mystery and crime
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Murder: What’s Age Got to Do With It?
The beginning of autumn always makes me want to curl up with a good book and a steaming mug of tea and nothing is cozier to me than a cozy mystery. With protagonists ranging from “your average 30 something whose life has been upended and must return home” to (usually) “single women who inherit mysterious… Continue reading
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#BookBingoNW2023: Peak Picks Edition! True Crime or Crime Fiction
Looking for a book without holds to help you make your Book Bingo? Check out one of these Peak Pick titles that fit the True Crime or Crime Fiction category! Pro tip: Click on “Availability by Location” to see what branches have that title on hand. In S.A. Crosby’s All the Sinners Bleed, Sherriff Titus… Continue reading
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#BookBingoNW2021: Mystery and Crime under 250 pages
As Summer Book Bingo 2021 comes down to the wire (deadline: Sept. 7), you may be looking to maximize your remaining reading time. To that end, here are a selection of mysteries that clock in under 250 pages, for rapid reading. Feeling more leisurely? Check out our longer list of suggested mystery/crime novels. Continue reading
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If You Like Tana French
We librarians hear a lot about readers’ favorite writers, and some names come up over and over again. One of these is Irish mystery writer Tana French, whose gritty Dublin Murder Squad series provides the perfect blend of police procedure and intricate psychological suspense. Only trouble is, she doesn’t write them fast enough. No worries:… Continue reading
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Get Out of the Lake!
The lake is where you want to be on a beautiful August day, unless you’re a character in a mystery novel. I’m here to tell you that, in my experience as an avid mystery reader, an idyllic remote lake can often double as the scene of a crime. Which is why these mysteries are wonderful… Continue reading
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The Year’s Best Crime Writing: The 2019 Edgar Awards
Pulitzers, Bookers, Nobels – bah! For crime fiction fans it’s all about the Edgars. Last night the winners in several categories of crime and thriller books were announced at the Mystery Writers of America’s annual Edgar Awards ceremony: here’s a full list of these titles in our catalog, including non-fiction, books for children and teens,… Continue reading
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Mystery Challenge: Professionals – The Police
~by David W. Someone’s been murdered: who are you going to call? A haughty genius and his devoted doctor sidekick? A persnickety little Belgian whose egg-shaped head is punctuated by a tiny moustache? A wisecracking shamus in a dingy office, drinking rotgut and polishing his gat? Of course not: YOU CALL THE COPS! Continue reading
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Mystery Challenge: Professionals — Private Eyes
~by David W. So far in our mystery challenge, we’ve invited you to cozy up with some amateur sleuths, explore the world, and travel back in time to enjoy great puzzlers from the Queen of Mystery and the World’s Greatest Detective. Now it’s time to get some professional help, as we turn up our collars,… Continue reading
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Romantic Wednesdays: Romance In Death
There’s a recognized trope in romance that people want to, let’s say, celebrate life after a funeral. Or any kind of “near death” experience. That’s not what this post is about. Ahem. The “In Death” series, by J.D. Robb, is a genre bending mash up of romance, surprisingly classic police procedural mystery, and just a… Continue reading
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Crime Comics: Fiction and Non-Fiction
Crime comics were big in the 1940s and 50s, but when adoption of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 limited the types and severity of crime cartoonists could depict, their popularity waned. In recent decades crime comics have gained in popularity and stature as several talented creators have worked to resurrect and reinvent the genre,… Continue reading
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Mysteries for non-mystery readers
“Oh, I would never read a mystery!” If you love crime fiction, you almost certainly have at least one of these in your life. They don’t mean to be snobs or anything, but mysteries? Um, no thanks. Life’s too short, they’ll say, to waste it on such frivolities. In the library, they don’t even know… Continue reading
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Five children’s mysteries you must read!
Someone just told me the most popular posts about books start with a number of books you must read, hence the title and I hope it’s true! We recently updated a number of children’s booklists and I had the pleasure of updating the mysteries list. This meant I read some titles I have been dying… Continue reading
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Crime: Inside Korea, North and South with James Church and Martin Limón.
Last year Adam Johnson, author of the tremendous novel The Orphan Master’s Son wrote us a great post on his experiences in North Korea, including a peek at what passes for a library there. If you’re among the growing number of people watching the startling developments with this mysterious nation with concerned fascination, you owe it… Continue reading
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Crime Out of Africa: beyond Precious Ramotswe.
Is Africa becoming the next Scandinavia? Making up a fifth of the world’s landmass, the continent has accounted for only a tiny fraction of crime publishing, but that seems to be changing. Perhaps under cover of Alexander McCall-Smith’s hugely popular and immensely charming Precious Ramotswe books set in Botswana, and certainly thanks to a growing interest by mystery… Continue reading
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Crime: Papal Intrigue!
I confess: I miss the papal conclave. I miss the pomp and the costumes, but most of all I miss the accents. My favorite part of pope season is how all these men in vestments or Armani suits suddenly appear on the news giving color commentary in these just terrific Roman accents, kind of like Father Guido Sarducci used to… Continue reading
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Thrillers for every taste, part 2.
In last week’s post featuring ninety diverse suspense writers, I made the point that there are many different kinds of thrillers out there. Here are eighty more of today’s best and most thrilling writers grouped for various tastes, and still we’ve only scratched the surface: Sophie Hannah writes contemporary British crime stories suffused with taut psychological suspense and a haunting mood. Also try:… Continue reading
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Richard III, part deux: Return of the Return of the King!
My friends and colleagues will tell you I’m a bit of a bone nut – osteophile? – witness the lifelike replica of a Roman Gladiator’s skull that grins on my desk. Plus I’m a Shakespeare fan, so I was totally jazzed over the recent revelation that a skeleton found under a Leicester car park had… Continue reading
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Crime: Philip Kerr – Back to Berlin.
Way back in 1989, British author Philip Kerr published March Violets, a hardboiled mystery in which tough, tarnished private investigator Bernhard Gunther plunged into the depthless iniquities of Nazi Berlin in search of some small sliver of justice. This was followed up by two other moody period novels featuring Gunther – The Pale Criminal and… Continue reading