Crime Reads » Zack Budryk

Leash Law & Order: The Six Best Pet Parents in Crime Fiction

Leash Law & Order: The Six Best Pet Parents in Crime Fiction

"It’s not hard to see why the motif endures: people love pets"

By Zack Budryk | September 18, 2025

Five Horror Short Stories That Would Make Killer Movies

Five Horror Short Stories That Would Make Killer Movies

Stories from Shirley Jackson, Tananarive Due, and more.

By Zack Budryk | February 21, 2025

What Caleb Carr Taught Me About the Families We Make

What Caleb Carr Taught Me About the Families We Make

On finding a way through life, with 'The Alienist'

By Zack Budryk | June 6, 2024

Requiem for

Requiem for "Hightown," a Queer Noir About the Rot Beneath Paradise

The Provincetown-set noir begins its third and final season.

By Zack Budryk | January 26, 2024

Jail to the Chief: The 5 Worst Fictional Acts Committed by Real Presidents

Jail to the Chief: The 5 Worst Fictional Acts Committed by Real Presidents

From brawling to cuckoldry to cannibalism, (real) Presidents get up to some dark (fictional) deeds.

By Zack Budryk | November 27, 2023

10 Years Later,

10 Years Later, "Prisoners" Eerily Predicted Our Current Moment

Revisiting Denis Villeneuve's bleak portrait of fear and fantasy

By Zack Budryk | October 11, 2023

Best Reviewed
Books of the Week

Red Right Hand: Peaky Blinders, Babylon Berlin and the Looming Shadow of Fascism

By Zack Budryk | August 10, 2023

The Understated Brilliance of 'A Most Violent Year'

By Zack Budryk | April 21, 2023

Warren G. Harding: 100 Years Since the Death of a President Straight Out of a Coen Brothers' Movie

By Zack Budryk | January 23, 2023

Six Musicals That Are Top-Tier Crime Fiction

Six Musicals That Are Top-Tier Crime Fiction

The long tradition of crime and musicals, all tangled up.

By Zack Budryk | August 11, 2022

None of Us Will See Heaven: The Eight Best Irish-American Mob Films of All Time

None of Us Will See Heaven: The Eight Best Irish-American Mob Films of All Time

Is there any scene of screen violence that wouldn't be better if 'Danny Boy' were playing on a gramophone in the background?

By Zack Budryk | March 17, 2022

The Underappreciated Genius of 'Claws'

The Underappreciated Genius of 'Claws'

As the Florida noir wraps its fourth and final season, Zack Budryk looks back at its unique blend of camp and character.

By Zack Budryk | February 18, 2022

How 'Mare of Easttown' Is Breaking New Ground for HBO and the Prestige Crime Series

How 'Mare of Easttown' Is Breaking New Ground for HBO and the Prestige Crime Series

In the new series, Kate Winslet portrays a detective with a new set of complexities surrounding her investigation.

By Zack Budryk | May 14, 2021

Miller's Crossing, 30 Years Later: Revisiting the Coen Bros' Gay Irish Gangster Epic

Miller's Crossing, 30 Years Later: Revisiting the Coen Bros' Gay Irish Gangster Epic

'Miller's Crossing' has always been a Coen outlier. It's easier to see why, and to appreciate its genius, three decades later.

By Zack Budryk | September 22, 2020

The Evolution of the

The Evolution of the "Mildly Autistic Super-Detective"

A trope finds its way toward authenticity.

By Zack Budryk | March 11, 2020