What's Behind Our Ongoing

Fascination With Assassinations?

Assassinations are a part of our everyday world, real and imagined, past and present. The objective of an assassination is obviously to kill the target, but it differs from murder in that assassinations are ultimately tied to a distinct motive beyond the ending of a life—they prevent the target from continuing in his/her current role. As B.J. Magnani recently wrote for Mystery and Suspense, “Many assassinations are used for political gain—to steal power, change the course of events, or emphasize the assassin’s point of view. Lone assassins looking for name or cause recognition may carry out their task in full view of the world, accepting all consequences for their behavior. Some groups plotting an assassination may care less about the glory and more about the objective (for example, car bombings or airstrikes carried out by terrorist or state actors that kill the intended target with or without collateral damage).” Myriad thriller novels and films use assassinations as a central theme, often as an evocation of the political context of the time. Richard Condon’s 1959 thriller The Manchurian Candidate, embodied the fears of the second Red Scare, entrancing readers with an embellished version of their lived-in political world. Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal, tells the story of a professional assassin hired to kill French President Charles de Gaulle. And Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp is coerced into joining the CIA after his girlfriend is murdered in a terrorist strike—retribution for the Pam Am Lockerbie plane disaster. And my own thriller Greenwich Mean Time features a murder for hire organization known as the G3 that formed in the months following WWII days for the express purpose of hunting Nazis. As Magnani writes, “Far from passé, assassins and their acts remain a focal point of many thrillers or mysteries—and our fascination and even glorification of killing are destined to keep these characters in popular culture for as long as stories are told.”

Ten Of The Most Iconic Diner

Scenes Found In Crime Movies

There's just something about a good old-fashioned diner. You know the kind, with the shiny, padded upholstery that squeaks as you slide into your seat, and a menu that offers a seemingly never-ending list of options that includes cheeseburgers, chicken fried steak, omelets, meatloaf, and pancakes. Let’s not forget the piping hot cup of Joe and a piece of homemade pie, the ones that have been sitting inside a glass case for longer than you care to know. Diners are comforting and nostalgic, and provide a sense of community. Compare that to the unpredictability of the crime film genre—where acts of violence, unknown suspects, and sketchy characters roam the streets and can commit heinous atrocities at any time of the day—and a diner takes on an altogether different persona. When crime movies use the diner—usually as a backdrop for brutality or whispered schemes—it’s highly unsettling for the audience since it implies corruption can infiltrate a small, unassuming part of daily life. There is truly nowhere that can be 100% safe, and that feeling of unease is what the crime genre thrives upon and keeps viewers coming back for another helping—time and time again. With that atmosphere in mind, Murder-Mayhem’s Isabel Montero compiled this list of ten of the most unforgettable diner scenes in crime movies.

TRUE CRIME

Chef At Family Lunch That Killed 3

In Australia Charged With Murder

It's the kind of story a mystery novelist might conjure [see story, below], but for months, a real murder case has been playing out in a small Australian town where three people died after eating a family meal that was suspected to contain poisonous death cap mushrooms. The story of the alleged triple homicide became international news when four people were hospitalized on July 30 after Erin Patterson prepared lunch in her home in Leongatha, about 85 miles southeast of Melbourne. Three of the guests—Gail Patterson; her husband, Don Patterson; and her sister, Heather Wilkinson, passed away days afterward. The fourth guest, Heather Wilkinson's husband, Ian, was hospitalized for almost two months with a serious liver condition. Erin Patterson and her two children also were at the meal, although none of them became sick; the police believe the kids were served a different meal from the rest of the party. On Thursday, Patterson was charged with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder, including three previous incidents in which the same man—Simon Patterson, Erin’s estranged husband—became ill following meals she cooked. Simon reportedly had been invited to the deadly lunch last July, as well, but he canceled. According to NPR, Patterson told investigators that she prepared her beef Wellington using a mix of mushrooms from a supermarket and dried mushrooms she got from an Asian grocery. Months before, the Victoria Department of Health issued an advisory warning that death cap mushrooms—also known as Amanita phalloides—were growing in the area. Symptoms can include violent stomach pains, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, and consuming just one can kill an adult.

Wilder’s Witness For The Prosecution

Was Perhaps The Best Christie Film

Of all the film adaptations of Agatha Christie’s work produced during her lifetime, the grand dame of mystery reportedly considered Billy Wilder’s 1957 version of Witness for the Prosecution to be the best. It’s not hard to see why, since Wilder’s Oscar-nominated film combines the signature twists of Christie’s stories with his own signature wit and skillful work with actors. As noted by Josh Bell in Novel Suspects, “Unlike many of Christie’s most famous stories, Witness for the Prosecution doesn’t focus on a character who solves the central mystery. The protagonist is so certain that he knows the truth about the murder of a wealthy widow that he doesn’t do any investigating at all. All legendary barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton) does to ascertain the innocence of accused murderer Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power) is subject him to a trick involving light reflected off of Sir Wilfrid’s monocle. Once Leonard passes this stress test, Sir Wilfrid is completely convinced that he’s telling the truth.” Christie and Wilder were wise to focus the movie on Sir Wilfrid, Bell says, because doing so places the audience right alongside him in seeking justice for the apparently wrongly accused Leonard. “Witness for the Prosecution is full of shocking twists, especially in the final scenes that take place after Leonard’s trial, in a mostly empty courtroom as the central characters finally reveal their true selves,” Bell observes. “But Wilder directs with a light touch, making plenty of space for the comedy of Sir Wilfrid’s thwarting of Miss Plimsoll and the sweet romance of Leonard and Christine’s initial meeting in postwar Germany. Although it’s based on a play, Witness for the Prosecution never feels stage-bound, and Wilder opens up with the story with illuminating flashbacks in the first half.”

25 Of The Best Murder Mysteries

To Solve Before The Credits Roll

Watch enough movies and you’ll develop what often is referred to as “movie brain.” It’s the part of the old gray matter that pinpoints potential plots and obvious objects the second they're introduced on the screen. If there’s a sword collection in the background, you know it will factor into the story. When there’s a butler in a mansion, you’d better keep an eye on him. As Anton Chekhov famously said, “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise, don't put it there.” As an article in Esquire recently pointed out, “The best murder mysteries understand that you want to try to figure them out, and if they’re directed by a real auteur of the genre, they’ll even purposely throw some red herrings in just to trip the viewer up. From Alfred Hitchcock’s black-and-white thrillers to such modern classics as Knives Out, all the clues are in plain sight if you just pay attention. With that in mind, here’s a list of 25 of the best mystery movies—from classic noir to inventive, modern twists—for you to solve before the credits roll.

Coming March 19, 2024

BEYOND ALL DOUBT

It’s been a year since Cameron Kane’s wife Alison died in a fiery car crash. He and his seven-year-old daughter Sabrina are trying to start a new life when he brushes past the man who killed his wife a year ago, and who also died in the same horrific accident. The chance encounter quickly propels Cameron down a rabbit hole as he begins to question everything he knows about the events of that night. The further he digs, the more he becomes convinced that there’s a deeper conspiracy at play—one that quickly leads him to a complex tangle of devious schemes and murder. Cameron knows there’s no price he won’t pay for the truth, but as the deadly threats continue to mount, he realizes that price may be his very life…and that of his daughter. [By Reed Bunzel, writing as Hilton Reed. Published by Crooked Lane Books.]