THIS WEEK: In 1859, Arthur Conan Doyle was born.
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- Jessica Knoll picks 10 dark thrillers to read in the sunshine. Put your shades on and pull your Megan Abbott paperback out. It’s summertime. | Publisher’s Weekly
- The US Presidency’s long obsession with mystery fiction. Which POTUS was obsessed with Travis McGee? Who was partial to Murder, She Wrote? | New York Times
- Yashar Ali on John Carreyrou, the reporter who took on Silicon Valley to write “a great and at times almost unbelievable story of scandalous fraud, surveillance, and legal intimidation at the highest levels of American corporate power.” | New York Magazine
- Performing Of Mice and Men Behind Bars. Daniel A. Gross goes behind the scenes with the Sing Sing inmates starring in the prison’s 2018 theater production. | Lit Hub
- Skip Hollandsworth profiles Jeff Pike, leader of the notorious Bandidos biker gang, who faced a Texas jury earlier this week, answering to racketeering and conspiracy charges. | Texas Monthly
- Dipsikha Thakur on discovering Arthur Conan Doyle’s imperialist fervor, and how the author channeled his fantasies into a dark vision of Egypt. | Electric Literature
- Part 1 of Pamela Colloff’s investigation into the murder of Mickey Bryan and the questionable evidence that put Joe Bryan in jail for the last 30 years. | ProPublica / New York Times Magazine
- “Ultimately, Roth’s are books to wrestle with, occasionally to do battle. The books do battle with themselves.” Megan Abbott on Philip Roth’s legacy. | The Paris Review
- How Allison Mack went from CW stardom to women’s empowerment seminars to recruiting “slaves” for a now notorious cult. | Hollywood Reporter
- From Philip K. Dick to China Mieville, author Claire North celebrates speculative fiction and the great sci-fi thrillers that broke down genre barriers. | CrimeReads
- Can TV move beyond the 19th century novel? Alan Glynn looks at the evolution of serialized storytelling and sees a revolution in the limited crime series. | CrimeReads
- Ranking the 17 most addictive mysteries in TV history. Yes, Twin Peaks is near the top. Also, more Veronica Mars, but you can never have enough. | Film School Rejects
- Meg Little Reilly remembers how true crime got her through her daughter’s illness, and considers how we process collective versus personal traumas. | CrimeReads
- Tom Zoellner on manning the San Francisco Chronicle tip line, and how amateur sleuths keep alive the memory of the Zodiac Killer. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- A Victorian Era guide to oppressing women. Brenda Clough breaks down the many and insane laws that kept women down in Victorian Britain—the same laws that power the engine of many a good historical mystery. | CrimeReads
- CrimeReads editors mourn great crime shows canceled too soon, and recommend books to fill the hole left in your heart where Veronica Mars and Al Swearengen used to be. | CrimeReads
- You’re right, your neighbors are suspicious. Lisa Levy takes on the 10 creepiest neighbors in modern suspense. | CrimeReads
- Remembering the golden age of cover art. J. Kingston Pierce looks at the lives and works of 12 artists who helped define vintage crime. | CrimeReads
- A Spaniard’s to Spanish Crime Fiction: author Víctor del Árbol offers an insider’s account of the very best authors and books in Spanish noir. | CrimeReads
- Eliot Pattison on the power of historical fiction, especially historical crime fiction, in allowing us to understand the humanity and struggles of our forebears. | CrimeReads
- The “the world’s fiercest army of women”: Kim Wall and Mansi Choksi report on Tamil women and how they were betrayed by the cause they fought for. | LongReads
- Sometimes you can’t help but root for the bad guy. Counting down 10 of the most likable anti-heroes in the history of noir. | CrimeReads
- Crime fiction comes to the famous Grub Street Diet diary. Travel from LA to New York City with Jessica Knoll and vicariously savor the pasta. | Grub Street
- Crime and the City goes to Lisbon, Portugal, and looks at the decades of spies, exiles and rebels that make the city a haven for espionage fiction. | CrimeReads
- Eric Thurm on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the evolution of detective stories, and whether this is the right time for more shows about “good cops.” | Lit Hub
- “Twenty or thirty years later, almost none of them are the same person a prosecutor and jury decided was too irredeemably evil even to be kept alive.” Author and attorney L.F. Robertson at the slow, strange passage of time on death row. | CrimeReads
- How Conan Doyle ranked the Sherlock Holmes stories, and why he made the top 12 list his last word on the subject of his most famous creation. | Lit Hub
