THIS WEEK: In 1916, John D. MacDonald was born.
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- “So began one of the longest and most complicated murder investigations in California history.” On the missing Salomon family, and their many secrets. |Los Angeles Magazine
- “It said so much about the history of women’s medicine…dismissing everything as hysteria, perceiving women’s bodies as this out-of-control thing.” Megan Abbott on medicine, misogyny, and paranoia.|Time
- “Every day, no matter how you fight it, you learn a little more about yourself, and all most of it does is teach humility.” Celebrating a century of John D. MacDonald.| CrimeReads
- On the origins of Ace Atkins, hometown hero, football player, and prolific crimewriter, now splitting time between his own characters and Robert B. Parker’s. |Alabama.com
- Re-reading Mary Higgins Clark as a guide to dealing with terrible men. A new essay on crime fiction and trauma, from Becca Schuh. | CrimeReads
- Melissa Chadburn and Carolyn Kellogg report on “Anna March,” the woman who appears to have been grifting literary communities around the country for years. | L.A. Times
- Sarah Weinman investigates a Crown Heights townhouse where a self-styled preacher ran a dubious church and a collections scam. Then his “nuns” began to disappear. | CrimeReads
- “If Irish crime fiction has a signal crime, at home or abroad, it is corruption, public and private, spiritual and secular.” Brian Cliff on the boom days of Irish crime fiction. | The Irish Times
- Flynn Berry looks back at the Lord Lucan scandal, the 1970s murder and coverup that still threatens to expose the British class system, if only someone would say what really happened. | CrimeReads
- Alice Bolin and Kristen Martin discuss setting a new bar for “dead girl” stories and moving into a new imaginative space for crime stories. | Lit Hub
- For years, women dressed as nuns and raised funds for a dubious Brooklyn church. Then they began to disappear. Sarah Weinman investigates the charismatic preacher who held sway over these women. | CrimeReads
- J. Kingston Pierce looks at the evolution of Philip Marlowe since Raymond Chandler’s death, as new authors take charge of the iconic PI’s fate. |CrimeReads
- A look at crime fiction’s long love affair with / addiction to poker. | Mystery Tribune
- Family, friends, readers, and listeners mourn the death of the crime novelist, BBC broadcaster, and mystery lover, Jessica Mann. | The Guardian
- Closed Society Mysteries: Linda Castillo examines crime fiction that penetrates cloistered communities like the Amish, Hasidim, and private school New Yorkers. | CrimeReads
- How Borges, Bioy Casares, and their small publishing house introduced detective fiction to Argentina and changed the course of a literary culture. |Crimereads
- “So began one of the longest and most complicated murder investigations in California history.” On the missing Salomon family, and their many secrets. | LA Mag
- 10 great debut crime novels to read this July, recommended by the editors of CrimeReads. | CrimeReads
- A library archivist and a bookstore owner stand accused of pilfering a Pennsylvania library’s rarest treasures. | The New York Times
- “Every day, no matter how you fight it, you learn a little more about yourself, and all most of it does is teach humility.” On the 102nd anniversary of his birth, the wit and wisdom of crime legend, John D. MacDonald. | CrimeReads
- Lyndsay Faye on nuanced patriotism, irreverence, and the surprising political affinities between Mark Twain and Sherlock Holmes. | CrimeReads
- William Klaber on reexamining the evidence and finding new reason for doubt in the case of Robert Kennedy’s assassination. | Criminal Element
- The hardboiled crime fiction of Central Asia. Crime and the ‘City’ visits a land of oil, organized crime, krokodil, Soviet strongmen, and cynical detectives. | CrimeReads
- James Lovegrove examines the long tradition of Sherlock Holmes doing battle with supernatural, occult, alien, and downright uncanny forces. | Crimereads
- “Several kinds of dreadfulness are handled with a grisly skill.” A look at the first reviews for all of Raymond Chandler’s novels. | Book Marks
- Time for some armchair summer travel. The editors of CrimeReads picks the best international crime fiction coming to the States in July. | CrimeReads
- Gray Brasnight lays out a brief history of cryptography in crime fiction, from Poe to Conan Doyle to today’s enigmas, and cracks a few codes while he’s at it. |CrimeReads
