GOODNESS by Janice Law The late Jean Kerr entitled one of her books of essays The Snake Has All the Lines, and, boy, was she right. I think anyone who writes fiction, and not just mystery writers, would agree that while evil is easy—or as easy as anything ever is in fiction—goodness is hard. Evil […]

FEEDBACK by Leigh Lundin Reading My friend Micheline wrote that Umberto Eco is rewriting his famous book The Name of the Rose to make it more "accessible". The announcement surprised me. When I think of inaccessible, Thomas Pynchon comes to mind. Mention impenetrable and several Beat Generation authors (when they weren’t killing one another) surface, […]

A HELPFUL DISCUSSION? by John M. Floyd “Fat, dumb, and happy” isn’t a good description of me, but that’s only because I happen to be skinny. The other two adjectives are a good fit — I’m usually content and carefree. My wife is the worrier. She’s the one who’s always concerned that we’ll make an […]

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES by Steven Steinbock Fall is a times of changes. Regular followers of Criminal Brief know of one major change that was announced in JLW’s column this past Monday. As many readers know, I spent the summer on the Left Coast. Last week, just hours in advance of Hurricane Irene, I returned to the New […]

A PERFECT CRIME by Deborah Elliott-Upton A detective walks into a practically empty bar and sees a man slumped on the counter. A knife protrudes from his back and blood oozes from the wound. There are two glasses on the bar. One sits in front of the dead man, the other has a lipstick smear […]