The death of basketball player Bill Walton yesterday reminded me of how sports and crime can sometimes intersect, and in the oddest of ways. I remember being 12 years old when the heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the self-proclaimed radical leftist group, the Symbionese Liberation Army. That was quite a news story, but then, brainwashed apparently, she took part in bank robberies the SLA committed. There have been a number of books and documentaries about the entire SLA and Hearst saga, not to mention Paul Schrader's excellent 1988 film, Patty Hearst, starring Natasha Richardson as Hearst ..read more

by Scott D. Parker I walked into Murder by the Book on Wednesday knowing one author. I left knowing two. I’ve enjoyed Tom Straw’s writing before I knew who Tom Straw was. Back in the fall of 2009, the second season of “Castle” premiered on our TV screens, but HEAT WAVE, the first book “written by” Richard Castle, showed up on bookshelves. What was this meta magic? Nearly every fall after 2009, when a new Castle season started there was a Castle book. What made the books great was this: unlike the TV show characters Castle and Beckett, their counterparts, Jameson Rook and Nikki Heat, actually g ..read more

  Get yours here “Bloody, vengeful, revelatory. Some of today's best crime and horror writers sharpen their power and writing tools and spill blood on the page in righteous tribute to the fiction world’s most justice-focused figure, Bishop Rider. This is an incredible collection of stories not to be missed.” —Curtis Ippolito, author of Burying the Newspaper Man “Bishop Rider Lives: An Anthology of Retribution brings together some of the best crime writers from the genre for this fantastic and brutal collection of stories exploring vigilante justice and bloody, heart-poundi ..read more

 In case you missed the news yesterday - and, if you were on the internet and at all tuned in to the crime fiction community, I'm not sure how you could have - Beau Johnson's iconic anti-hero, he of chainsaws, wood chippers, dull blades, napalm, and, in one particularly memorable case, a forklift, Bishop Rider, is back from the dead, and this time he's bringing friends.  Bishop, dead since the end of Johnson's fifth novel-in-stories, has returned, but this time, Beau isn't at the wheel. Instead, he asked friends and the community he has so tirelessly promoted to tell their own B ..read more

In my continuing exploration of the fictional world of Perceval Everett, I recently read his novel from 1996, Watershed. As he does in some of his other books, Everett writes a story that has some of the ingredients of a genre work, replete with murder and a mystery. But the plot unfolds in such a way that makes it clear that fulfilling genre expectations is not what he has in mind. This doesn't make the novel any less suspenseful or addictive as a read; if truth be told, this aspect only enhanced my pleasure reading it. As much as I enjoy reading crime fiction, I have to say that sometimes I ..read more

Visit Eryk Pruitt on X for more: @reverenderyk By Steve Weddle By now, you've read and loved Something Bad Wrong, the first in Eryk Pruitt's energetic, engaging Jess Keeler series.  Or you've heard about it, and it's on your TBR pile. Brooke Cain of the Raleigh News & Observer called it "the most devourable mystery novel [she's] read in years.” Now Pruitt is back with the second in the series, picking up a  starred review in Library Journal: “The intriguing sequel to Something Bad Wrong utilizes dual timelines and three voices that contrast styles of c ..read more

If you're a mom, or if you mother someone, then you're what makes the world go 'round.  Happy Mother's Day ..read more

by Scott D. Parker (In honor of its Anthony Award nomination for Best Paperback Novel, I'd like to remind everyone just how much fun Scott Von Doviak's book is. Here is the full list of all the nominations.) Look at that cover. Hard Case Crime might be the single publisher in this century who remembers how great painted covers used to be. This cover looks like a long-lost book you’d have found on the paperback spinner rack at the 7-Eleven in 1975 as you clutched a Slurpee in your hand, your favorite hero painted on the white, plastic cup. Or its the novelization to a 1970s movie you’d see a ..read more

Dark Matter is now streaming on Apple TV, so Beau says it's a great time to revisit the book.  ..read more

By Scott D. Parker Wednesday marked what I like to call my personal Writer’s New Year’s Day. It commemorates my decision on 1 May 2013 to write and complete the story based on a scene in my head—a man, wearing a fedora, knocking on a door, and being answered with bullets. I resolved to finish that story no matter what. I did, and it’s now called WADING INTO WAR: A BENJAMIN WADE MYSTERY. The decision, back in 2013, was inspired by a quote whose origins I have forgotten: “A year from now, you may have wished you had started today.” By 2015, I had accomplished something else: I had formed my own ..read more