The Wartime Spies Who Used

Knitting As An Espionage Tool

Phyllis Latour Doyle, a secret agent for Britain during World War II spent the war years sneaking information to the British using knitting as a cover. She parachuted into occupied Normandy in 1944, where she rode stashed bicycles to troops, and chatted with German soldiers under the pretense of being helpful. Then she would return to her knitting kit, in which she hid a silk yarn ready to be filled with secret knotted messages, which she would translate using Morse Code equipment. “I always carried knitting because my codes were on a piece of silk—I had about 2000 I could use,” she told New Zealand Army News in 2009. “When I used a code I would just pinprick it to indicate it had gone. I wrapped the piece of silk around a knitting needle and put it in a flat shoe lace which I used to tie my hair up.” When agents used knitting to encode messages, the message was a form of low-tech steganography; every knitted garment was made of different combinations of just two stitches: a knit stitch, which was smooth and looked like a “v,” and a purl stitch, which looked like a horizontal line or a little bump. By making a specific combination of knits and purls in a predetermined pattern, spies could pass on a custom piece of fabric and read the secret message, buried in the innocent warmth of a scarf or hat.

21 Of The Greatest TV

Detectives Of All Time

A subgenre of crime, detective fiction arguably goes back further than the 19th century’s literary works of Edgar Allan Poe [e.g. The Murders in the Rue Morgue, featuring the brilliant C. Auguste Dupin]; Louisa May Alcott’s Plots and Counterplots; or Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels. There had been earlier books, short and oral stories, and plays depicting an intelligent amateur, law enforcer, or retired professional solving a mysterious murder or theft. Examples include Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, the Song Dynasty’s Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified, and the "Tale of the Murdered Woman" story from One Thousand and One Nights. The 20th century, naturally, abounded with police detectives and private investigators who captivated fans with their analytical minds, honed instincts, psychological insight, and persistence. These mystery-solving skills were translated on-screen as early as 1900, in a short silent film directed by Arthur Marvin and titled Sherlock Holmes Baffled. John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, is considered the very first film noir. Then, in the 1960s and ‘70s, television networks started investing in crime series, ushering in a new age of charismatic sleuths relying not only on their mind and on material clues, but also on the latest tech and scientific advances to help catch the culprits. Whether working alone or in tandem, these are some of the most popular television detectives of all time.

The 12 Most Intriguing

Mysteries In Music History

We all love hearing a good story that captures our curiosity, but if there’s one thing that piques our collective interest more than anything else, it’s a mystery that leaves us wondering about details that pertain to what we don’t know—and maybe never will. Such is the case of many popular songs released over the years, and the musicians who performed them. Perhaps at the top of this list is Carly Simon’s "You’re So Vain," a rather self-explanatory ode to a self-absorbed lover. Thanks to its cathartic chorus, it has become the anthem of the scorned, but just who is it about? Simon has confirmed that the track is a composite of three different men in her life, with broad speculation focusing on Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, and even David Geffen. So far, Simon has only confirmed that actor and director Warren Beatty is one of the three men the song is based on, but the others remain a mystery to most. Next up: Who shot Bob Marley? In 1976, the reggae superstar was set to perform at the Smile Jamaica Concert, but two days before its scheduled start, masked gunmen stormed his home, almost killing him, his wife, and his manager. No suspect was ever charged. Then there’s Pink Floyd’s Publius Enigma, which involved some sort of mystery tied to the group’s 1994 album, with a prize promised for those who cracked a mysterious case. The only problem is, well, they never actually said what the mystery was, and 30 years later no one has solved it. Drummer Nick Mason claimed in 2005 that the mystery did exist, but general opinion is that the whole thing was just a marketing ploy.

