Top 125 Best Crime Story News, Reviews & Resources

• 007 Ways to Buy James Bond 1st Editions - Artistic License Renewed.
• 4am starts & spinach smoothies: Da Vinci Code's Dan Brown on how to write a bestseller - "As he sets out to spill his secrets in an online masterclass, Brown talks about bad reviews, his habit of hanging upside down and the challenge of writing fiction in the age of Trump."
• 7 clandestine words from John le CarrÉ - "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Dictionary."
• 10 Commandments of Detective Fiction - Ronald Knox (1929).
• 16 Best True Crime Books of All Time - "From classics like Truman Capote's In Cold Blood to newer page-turners like Ron Stallworth's Black Klansman, these books are must reads."
• 50 best TV detectives & sleuths - The Telegraph.
• 50 crime writers to read before you die - The Telegraph.
• 50 great thrillers by women - " From Agatha Christie to Gillian Flynn."
• A Most Wanted Man! The dozen mistresses of John le CarrÉ are 'just the tip of the iceberg' - "John le Carré is reported as saying he didn't want to 'humiliate' his wife Jane."
• Agatha Christie's race problem - "Death on the Nile and addressing racism in Agatha Christie. With Kenneth Branagh's second Hercule Poirot film out, Christie is hot Hollywood property once more. But how should adaptors navigate her books' attitude to race, asks David Jesudason."
• Al Capone's favorite gun, personal items head to auction - "Al Capone is infamous for having been a ruthless mob boss, but one of his granddaughters says Capone's softer side will shine through when the family auctions some of his personal belongings in October."
• Alexander Litvinenko: the man who solved his own murder - The Guardian.
• Arthur Conan Doyle’s estate sues Netflix for giving Sherlock Holmes too many feelings - "The estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has sued Netflix over its upcoming film Enola Holmes, arguing that the movie’s depiction of public domain character Sherlock Holmes having emotions and respecting women violates Doyle’s copyright."
• Artistic License Renewed - "An Art and Literary James Bond Blog and Tribute to Richard Chopping."
• Baker Street Irregulars - fictional characters who appear in three Sherlock Holmes stories, specifically two novels and one short story, by Arthur Conan Doyle. They are street boys who are employed by Holmes as intelligence agents.
• Bouchercon - annual convention of creators and devotees of mystery and detective fiction. It is named in honour of writer, reviewer, and editor Anthony Boucher; also the inspiration for the Anthony Awards, which have been issued at the convention since 1986.
• Caper story - subgenre of crime fiction. The typical caper story involves one or more crimes (especially thefts, swindles, or occasionally kidnappings) perpetrated by the main characters in full view of the reader. The actions of police or detectives attempting to prevent or solve the crimes may also be chronicled, but are not the main focus of the story.
• City mysteries - 19th-century genre of popular novel, in which characters explore the secret underworlds of cities and reveal corruption and exploitation, depicting violence and deviant sexuality. They were popular in both Europe & the United States.
• Crime dramas are often set in English villages because they are places of 'hatred, mistrust and bitterness' - The Telegraph.
• CRIME FICTION - the literary genre that fictionalises crimes, their detection, criminals, and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has multiple subgenres, including detective fiction (such as the whodunit), courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction and legal thrillers. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre.
• CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION - writers' association in the United Kingdom founded in 1953.
• CRYPTO MUSEUM - "At present we are a virtual museum in The Netherlands, that can only be visited on the internet. We do, however, regularly organize exhibitions in co-operation with other museums."
• Cui bono - literally "for whose benefit?", is a Latin phrase which is still in use as a key forensic question in legal and police investigation: finding out who has a motive for a crime. It is an adage that is used either to suggest a hidden motive or to indicate that the party responsible for something may not be who it appears at first to be.
• Detection Club - formed in 1930 by a group of British mystery writers.
• Do you have what it takes to be a secret agent - The Telegraph.
• Domestic Noir - literary subgenre within crime fiction.
• downfall of one of world's most notorious criminals - "El Chapo guilty: Will his jailing change anything? The trial and conviction of the notorious Joaquín Guzmán Loera, also known as El Chapo, told us much about the man, the multi-billion drugs trade and the attempts to stop it."
• Edgar Allan Poe: the master of horror writing - The Telegraph.
• ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON - origin of the phrase.
• Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing
• Gentleman thief - definition & explanation.
• George and Ann - "John le Carré wrote one of the strangest marriages in fiction."
• Golden Age of Detective Fiction - Wikipedia.
• GOOD COP / BAD COP - definition & explanation.
• Had I but known - a form of prolepsis or foreshadowing that hints at some looming disaster in which the first-person narrator laments his or her course of action which precipitates some or other unfortunate series of actions.
• Has the Great Train Robbery’s leader finally been unmasked? - "Detective identifies gangster Billy Hill as mastermind of 1963 crime that still fascinates the public."
• Historical mystery - or historical whodunit is a subgenre of two literary genres, historical fiction and mystery fiction. These works are set in a time period considered historical from the author's perspective, and the central plot involves the solving of a mystery or crime (usually murder).
