Sherlock Holmes, the literary epitome of rationalism and clear-headed detective work, spent his career debunking and illuminating the mysterious, the unexplainable, and the supernatural. But Holmes’s author, Athur Conan Doyle, could not have been more different from his creation. A medical doctor by trade, he was also an ardent spiritualist. And once he put his ..read more

As someone who has spent years living in cooperative housing, I will admit that when it comes to community, I’m ready to drink the cool-aid. But in an age of increasing inequality, an ongoing housing crisis, and increasing segregation between the haves and have-nots, I find it difficult to condone the concept of a gated ..read more

Juliet Grames: Immigrant Detective. It’s not an official title, nor does it rank among the distinctions listed in her biography (though maybe it should). Those include Editorial Director at Soho Press, for which she received the Ellery Queen Award from the Mystery Writers of America, and bestselling author of historical fiction. Her debut novel, The Seven ..read more

In 1917, the seventy thousand residents of San Diego had a decision to make: “Smokestacks versus Geraniums.” Few cities have the chance to define their future, but the candidates in the 1917 election for mayor made the two possibilities clear. Gilded Age bankertype Louis J. Wilde—for whom no industrial project was too big to finance—marketed ..read more

Peter Houlahan’s Reap the Whirlwind: Violence, Race, Justice, and the Story of Sagon Penn is an engrossing, insightful account of a traffic stop gone horribly wrong. On March 31,1985, Penn, a Black man driving a pickup truck carrying several other Black men, was pulled over by Donovan Jacobs, a white cop accompanied by Sarah Pina-Ruiz, a civilian hoping to join the department. Asked for his license, Penn tried to hand his wallet to Jacobs, who refused to accept it.  This quickly turned into a physical confrontation, during which Penn—who, witnesses said, was fending off Jacobs’ unjustifi ..read more

Obsession, addiction, and disease: They are themes that coexist as a strange hierarchy of social horror, like the raw matter of what makes a subculture tick, and how self-destruction often takes control of the individual long before they can identify the source of the hurt. They are what fuels The Body Harvest’s Will and Olivia, the would-be main characters of a virus-laden story, full of the sort of worry and want that comes from people not only down on their luck but also wounded to the core. Their obsession is finding and overcoming viruses. Their addiction is that feeling of coming off th ..read more

By the time I got there, everything was cleaned up. That’s how it always was. Casings collected by the cops, or kicked by passersby into the storm drain; blood scrubbed off the sidewalk; witnesses with three days to vanish or make up a story about how they didn’t see what they saw. A boisterous boy with a huge smile—his high school yearbook photo was on all the 6 pm newscasts—shot dead through the face and lung. The police arrested Jacques. Not his real name, of course. They say he just stood up out of his car outside the nightclub and started shooting. The dead boy’s girlfriend saw it happen ..read more

As I write this essay at the start of fire season, the skies near me are smoky from a blaze north of where I live. For many residents of wildfire-prone areas, the smell of smoke or strong gusts on a hot day can be triggering. We check our apps or bookmarked links. We text friends and family. Some of us pack go-bags, or record quick videos to document our belongings. For a few months every year, the threat of a wildfire is a physical presence—a visitor unwelcome who nevertheless returns year after year. When I started drafting What We’ll Burn Last, which involves the search for a missing girl ..read more

“What’s Denver’s dating profile?” When the prolific novelist, Rachel Howzell Hall, asked me that question in a podcast interview, I was stumped. “Is she sultry or what?” Rachel continued. “I want to know more about the city. Who is Denver?” Rachel’s question forced me to dig deep into why I write crime novels about my hometown. While Denver doesn’t carry the mystique of the usual suspects of Los Angeles, New York or Chicago, it is the only place I’ve called home and, for me, the perfect setting for a mystery. Denver is a beautiful place to live. Blue skies and painted sunsets are the norm. W ..read more

Some would say all writers are criminals. We steal bits of reality to make our fictional worlds. But is using someone else’s experience in your fiction really a crime? That’s the question I pondered as I wrote The Widow on Dwyer Court, a domestic thriller about an erotica writer who owes her popularity to her husband’s active and creative sex life—with women who aren’t her. Thirty-six-year-old soccer mom Kate has never enjoyed sex, but she does love her handsome husband, Matt. They’ve struck a peculiar deal: Matt can indulge his appetites with strangers on business trips, as long as he tells ..read more