KING AND THIEF by Rob Lopresti Hello, my name is Rob and I’m a thief. I steal story ideas. A lot. Okay, they’re all legitimate theft. If it were plagiarism I wouldn’t brag about it. Here is a list of people I stole story ideas from. Keep in mind, these are just from my published […]

Donald J. Sobol is the Edgar-winning author of the phenomenal Encyclopedia Brown juvenile mystery series, which I first started to read back when they first came out in 1963. Each of the Encyclopedia Brown books features 10 short stories, each a mystery solved by the eponymous hero (or on occasion by his sidekick and bodyguard […]

HIGH INFIDELITY by James Lincoln Warren If the Gentle Reader is passing anywhere near a magazine rack anytime soon, stop and pick up The Strand Magazine‘s Feb-May 2010 issue, and while you’re at it, see if you might also put the June 2010 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in your shopping bag (after paying […]

SEX and VIOLENCE, I SWEAR! by Leigh Lundin Janet Hutchings, my favorite editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, posed a quandary on the Dell Magazines web site. She mentioned readers criticizing editors both for allowing and disallowing adult treatment of sex, violence, and foul language (which suggests she probably has the balance about right). She […]

SETTING THE STAGE by John M. Floyd I and my colleagues at Criminal Brief (and several guest bloggers) have occasionally done pieces on the subject of effective openings in fiction. That’s probably because openings, like endings, are fun to write — but whatever the reason, all of us know it’s important to gain reader interest […]

KINDLE THIS by Steven Steinbock I’m not an advocate of e-books. I don’t own a Kindle or a Sony e-Reader. I may one day. It’s hard to tell. But I haven’t gone down that road. I have an antique iPaq – a pocket PC device that’s a little bigger than an iPhone (which I also […]

PARTNERS IN CRIME by Deborah Elliott-Upton Some of my favorite partners in crime are Ellery and his dad, Sherlock and his doctor friend, and that old married couple, Nick and Nora, but I’m currently reading Partners in Crime, an anthology edited by my friend, Elaine Raco Chase. I first met Elaine when she was beginning […]