• History of crime fiction - Wikipedia.
• Hostile Witness - witness at trial whose testimony on direct examination is either openly antagonistic or appears to be contrary to the legal position of the party who called the witness.
• How maths can solve Agatha Christie's whodunnits - Daily Mail.
• howcatchem - an inverted detective story, also known as a "howcatchem", is a murder mystery fiction structure in which the commission of the crime is shown or described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator. The story then describes the detective's attempt to solve the mystery. There may also be subsidiary puzzles, such as why the crime was committed, but those are cleared up along the way. This format is the opposite of the more typical "whodunit", where all of the details of the perpetrator of the crime are not revealed until the story's climax.
• Ian Fleming and the World of James Bond - Lilly Library, Indiana University. The James Bond novels and their manuscripts.
• IC Codes - codes used by the British police in radio communications to describe the apparent ethnicity of a suspect.
• Inside the 21st-century British criminal underworld - "There are almost 5,000 criminal gangs in the UK. But the old family firms are gone – today’s big players are multinational, diversified and tech-savvy."
• INVERTED DETECTIVE STORY - also known as a "howcatchem", is a murder mystery fiction structure in which the commission of the crime is shown or described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator.
• Jack the Ripper identity: mystery ‘solved’ in new book - The Telegraph.
• JAMES BOND 007 MUSEUM - Nybro, Sweden.
• James Bond: How his sex life compares with an average man - BBC.
• JAMES BOND LIFESTYLE AUCTIONS - James Bond memorabilia, and more.
• JAMES BOND MULTIMEDIA
• JAMES BOND PRODUCT PLACEMENT - over 50 years of financing the film franchise through product placement.
• JAMES BOND WIKI - the ultimate James Bond resource.
• James Bond's Weekly alcohol consumption - study by British Medical Journal.
• JEAN-BAPTISTE Greuze - (1725-1805). French painter of portraits, genre scenes, and history painting. In the second chapter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story The Valley of Fear, Holmes' discussion of his enemy Professor Moriarty involves a Greuze painting in his possession, intended to illustrate Moriarty's wealth despite his small legitimate salary as an academic.
• John le CarrÉ: a life in pictures - The Guardian.
• John le CarrÉ, author of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, dies aged 89 - "Thriller writer most famous for stories of complex cold war intrigue began his career as a real-life spy in postwar Europe."
• John le CarrÉ didn't invent the spy novel - he joined a tradition and made it new again - "William Boyd remembers an exemplar of the ultimate literary professional, tirelessly writing at the top of his game well into his 80s."
• John le CarrÉ: I was beaten by my father, abandoned by my mother - The Guardian.
• John le CarrÉ remembered by writers & friends: 'He always had a naughty twinkle in the eye' - "Margaret Atwood, John Banville, Tom Stoppard, Ralph Fiennes, John Boorman and more pay tribute to a master who transcended the limits of spy fiction."
• Kim Philby, Lecturing in East Berlin in ‘81, Bragged of How Easy It Was to Fool MI6 - The New York Times.
• Legal drama - Wikipedia.
• LIST OF CRIME WRITERS - Wikipedia.
• LIST OF EUROPEAN MYSTERY WRITERS - Wikipedia.
• LIST OF THRILLER WRITERS - Wikipedia.
• Locard's exchange principle - holds that the perpetrator of a crime will bring something into the crime scene and leave with something from it, and that both can be used as forensic evidence. Dr. Edmond Locard (13 December 1877 – 4 May 1966) was a pioneer in forensic science who became known as the Sherlock Holmes of France. He formulated the basic principle of forensic science: "Every contact leaves a trace".
• Locked room mystery - sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances.
• London's most infamous spy locations - The Telegraph.
• My Al Capone Museum - "Now with over 130 web pages and 3385 images!" Photographs and stories about several of Capone's personal items as well as related documents, articles, and merchandise.
• Mystery Readers International - fan/reader organization open to all readers, fans, critics, editors, publishers, and writers of Mystery fiction.
• MYSTERY STORY - detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction in which a detective, either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.
• MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA - the premier organization for mystery and crime writers, professionals allied to the crime writing field, aspiring crime writers, and folks who just love to read crime fiction.
• Naming Jack the Ripper: The Biggest Forensic Breakthrough Since 1888 - Amazon.com.
• opposite number - a person who holds a position in an organization or system corresponding to that of a person in another organization or system; a counterpart.
• Perry Mason moment - In court proceedings in the United States, a Perry Mason moment is said to have occurred whenever information is unexpectedly (to most present), and often dramatically, introduced into the record that changes the perception of the proceedings greatly and often influences the outcome. Often it takes the form of a witness's answer to a question, but it can sometimes come in the form of new evidence.
• Person of interest - term used by U.S. law enforcement when identifying someone involved in a criminal investigation who has not been arrested or formally accused of a crime. It has no legal meaning, but refers to someone in whom the police are "interested," either because the person is cooperating with the investigation, may have information that would assist the investigation, or possesses certain characteristics that merit further attention.
