The Top Summer Reads (2023)

Serial Killers in Fact and Fiction

 Serial Killers in Fact and Fiction Five of the best serial killer thrillers – Margaret Murphy, “write” arm of Ashley Dyer Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs must surely take pole position on any list of serial killer novels. Harris researched the background meticulously, including talking to FBI agents Robert Ressler and John Douglas, originators […]

The Adventure of the Hemingway Manuscripts

The Adventure of the Hemingway Manuscripts by Susan Beegal Congratulations to The Strand on being first to publish Ernest Hemingway’s World War II short story, “A Room on the Garden Side.” Having written a scholarly essay on this story twenty-five years ago, I’ve been asked to offer some personal reflections on how I “discovered the […]

The Care and Feeding of a MacGuffin

The Care and Feeding of a MacGuffin by Michael Kurland As far as anyone knows Alfred Hitchcock was the first to use the term “MacGuffin.” He said it was “[T]he device, the gimmick, if you will, or the papers the spies are after… The plans, documents or secrets must seem to be of vital importance […]