As a reader, I have always had one foot firmly in the thriller and mystery genre. I think my earliest conscious foray into mystery novels was when I picked up my first Patricia Cornwell novel – ‘Postmortem’. Personally, I [...]
The heroine usually becomes clear in my head right from the start of a story. It’s easy to focus on them, creating characters we’ll love, in pursuit of their happily ever after. But what about the characters we love [...]
Jess Lea, author of the charming small-town mystery novel, A Curious Woman, delves into what makes a good mystery. As a kid, one of my favourite movies was The Big Sleep (1946), a black-and-white thriller starring Humphrey Bogart and [...]
Every story is better with animals, right? All right, I’m biased. I’m a confirmed Crazy Cat Lady, with a spoiled calico princess and an extended family of step-dogs and cats-in-law. Still, I reckon it’s an objective truth: animal companions [...]
I was asked recently why I write and my answer was: for the rollercoaster. I love that emotional ride of an intriguing story and the bigger the highs and lows the better. Whether the highs are comic joy, consummated [...]
Sometimes ideas hit you. Sometimes they don’t. The latter sucks. When trying to come up with an idea for a crime novel or novella, the last thing you want to do is to sit around for weeks pondering dark [...]
There’s a story to be heard on every corner and every bar in Scotland, but why, we ask, are they normally of the dark and murderous variety? I moved here seven years ago and have been a tourist ever [...]
Why do us Brits love crime so much? I mean the genre and not crime as an extracurricular activity. But before I bang on about my love of solving a case from my comfortable station as an armchair detective, let [...]
Books, TV shows, documentaries, news broadcasts, popular music…it’s everywhere. Crime drama, mysteries, murders, and detective stories. As a nation we’re hooked on them. Well, I know I am, and looking at the top rated shows on TV, so are [...]
What’s a mystery without a sensational killer? Well, OK, not every fictional mystery needs a good murder, but every fictional assassin is almost always shrouded in a good mystery. So what makes a sensational killer then? Or, more specifically, an [...]