• Pipe dreams: on the trail of Maigret’s Paris - The Guardian.
• POLICE PROCEDURAL MYSTERY STORY - a sub-genre of the mystery story which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes.
• Policier - a film based on a police novel, portraying crime and its detection by police.
• Potboiler - low-quality novel, play, opera, film, or other creative work whose main purpose was to pay for the creator's daily expenses.
• Private eye - from private investigator and its abbreviation P.I., through the homophonic term eye in place of "I", and the used of eye as a reference to survellience.
• PRIVATE EYE WRITERS OF AMERICA
• Professor Challenger - fictional character in a series of fantasy and science fiction stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Psychological thriller - Wikipedia.
• Quiller - Quiller is a fictional character created by English novelist Elleston Trevor. Quiller, whose one-word name is a pseudonym, works as a spy, and he is the hero of a series of 19 Cold War thrillers written under the pseudonym Adam Hall, and became Trevor's most popular character.
• Red herring - something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue. It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences towards a false conclusion.
• Rocambole - fictional adventurer created by Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail, a 19th-century French writer. Rocambole anticipates characters such as A.J. Raffles, Arsène Lupin, Fantômas, The Saint, Doc Savage, Judex and The Shadow.
• Rose Line - fictional name given to the Paris Meridian popularized by Dan Brown in his 2003 novel, The Da Vinci Code.
• Russian Roulette: The Life and Times of Graham Greene review - addicted to danger - "A new biography, by Richard Greene, insists there was more to the author than ‘sex, books and depression’."
• Sisters in Crime - organization that has 3,600 members in 48 chapters world-wide, offering networking, advice and support to mystery authors.
• Spy fiction - Wikipedia.
• Stieg Larsson & the unsolved murder case of Olof Palme - "The assassination of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme obsessed Larsson for years - he even put several references to it in his novels. Do his secret files contain vital clues?"
• STRAND MAGAZINE - "The magazine for mystery & short story lovers."
• The Baker Street Journal - since 1946. "The premier publication of scholarship about Sherlock Holmes." 'An Irregular quarterly' of Sherlockiana, published by the Baker Street Irregulars.
• THE BUTLER DID IT - definition & explanation.
• THE CAMBRIDGE FIVE - a ring of spies in the UK who passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and into the early 1950s.
• THE JAMES BOND DOSSIER
• The many lives of John le CarrÉ, in his own words - The Guardian.
• The Mob Museum - Las Vegas, NV. Dedicated to featuring the artifacts, stories, and history of organized crime in the United States. E.g. the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Wall are a Tommy gun (which can be touched, held and even “pretend” shot), an electric chair, as well as the barber chair Albert Anastasia was murdered in.
• THE MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP - "The World's Finest Mystery Specialty Store. Offering the best in Mystery, Crime, Suspense, Espionage & Detective Fiction." New York City, NY, U.S.A.
• The Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction - Ronald Knox (1929).
• The two illusions that tricked Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - "Two real-life hoaxes managed to fool the creator of Sherlock Holmes - and they help to reveal our own 'metacognitive illusions' that influence our memory and perception."
• The World’s Greatest Detective - The New York Times.
• THRILLER - definition & explanation.
• Tom Hiddleston reads from John le CarrÉ's The Night Manager - video - "To celebrate the publication of John le Carré’s first memoir, Tom Hiddleston reads from The Night Manager. Don’t miss other leading actors reading le Carré’s work, and an exclusive extract from The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life (Penguin), at theguardian.com on 3 September."
• Top 10 golden age detective novels - "For some, ‘cosy crime’ of the 1920s and 30s is class-ridden and formulaic – but classic authors such as Agatha Christie and Josephine Tey paved the way for modern fiction as we know it."
• Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time - Wikipedia.
• Top writers choose their perfect crime novel - The Guardian.
• Tozai Mystery Best 100 - "The Top 100 Mystery Novels of the East and the West."
• True crime - is a non-fiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.
• True Detective - (1924-1995). Considered the first true crime magazine.
• When the Creator of Sherlock Holmes Exonerated a Convicted Murderer - The New York Times.
• Where Dracula Was Born, and It’s Not Transylvania - The New York Times.
• Whodunit - (for "Who [has] done it?" or "Who did it?") is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the audience is given the opportunity to engage in the same process of deduction as the protagonist throughout the investigation of a crime. The reader or viewer is provided with the clues from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the story provides the revelation itself at its climax. The investigation is usually conducted by an eccentric, amateur, or semi-professional detective.
• Whodunnit? Did Agatha Christie ‘borrow’ the plot for acclaimed novel? - "Translator uncovers twist in the tale of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd ... it may have been inspired by Norwegian author’s story."
• why thrillers are leaving other books for dead - The Guardian.
• William Gillette - (1853-1937). American actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best remembered for portraying Sherlock Holmes on stage and in a 1916 silent film long thought lost. Gillette's most significant contributions to the theater were in devising realistic stage settings and special sound and lighting effects, and as an actor in putting forth what he called the "Illusion of the First Time". His portrayal of Holmes helped create the modern image of the detective.