DNA COLD CASE

Colorado Woman’s Killer Finally

Identified After Almost 50 Years

Nearly 50 years after a woman’s body was found dumped in a Colorado field, her killer has been identified. Twenty-year-old Teree Becker was last seen on December 4, 1975 in Westminster, Colorado as she was reportedly hitchhiking to see her boyfriend at the Adams County jail; two days later, a couple found her body and personal items. An autopsy revealed she had been raped and the cause of death was asphyxiation, but her killer was never found. As the years went on, her case was reviewed several times, without any breakthrough. Then, in 2003, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation was able to extract the DNA of an unknown male from a piece of evidence that had been collected in connection with Becker’s sexual assault but, after entering it into a DNA database, there was no match. Ten years later, however, the sample fit a DNA profile submitted by the Las Vegas Metro Police Department while they were reviewing another cold case. That case was from 1991 and involved a woman who had been found raped and killed in her apartment, and the DNA revealed the same man had killed both Becker and the Vegas woman. They still didn’t have a suspect in either case until last year, when genetic genealogy finally identified a suspect. In October, Las Vegas police had the body of Thomas Martin Elliott exhumed, and he was positively identified as the suspect in both killings. He died by suicide in 1991 for unknown reasons, soon after the Las Vegas homicide.

The 25 Best Crime Thrillers

Of The 1980s, Ranked

What makes a good crime thriller? It's a question that's likely asked by every filmmaker when they sit down to craft their next masterpiece, as well as reviewers when it comes time to critique them. As Adam Levine wrote for Looper, “Answers can vary by taste, but few can argue that a film packed with mystery, suspense, as well as a hero and a villain engaged in a battle of wills is sure to satisfy. Thus, a good crime thriller, which often combines all of these elements, has the ability to dazzle like no other genre. Legendary writers from Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle to Elmore Leonard and Gillian Flynn have masterfully perfected it on the page, but it was director Alfred Hitchcock who arguably honed such storytelling and defined the genre for the screen.” But he wasn't the only one. Ever since such early classics as The 39 Steps and Double Indemnity, Hollywood has remained transfixed on the crime thriller's ability to draw in and captivate audiences. The French Connection and Dirty Harry dazzled moviegoers in the 1970s, but the 1980s brought the genre to new heights. Such filmmakers as Ridley Scott, Roman Polanski, and Michael Mann imbued their films with a grittier tone, perfect for the decade's obsession with darker, morally conflicted heroes. Crime thrillers dominated the screen that decade, and they were filled with some of the film's biggest names, from Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell to such award-winners as Harrison Ford and Glenn Close. If you're looking for a primer of the best of the best, it's definitely worth looking to the 1980s.

Coming March 19

Beyond All Doubt

[Reed Bunzel writing as Hilton Reed]

“Beyond All Doubt is an edge-of-your-seat fast-moving thrill-ride, kicked off by the reappearance of a dead man and propelling the reader along to the final bullet—and beyond.”— S.J. Rozan, best-selling author of The Mayors of New York

​

“Beyond All Doubt is a taut, smart, and emotionally rich thriller. Reed has a sharp eye for character and a screenwriter's feel for action. This tale is sleek as a mink and fast as a bullet.”— T. Jefferson Parker, author of The Rescue

“Beyond All Doubt is not a 'who done it,' but a twisty, compelling 'who did what.' Cameron Kane is a sympathetic, yet unrelenting bulldog in his pursuit of the truth about his wife's death. Intriguing and intense, Beyond All Doubt is a winner!”—Matt Coyle, bestselling author of the Rick Cahill crime novels

“In this action-packed and engrossing thriller, Reed masterfully balances between a husband’s drive to uncover the truth about his wife’s death and a father’s instinct to protect his family at all costs. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down!”— Matthew Farrell, bestselling author of The Woman at Number 6

“Beyond All Doubt has plenty of thrills—deadly snipers, false identities, shocking deaths—but at its heart, this book is about a grieving single father whose desperation propels the plot like a speeding car with its brake lines cut.”— Cayce Osborne, author of I Know What You Did