cleaved together by a contradictory explanation for the same circumstances. What was unusual about these allegations however was that it wasn’t always one side speaking ill of the other. In fact, I’d often hear ambivalence towards the opposing faction on the grounds that those other folks, as far as it went, were incidental victims themselves, unaware that their belief in the innocence or guilt of this young man was not a conclusion of their own but the result of deceptions from the defense team or the state prosecutors, or the court system, or the squad of law enforcement agents that hadn’t been forthcoming with the whole damning truth. Still, others, either by what they said or in simply telling me the story of their own lives, echoed Webb’s idea—that the division around Woodworth’s guilt or innocence didn’t really begin with the case itself, or fall exclusively within the jurisdiction of this community. Rather, the night of the shooting and subsequent legal action were but two dots on the crowded timeline of recent historical events that had upended life for the farming families of not only Missouri but across the Middle West. These were, in their own way, examples of larger malignant forces that had preyed, pushed, and ultimately undermined small farming towns trying to earn their daily bread. Singular as the violence of the murder had been, and as disruptive as the criminal trials would become, they were but pieces of the decade’s legacy—the long, grinding, bankrupting bad times known as the 1980s farming crisis. To be sure, much of this wasn’t so clear to me by the time I left Webb and everyone else I’d met on that initial trip through Missouri and Illinois. I came back home jumbled and disorganized, my notes in total disarray. It seemed like too much material and yet, as I began to sift through it all, I suspected that I had missed something. There were sources or documents I didn’t have but which would explain how these stacks of papers were all related. I’d spend another year fumbling in the dark until I squared up to the possibility I wasn’t going to find a coherent story to tell. I finally packed it up and put it all away. After three years, I’d decided it was time to give up the ghost for good and clear out my apartment’s closet—the only closet, shared by my patient, accommodating girlfriend—crowded with the several boxes of files that I had shipped to myself from Missouri. Looking through everything one last time, I came across a reminder of what had sent me down this path in the first place: a DVD of a little-seen documentary featuring Gary Webb and his long quest to make hand fishing legal throughout the United States. It was Webb I’d originally wanted to write about — this pivotal figure in the niche community of so-called noodlers, third and fourth generation men and women who’d been taught the tactics from their parents and grandparents in Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and other states where Webb had traveled as a grass roots advocate. All across the South and Midwest, Webb defended this homespun technique of dangling one’s fingers underwater to catch, knuckles over lip, the chomping 80 pound catfish protecting their underwater nest eggs from the intrusive digits. I had approached Webb, the co-founder of the group Noodlers Anonymous, in the early summer of 2013. With the memory of the 2009 Great Recession still lingering and the opioid epidemic ravaging rural communities in earnest, I first rang his flip phone because I was curious to know if the years of widespread social unraveling—the sky rocketing unemployment, the drug overdoses, the weariness amid so many deaths of despair—had bestowed his tradition with something particularly valuable. Webb’s answer was both yes and no—the sport proved to be a reliable release valve during the dark times, and made for a cheap meal at the jubilant fish fries that followed the successful evasion of fish and game wardens on the prowl. But Webb’s interest seemed unchanged by this long recent spell of upheaval. He was animated principally by the prospect of defeating an ambiguous them, which was comprised of the affluent boat fisherman and politically connected hunters who’d lobbied the game wardens and agriculture department officials to keep noodling off limits. It was only a glimmer of a breakthrough, but thinking of Webb while I stood over the boxes that I was getting ready to throw out, I caught sight of something I hadn’t noticed in the divide of the two sides around the murder case. Webb’s desire to make handfishing legal was as true as it was felt, just as the people of Chillicothe had chosen their sides with moral conviction. Their opponents, however, weren’t necessarily each other. They had their own version of Webb’s them—the judges, state officials, and attorneys with power and ulterior motives that had quite fairly earned their derision. These had been after all the primary figures who either allowed or participated in the corruption, political malfeasance, and manipulation that had ravaged the town for almost a decade during the 1980s crisis. Indeed, both sides had amongst them residents with brutal memories of lean years and plenty of frustration and resentment stored up, and for very good reasons. But fighting against these figures and the large, systemic forces unravelling American farming communities like their own could feel overwhelming, if not impossible. In picking a side in Mark’s case, I realized, some had found a durable vessel into which they could now pour their anger. Looking at the files pulled from my closet for the first time in several years, I saw the Livingston County residents in a different light, enough to get a rough sense of what now might be possible to say about them. After another year of reporting and more weeks back in Missouri, I filled eight new banker boxes with legal documents, police files, archival material, and personal records from those involved in the case. This second tranche included new reporting on the Chillicothe Sheriff’s office’s ongoing investigation into the murder, as well as material related to the protracted civil lawsuits that began in 2014, after the previous year’s controversial Missouri Supreme Court decision, and would only end, bitterly, in 2023. Though the division around the murder remains alive in Chillicothe to this day—as does the sheriff’s ongoing investigation into the case—I believed I had enough already for the book now being published. If Gary Webb were still here to read it, I hope he might agree this was the right story to go chasing after in the backcountry of Livingston County. *** View the full article