Dark Passages: An Archive of Columns
- 1
In Tom Franklin’s Southern gothic tale “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter,” two men find their long friendship complicated by secrets and misunderstandings.
- 2
In ‘A Stranger Like You’ and ‘Chosen,’ criminal impulses collide with wishes for Hollywood success and a baby of one’s own.
- 3
On dangerous ground: In Justin Peacock’s thriller “Blind Man’s Alley,” intrigue and murder involve commercial property deals.
- 4
With ‘Hailey’s War,’ Jodi Compton makes a comeback — of sorts.
- 5
‘So Cold the River’ is a departure from the author’s previous crime novels that heads straight for supernatural territory.
- 6
Her novels are contemporary noir tales full of jagged, splintered edges.
- 7
In new mysteries by Jesse Kellerman and Angela S. Choi, the most unreliable part of the story isn’t the situation -- it’s the narrator.
- 8
The idyllic environment of school life in Carol Goodman’s ‘Arcadia Falls’ is undercut by secrets of the most threatening kind.
- 9
Four new thrillers show that the class of 2010 is already off to a great start.
- 10
In ‘Talking About Detective Fiction,’ P.D. James digs at the bedrock of the genre.
- 11
Fans of mystery series often think they know certain characters better than the authors who created them.
- 12
Give the sleuth a vacation, kill someone close to them or, in Marcia Muller’s case, try something even more drastic.
- 13
In Stuart Neville’s ‘The Ghosts of Belfast,’ a former IRA killer tries to quiet the restless spirits of the people he killed by hunting those who gave him his orders.
- 14
A mystery series featuring the globe-trotting adventurer is just the right antidote for grim headlines.
- 15
Crime-solving heroines explore queasy territory in new books by Karin Slaughter and Teri Coyne.
- 16
Why do some publishers release some serial mysteries out of order? The unfortunate case of Fred Vargas.
- 17
A talk with bestselling mystery writer Lawrence Block about his career, his obsession with racewalking and his legacy when he’s gone.
- 18
YA mysteries by Robert B. Parker (left), John Green, Caroline B. Cooney and John C. Ford
- 19
Hanna Berry’s graphic novel ‘Britten and Brülightly’ acknowledges the noir classics that inspired it even as it develops a style all its own
- 20
In the adventures of p.i. Bernie Gunther, Philip Kerr applies noir techniques to Hitler’s Germany.
- 21
There’s a whole slew of mysteries featuring animal detectives. Does that mean bookstores should have a section marked ‘anthropomorphic noir’?
- 22
The 200th anniversary of his birth arrives with many cities waging ‘the Poe Wars’ and the publication of tributes, stories in his honor and new editions of his work.
- 23
Pan-Asian crime fiction may have began with the characters of Charlie Chan and Judge Dee, but writers today are exploring unexpected, interesting aspects of the genre
- 24
Novels about kidnapping by Laura Lippman, Jennifer McMahon, Stewart O’Nan and others consider the lives of those left behind.
- 25
“Leaves From the Note-Book of a New York Detective” collects stories of a resourceful sleuth who appeared in fiction years before Sherlock Holmes.
- 26
Something was lost in the 20 years separating Katherine Neville’s thriller “The Fire” from the earlier “The Eight.”
- 27
“The Book of Murder” and “The Killing Circle” consider a very lethal set: the writers’ group
- 28
‘The Curse of the Pogo Stick’ and ‘The Case of the Missing Books’ join the ‘No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency’ series as beach reads that are light on the grisly crime.
- 29
Installment by installment, ‘The Lemur’ by Benjamin Black follows an old trend that has become--at least among writers--popular again.
- 30
Can nothing bridge the gap separating readers of true crime and crime fiction? Consider “The Monster of Florence,” “The Girl with the Crooked Nose” and “The Forger’s Spell.”
- 31
When literary figures are turned into detectives, there’s great promise in the material--and little margin for error
- 32
Two complex new mysteries explore the continent’s darker side
- 33
Three debut authors didn’t live long enough to see their novels published.
- 34
The tropes of the P.I. novel may have been exhausted long ago, but the genre isn’t dead. Hardly, as succeeding generations of mystery writers have shown.
- 35
The genius presiding over forensic thrillers is still the one and only Sherlock Holmes
- 36
John Bingham not only wrote fascinating spy novels -- he also inspired one of John Le Carre’s singular characters
- 37
Thomas Harris has a lot to answer for.
- 38
In February 2004, former New York Times Book Review editor Charles McGrath created a minor controversy with an essay in which he wondered why most contemporary thriller writers “don’t seem to be interested in the post-9/11 landscape.”
- 39
Mysteries and thrillers hinge on basic questions: whodunit, whydunit and the dreaded had-I-but-known.
- 40
A pair since the days of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
- 41
One might not have expected Comic-Con International, the extravaganza held in San Diego every July, to become a major promotional vehicle for mystery writers.
