Mysteries, Thrillers & All Things Killer
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Dear Readers, I first wrote about Seaside – a fictional beach town – in a thriller I published back in 2015. It was loosely inspired by the summers I spent in a small lake town about three hours north of Toronto. For a city kid like me, a small town was a whole different world.…
Writing for the first time as S.C. Godfrey, Sierra Godfrey blends action, intricate puzzles, globe-trotting settings, and romance into one thrilling package. At a cryptology conference in Madrid, Zoe Wilder finally breaks things off with her boyfriend Eric, who’s also her boss and refuses to accept it’s over. While studying the bronze Angel Caído statue…
Sometimes an especially compelling story can be told in a novel or movie when pretty much all of the characters are morally irredeemable. We all love a literary or cinematic hero for whom we can root, even if it can be said that they are anti-heroes. But can we stay engrossed in such tales if…
Charles Salzberg is a man of words. As an acclaimed novelist, journalist, and writing instructor, he has been selling, and shaping, stories for decades. His five-book series featuring Henry Swann was nominated for a Shamus Award (for Best First PI Novel for Swann’s Last Song ), while his standalone novel, Second Story Man , won the Beverly…
1 There’s a certain lazy delight to be had from a sunset in Enigma, Georgia. Thin clouds drifted in the pale winter sky. A bird, only one, was singing in a bare sycamore tree near the gazebo where I was sitting. The tree had turned blue, and I couldn’t quite understand that. All the sky…
Ali Azeem comes from money, but not the kind of family money you can really compare to the immense wealth of global real estate tycoon Abbas Khan. When Abbas and his wife approach Ali’s parents about potentially arranging Ali’s marriage to their younger daughter Maryam, Ali decides to just grin and bear it, as he’s…
I’m not even that much of a fan of late-night comedy shows, but this mystery novel, about a variety program modeled on Saturday Night Live , had me in a total chokehold from start to finish. Presented as a collection of documents – interview transcripts, journal entries and magazine articles among them – this highly absorbing…
Former Hollywood script writer Dee Stern is now part owner, with her ex-husband and still best friend Jeff Cornetta, of the family-friendly Golden Motel located in the tiny hamlet of Foundgold, California. Like most of the other locals, they’re looking forward to the festivities celebrating the birthday of Angus Sprockles, and not just because it…
Annie Gore, the Appalachian-born and Louisville-based Private investigator at the heart of The Witch’s Orchard and Brimstone Hollow , is described by readers with one word more than any other: gritty. And it’s true. She’s resolute and plucky. She eats like a horse, throws a mean punch, habitually gets dressed out of the laundry basket, and…
Prologue July 26, 1953 Short Creek, Arizona Before dawn, the earth was still quiet, except for the soft breathing of a few sleepers, the creaking of wooden porches, and somewhere the low hum of hymns. Outside the schoolhouse, children played, bare feet on dirt, a dog barking, a rooster crowing somewhere beyond the fences. Inside,…
