Finally, I can announce that we have a cover for my new thriller Beyond All Doubt, coming next year from Crooked Lane Books. As you can clearly see, this one is being released under the pseudonym Hilton Reed, which is an amalgam of my late father-in-law’s middle name and my first name. The story in a nutshell: “Just as single dad Cameron Kane is pulling his life together following the death of his wife, he literally runs into the man who killed her…and who also was declared officially dead. This chance encounter leads to a high-octane pursuit through the streets of New York as Kane unravels the startling truth behind his wife’s fate.” Beyond All Doubt launches March 19, 2024, and you can bet I’ll keep reminding you about it from now until then!

—Reed Bunzel

Time Magazine Names The Top 100 Mysteries And Thrillers Of All Time

A dead body is found at the bottom of the stairs. A child is kidnapped. A wife vanishes without a trace. What happened? Who did it? And, perhaps most important, why? These are the questions that guide mystery and thriller books—and it’s the process of uncovering the answers that makes the genre so engaging. These are the novels that invite readers to investigate alongside hard-boiled detectives, aspiring sleuths, and hapless husbands, among others. In this world, anyone can be a hero or a villain. With all this in mind, Time magazine recently developed a definitive list of the English language’s 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time. The process began with the selection of a panel composed of leading authors, who collectively identified the top 250 books in the genre. [Note: They were not allowed to nominate their own works.] Time editors then created a ranking and evaluated each finalist, as well as additional titles, based on key factors including plot payoff, suspense, ambition, originality, critical and popular reception, and influence on the mystery and thriller genre and literature more broadly. The resulting list features books that came out as long ago as 1860 and as recently as 2022, and includes 100 distinct authors—meaning that no single writer’s work appears more than once.

15 Of The Best Movie Portrayals

Of Mentally Tortured Characters

“We all go a little mad sometimes.” Truer words were never spoken, but the fact that this infamous phrase was uttered by inimitable Norman Bates in Psycho is particularly creepy. Madness is a tricky thing for an actor to portray; put too much into it, and you will be accused of histrionics, but too little isn’t a good look either. Even just taking on the role of someone in the throes of insanity can look like you’re trying too hard to get noticed at awards season. Some actors, however, have hit the sweet spot, with nuanced portrayals of characters grappling on the brink, or outrageous portraits of characters who crossed that line a long time ago. Take Brad Pitt, for instance, who received critical acclaim and multiple award nominations (including a Golden Globe win for Best Supporting Actor) for his role in Terry Gilliam’s 1995 sci-fi hit 12 Monkeys. Or Christian Bale, who was famously chilling as Patrick Bateman, a slick, disciplined investment banker in American Psycho. Or the ensemble cast of Jack Nicholson, Brad Dourif, Danny DeVito, and Christopher Lloyd in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Critic Molly Pohlig recognizes these performances and many others in a list of the best movie portrayals of insanity she recently compiled for Movieweb.

TRUE CRIME PODCAST

Bad Bad Thing Season Two: Did Jill

Blackstone Kill Her Blind Sister?

As Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina, “All happy families are alike, and each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The latter part of this sentiment could describe the unique unhappiness of the Blackstone sisters, which came into public view in March 2015, when Wendy Blackstone was found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning, along with two of her three rescue dogs, in her Studio City garage. Blind and partially deaf, Wendy lived with her sibling, Jill, who was a producer for The Jerry Springer Show and Divorce Court, and who suffers from Parkinson’s and lupus. Jill was charged with voluntary manslaughter in her sister's death, and pleaded no contest, apparently to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. During a sentencing trial, the prosecution contended that Jill had grown increasingly frustrated at having to provide long-term care for her sister, and lit a fire in a charcoal grill inside the garage in a successful attempt to kill her. The L.A. Coroner’s office concluded that Wendy died from inhalation of combustion and alprazolam, a sedative. In rejecting the defense’s contention that the prosecution had presented insufficient evidence, Superior Court Judge James Brandolino noted that a reasonable inference could be drawn from the evidence that Jill Blackstone had planned what was to be a murder-suicide, with the suicide going “awry,” adding that the nature of several notes and other evidence left at the scene “clearly support such an inference.” The entire case is spelled out in the podcast Bad Bad Thing: The Blackstone Sisters, now available now at Podcast One.

The Case Of The Sleuthing Spinster:

Why Single Women Rule Cozy Fiction

Usually when people talk about great fictional detectives, a few classic names often come to mind: Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe; and Columbo easily trip off the tongue. But there’s a popular subset of super-sleuths who don’t need the police (or men in general) to help them solve a twisty mystery: the cozy. In this highly popular genre, women excel in their ability to take advantage of society’s tendency to overlook the presence of women, especially those in traditionally feminine roles. As author Gretchen Rue recently wrote in Crime Reads, “This is not a new phenomenon, and it’s something that Agatha Christie employed with tactical cleverness—and continues to be used by today’s cozy authors with exceptional success." Miss Marple, who first appeared in 1927's Tuesday Night Murder Club, was a doddering old woman, prone to losing count of her knit stitches, but she also was an absolute marvel at observing human behavior…and her pinpoint awareness helped her draw deductive conclusions. When Murder She Wrote debuted in 1984, the other hit shows of the year were Dynasty, Dallas, and The Cosby Show—series where women’s’ roles were to be the dramatic vixen or a wife. Jessica Fletcher bucked the trend as a retired widow who turned to writing fiction as a way to keep herself occupied now that she was alone. Then, in 2012, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries provided a detective who was unafraid to unabashedly defy the expectations of the era on her sex and marital status. “This overlaps with the modern era of cozy mysteries, which are largely focused on female sleuths, a remarkable number of whom are single,” Rue says. “Cozy mystery heroines often find themselves recently widowed or divorced, which in many cases has pushed them not just into a new phase of life metaphorically, but often physically as they return to their small hometowns, or move to a different place to begin anew.”

The 13 Best Psychological Thriller

Movies, Ranked By Rotten Tomatoes

From mind-twisting crime thrillers to psychedelic dramas that present a character’s descent into madness, psychological thrillers can be relied upon to offer arresting and, at times, terrifying viewing experiences. As Ryan Heffernan and Yenyiyani Siegreied noted recently in Collider, “These movies delve into the human mind, exploring fear, paranoia, manipulation, and the complexity of human psychology. The genre challenges viewers intellectually and emotionally, playing with their expectations and keeping them engaged with intricate plots, mind-bending twists, and morally ambiguous characters. Good psychological thrillers have an uncanny ability to creep under the audience's skin and leave a lasting impression upon them for their relentless suspense as well as their captivating stories. From such classics as Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs to a more recent gem like Black Swan, these certified fresh thrillers offer a pulsating and thought-provoking viewing experience with their expertly crafted suspense, mind-bending twists, and exploration of the human psyche.

Available Now!

INDIGO ROAD

“Indigo Road is a beautifully wrought, hard-biting story with elements of classic noir presented through a prism of modern sensibilities. A fantastic read.” –S.A. Cosby, bestselling author of Razorblade Tears 

While still slinging drinks fulltime at The Sandbar in Folly Beach, Jack Connor works a side gig as a licensed bounty hunter. One afternoon, as he's transporting his latest bail skip named Willis Ronson back to jail, his SUV is ambushed by a team of gunmen, killing Ronson instantly and seriously injuring his court-appointed attorney, Alisha Dupree. Connor can’t help but poke around the edges of the deadly incident and quickly learns that Ronson was a man of many secrets, including a mysterious woman from his past who has caused him to be sucked into a domestic terrorist fringe group.