10 Surprising Facts About the Roaring Twenties Many read Roaring Twenties and picture Gatsby-inspired parties. But what else did the 1920s bring? Some of the revelations, fads, and nuances of this era may surprise you. While the 18th Amendment made the manufacture, import, and sale of beer, wine, and hard liquor illegal, Prohibition […]
Category Archives: True Crime
Top Five Creepiest Serial Killers
Top Five Creepiest Serial Killers I’m not a serial killer groupie, but I definitely enjoy a good, twisted story of evil. I often say that if I’d known myself better in college (read: hadn’t been a dumb kid with zero confidence), I would have gone into criminal psychology. Now I create bad guys worthy of […]
THE TRIP TO DOTY ROAD THE INTERROGATION David Bates (Illinois exoneree), as told to Sara Paretsky (Part II)
THE TRIP TO DOTY ROAD THE INTERROGATION David Bates (Illinois exoneree), as told to Sara Paretsky After another interval, perhaps two hours, Curly returned with a different detective, not Moustache. They unhooked him from the ring in the wall and put him in a chair with his hands cuffed behind his back. Curly was […]
THE TRIP TO DOTY ROAD THE INTERROGATION David Bates (Illinois exoneree), as told to Sara Paretsky (Part I)
THE TRIP TO DOTY ROAD THE INTERROGATION David Bates (Illinois exoneree), as told to Sara Paretsky few can imagine any circumstances that would lead them to confess to a crime they didn’t commit, especially if the crime is a heinous one. But false confessions happen often, sometimes because the people who confess are overwhelmed […]
Top Ten Literary Spies
Top Ten Literary Spies Movies depict spies and writers idling around disreputable gin joints in disheveled trench coats or sporting tuxedos and tossing quips between martinis. Implausibly, practitioners of writing and espionage not only share many of the same occupational clichés, they are frequently intertwined in a secret world. “I won’t say I’m interested in […]
WASHINGTON’S TOP TEN SPY SITES
WASHINGTON’S TOP TEN SPY SITES…Plus ONE Espionage’s most sensitive secrets are often hidden in plain sight. A white chalk mark on a mailbox, a construction worker’s discarded dirty glove, an unattended garbage bag, even a dead rat will go unnoticed and untouched by passersby absorbed in their daily routine. However, for the spy, each of […]
FIVE THINGS BEING CRIMINAL LAWYER TAUGHT ME ABOUT WRITING
FIVE THINGS BEING CRIMINAL LAWYER TAUGHT ME ABOUT WRITING Complexity of Characters The need for complexity in fictional characters extends to criminal characters. Crimes are not the exclusive realm of one-dimensional individuals. I learned as a criminal defense lawyer that being charged with a crime shakes people to their core. The prospect of spending a […]
How True Crime and Fiction Intersect
We’re Having a Collision here! How True Crime and Fiction Intersect In preparing to teach a class next semester on popular fiction—including science fiction, mysteries, horror, thrillers, and fantasy—I’m learning and thinking a lot about these genres, even after having written a novel marketed as a psychological thriller and another described as a mystery. Studying […]
DVD Review– The Witness
DVD Review– The Witness The story of Kitty Genovese is supposedly well known. A young woman was brutally murdered in the middle of the night in New York. Well over thirty people witnessed the attack, but nobody did anything. The crime became a symbol of the city’s moral decay, the people who refused to get […]
The Chicago Police and Five Unsolved Mysteries
The Chicago Police and Five Unsolved Mysteries It may be hard to imagine, but the Chicago police department is probably better respected today than they ever were before. Of course, this isn’t saying much. In the 1800s, they had a reputation for spending most of their time “interviewing” bartenders, and a consultant hired to look […]
On the Frontline: Fighting Crime in the CID
On the Frontline: Fighting Crime in the CID FROM 87th PRECINCT TO DOWNTOWN DEARNE VALLEY (YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND) I have lost count of the number of dead bodies I have seen! I have fought with drunks, wrestled thieves to the ground, and been threatened by a knife-wielding burglar on the run, and I’ve experienced the adrenalin […]
Ten Ways to Die in Turn-of-the-Last-Century New York
Ten Ways to Die in Turn-of-the-Last-Century New York The first decade of the twentieth century in New York City was a time of crowded tenements and splendid mansions, of extraordinary inventions and ubiquitous fraud, of widespread corruption and reformist zeal. It was, in short, a time of contrast and conflict on a grand scale—making it […]
