Crime fiction

Every reader goes through phases with their selection habits. Last year, for example, I wanted as little to do with the modern world as possible, for reasons I'm sure you can understand. I didn't want to read anything set in the last decade and I certainly didn't feel like reading any dystopian novels written to reflect an ominous future.  Read more

There's the New York we see. The streets and neighborhoods, townhouses and office buildings, stoops and bodegas. That's a damn good city, electric and irrepressible, but there's another place just beyond that surface and it's populated by our ambitions. A city of nighthawks and hustlers. Around every corner, a new scheme.  Read more

Thirty years ago, Helen Mirren stepped into the role of Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison, and an icon was born. In the series Prime Suspect (which ran from 1991-2006), Mirren's Tennison created an indelible archetype of the female investigator: a take-no-crap leader battling the overtly misogynist and often corrupt institution that she nevertheless believed in very deeply.

Whether it's the language, the tradecraft or the folk legends of American Mafia life, The Godfather reads like a voyage through the underworld with Mario Puzo acting as our Virgil.

For the first time in its 68-year history, the Crime Writers' AssociationA networking society for some 400 British crime writers (widely defined) and links to their sites. Membership for published writers only, but award a Debut Dagger for the best unpublished crime novel. Some articles from their magazine Red Herrings are posted on the site and there are links to many individual crime writers' websites. will allow self-published authors to join its ranks. The move comes after the CWA consulted its members, who voted with an 84% majority to allow slef-published authors to join.