HOLLYWOOD MUSTS by Leigh Lundin Tony Harris wrote us about clichés used in movies, particularly thrillers and suspense, and today’s column grew out of that discussion. Many of the following examples come from Tony himself. Clichés Like the happy and sad theatrical masks from Greek theatre, clichés form a kind of shorthand to clue the […]

INTERACTIVE FICTION by Leigh Lundin Last week, you enjoyed Hal White‘s little mystery story. This week, I offer a peek at interactive stories. My Scary Credit In the transition period between text adventure games like Colossal Cave and graphics games like Myst, I prototyped scripts for a couple of games, one based on Alice in […]

Solve and enjoy the following little mystery, Reverend Dean by Hal White.

In the prefatory remarks to “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Edgar Allan Poe analyzes the five analytic powers of observation, inference, intuition, imagination, and identity.

ON the RAILS by Leigh Lundin Not knowing if I’d have an article when I arrived at Bouchercon, I wrote the following article on the train. I have a love-hate thing about trains. I write this on my way to Bouchercon, the conference for mystery readers and writers. I considered planes, trains, and automobiles, but […]

BOUCHERCON by Leigh Lundin I am impressed. I’m at Bouchercon, the conference in Baltimore named after Anthony Boucher and I am learning a lot while having a ball. Thanks, James, for persuading me to attend. I also thank Dale Andrews, author of ‘The Book Case’ and a nominee for the Barry Award for short story, […]

X-RATED WORDS by Leigh Lundin We writers appreciate word play and several of us have written about words, their meanings, and sometimes their oddities. Tony Harris, physician, writer, and Criminal Brief reader, has contributed a couple of lists dubbed X-rated words. Trix are for Kids First are words that not merely end in –x but […]