Mystery Novels

The next time you begin conceptualizing your crime story's villain, don't be afraid to mine your own feelings. Down deep, below the surface. It's where the motherlode of characterization, and all the narrative gold that results, lies hidden.

I've always been making up stories about people I see, whether in restaurants, malls, parks, theaters, wherever. hat's just how I see the world, or the many worlds within this world. One of those is the enormous health club that I've belonged to for 20 years.

Going through her things after the funeral, I found something shocking: My mother had kept the concentration camp uniform she was wearing when she was liberated by the Americans in 1945.

Here are my recommendations for some nonfiction books that make great daddy gifts.

So you want to buy the dad in your life a book, but you're not sure what to get him, because he's already finished the Dragon Tattoo series and he thinks Game of Thrones is for pimple-faced middle schoolers?

Fans of the nation's top mystery novelists received a treat Thursday when TNT invited them to a Manhattan sneak preview of the filmic adaptation of Sc...

Outsiders slam academia for not being "the real world," but I disagree. At times it's far too real. It can exhibit the oversize egos of professional sports; the hypocrisy of politics; the cruelty of big business; and the ruthlessness of organized crime.

Fans of action fiction, Japanese philosophy, and martial arts, would do well to pick up a copy of this book, and through the safety and insights within its pages, be both challenged and entertained.

Award-winning children's author, Blue Balliett's first books focus on the adventures of three Chicago sixth-graders. Her latest, The Danger Box, leaves that milieu behind for a mystery set in a small town in Michigan.

Does the adage "too many cooks spoil the broth" apply to fiction? Readers of the novel No Rest For The Dead will soon find out....

I confess to liking, collecting, sharing and savoring both mysteries and thrillers. My favorite sleuths are, like me, flawed and curious in an often dark, confusing and fallen world.

Lisa Scottoline's latest novel Save Me starts off as a story about parental love and protection. It involves elements of childhood bullying, parental ...

The King of Diamonds is first and foremost a murder mystery, but it is also a story like my grandfather's about how people can be corrupted and enslaved by jewels.

Love You More is some of Lisa Gardner's best writing to date. Her plot is amazing in its intensity and its complexity.

While these tools may seem basic, I found that a great lesson of screenwriting was to pay attention to these fundamentals, even as I tackled more sophisticated writing projects.

November 17, 2010 Alison Crandall, Ph.D. Acquisitions Editor Random House, Inc. 1745 Broadway
 New York, NY 10019 acrandall@randomhouse.com Dear...

What is it about mystery novels? I've never hit, kicked, stabbed, or shot anyone. I want to weep when I hear news stories of real beatings or murders. Yet I can't fit enough killings into my waking hours.

If you're in the mood to turn out the lights and hide from the trick-or-treaters, then I recommend breaking out a flashlight and reading one of these 6 Halloween-themed mystery novels.

As a teenager, I went through a serious Sherlock Holmes phase. So, until I read Yunte Huang's Charlie Chan, I thought I'd seen it all in terms of works about sleuths that blurred lines and crossed boundaries.

The greatest mystery of detective fiction is why generations of readers have continued to read it in such huge numbers. Obviously, it is partly to do ...

The Mystery Writers of America announced the winners of their prestigious Edgar Awards for the best crime and mystery writing at a banquet in New York...

Winners at tonight's annual Edgar Awards, presented by the Mystery Writers of America, should relish the victory -- the first Edgar is often the last....