CB x 3 by James Lincoln Warren, Rob Lopresti, Deborah Elliott-Upton, Steve Steinbock, John M. Floyd, and Leigh Lundin Preface Friday marked Criminal Brief‘s third anniversary. Leigh had the idea of doing a commemorative column, John suggested that we each write a paragraph, and Rob suggested that it be retrospective, including one link to our […]
In honor of last week’s Edgar Banquet, I offer up the following bit of history of an organization I love, even if it can be a cruel mistress. This account was cribbed from the website of Mystery Writers of America, but the website’s navigation makes it a little hard to find. There, it looks kind […]
The following is an excerpt from The Renaissance (1876) by British cultural, art, and literary critic Walter Pater (1839 – 1894). Although Pater was writing about “high” art, I think that his thesis—that in truly accomplished art, the content is virtually indistinguishable from its form—applies equally to popular short stories. —JLW ALL ART CONSTANTLY ASPIRES […]
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Surprise Witness on April 27th, 2010
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Leigh Lundin is our resident Puzzle Master, but I stumbled upon these “minute mystery” videos on YouTube and thought the Gentle Reader might find them amusing. —JLW THE MURDER MYSTERY GAME by Riddlenow.com
Usually, we avoid straightforward plugs for selling books here on Criminal Brief, but as all proceeds from the sale of Carolyn Haines’ new anthology—featuring some of the most important writers of crime fiction in America—are going to a worthy charity, and as it also is exactly the sort of book CB was founded to encourage […]
Everybody knows that the hardest-boiled guys are, in reverse order, investigative reporters, spies, cops, private eyes, and government documents librarians. Government documents librarians have to be tough because they deal with government documents. And none come tougher than Rob Lopresti. He can’t tell us everything he knows—that would put us in danger. But he can […]
While taking a rest from trying to crack our Christmas Contest, you may find the following account (naturally provided by our resident research librarian, Rob Lopresti) concerning cracking safes amusing. It’s from a 19th century American journal dedicated to the building trade. The illustration comes from an issue a couple of years before the article […]
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Surprise Witness on December 22nd, 2009
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