Category Archives: History

“A Love Poem to Japan” (by Francis M. Nevins)

Posted on November 18, 2020 by

Francis M. Nevins is one of the leading scholars of mystery fiction, having written the highly acclaimed Royal Bloodline: Ellery Queen, Author and Detective and Cornell Woolrich: First You Dream, Then You Die. He is also the author of six … Continue reading →

Posted in Ellery Queen, Guest, History, International | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“City Sagas” (by Kevin Mims)

Posted on November 11, 2020 by

Essayist and short-story writer Kevin Mims is a frequent contributor to this site. A popular-fiction aficionado—especially when it comes to paperbacks of the late twentieth century—he often provides insight into the intersection and development of genres. That’s certainly true of … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventure, Books, Business, Characters, Fiction, Genre, Guest, Historicals, History, Pop Culture, Setting, Western, Writers, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

EIGHTY YEARS OF PERSEVERENCE

Posted on October 7, 2020 by

This week, the first issue of 2021—EQMM’s eightieth anniversary year!—will be released to the printer. It looks as if the beginning of 2021 will find the world still under the cloud of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today’s perilous conditions have parallels … Continue reading →

Posted in Ellery Queen, History, Magazine | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Libby Cudmore on the Birthplace of Philo Vance

Posted on August 26, 2020 by

Libby Cudmore, who made her EQMM debut with the captivating tale “All Shook Down” (in the current September/October 2020 issue), is the author of The Big Rewind, a “hipster mystery” novel that Hilary Davidson called “irreverent yet intense” and Examiner.com described … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Characters, Fiction, Genre, Guest, History, Private Eye, Writers | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Don Quixote as the First Crime Novel” (by Sheila Kohler)

Posted on July 15, 2020 by

Sheila Kohler, who has written two previous posts here, is an acclaimed novelist and winner of the O’Henry Prize, the Open Fiction Award, the Willa Cather Prize, and the Smart Family Foundation Prize. She is the author of over a dozen … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventure, Books, Characters, Fiction, Genre, Guest, History, International, Novels | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Forgotten Women” (by Kevin Mims)

Posted on July 8, 2020 by

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began keeping us inside, readers have been seeking alternatives to in-store browsing for their literary needs. Essayist, short-story writer, and prolific reader Kevin Mims (who has written for this blog many times on the subject of … Continue reading →

Posted in Bookshops, Characters, Guest, History, Pop Culture, Story, Thrillers | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Reading, Writing, and the Making of a Serial Killer” (by Jacqueline Freimor)

Posted on July 1, 2020 by

Jacqueline Freimor made a distinguished debut as a fiction writer in 1995 when she won the Mystery Writer’s of America’s Fiftieth Anniversary Short Short Story Contest in the new writers category. The story was subsequently published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventure, Books, Characters, Editing, Fiction, Genre, Guest, History, mystery fiction, Writers, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Predicting a Pandemic” (by Kevin Mims)

Posted on June 10, 2020 by

Last week on this site I expressed the opinion that most readers are not yet ready to read stories about COVID-19 for entertainment. But as Kevin Mims notes in the following essay, a number of publications, including the New York … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Characters, Criticism, Fiction, Genre, Guest, History, Suspense, Thrillers | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

READING IN A TIME OF CRISIS

Posted on June 3, 2020 by

Some years ago, my colleague Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, gave me a copy of Good Poems for Hard Times, edited by Garrison Keillor. That may have been during the Great Recession, because I recall thinking, as … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, History, Story | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

“Whodunit and Whoateit: A Perfect Pairing” (by Katherine Hall Page)

Posted on May 20, 2020 by

When it comes to the connection between cooking and mysteries, we can’t think of a more knowledgable author than Katherine Hall Page. She is often cited as one of the foremost writers in the culinary crime genre, and she is … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Characters, Guest, History | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment