BEYOND COMIX by Leigh Lundin This week’s column is all Rob’s fault. His article about cartoons and comics reminded me of a couple more, one extant, one extinct (perhaps). The Brick Testament The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith created The Brick Testament. This isn’t a comic per se, but a Lego rendition of the Bible with […]

CORPORATE WEEK by Leigh Lundin Recently, I lost internet and phone service (service being a relative term), so this week, I decided to work in my Criminal Brief Corporate office. As I mosey in, I nod to Velma, our secretary. She’s reading Travis Erwin‘s latest western romance, Texas May be Parched, but These Here Parts […]

Professional Tips – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr by Leigh Lundin One of the great things about writing for Criminal Brief is that we seek out one another for help, critique, and assistance. Last week, trying to pin down a literary source, I called upon James, Rob, and Steve. When I need something critiqued, there’s Deborah and John. […]

WTF by Leigh Lundin The Mystery Place, home of Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock, has been having a writer’s (and readers’) discussion about profanity. Several of our genre’s foremost, John Betancourt, James A. Ritchie, Dick Stodghill, and Toni Kelner have weighed in on the subject. The consensus, as you might expect, is profanity should be […]

KINDLE 2 by Leigh Lundin A year and a half ago when we tried to review the Kindle 1, we weren’t able to get our hands on the device so, to help make up for it, we brought our readers the latest news on the Wii and the oMyBod. With the introduction of the Kindle […]

CAT GOT YOUR TONGUE by Leigh Lundin French kissing I like (a lot). British kissing, well… A trial is proceeding in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK. Tracy Davies of Gateshead is accused of deliberately enticing her boyfriend, Mark Coghill, to kiss her and then biting off his tongue. She’s being compared to Mike Tyson, […]

GRANNY and the GREAT SMOKE-OUT by Leigh Lundin If I start at the beginning, I have to tell about my grandmother. She was a pioneer woman, a Quaker homesteader in Iowa, running her own farm long after anyone else would have retired. Even in her latter 70s, she sewed lap robes for the ‘old people’, […]