Authors Turn Journalists Into Murder Sleuths

The other evening I enjoyed watching the movie "The Post," about The Washington Post and the drama of the "Pentagon Papers" publication (you can't beat Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks), and it brought back memories of my own early years in newspaper journalism. Frankly, journalists are rightfully observers and recorders rather than participants in murder investigations, but authors of mystery fiction have created some great series starring reporter sleuths. There is Bruce da Silva's Liam Mulligan, an old-school newspaper reporter who debuts in Rogue Island, winner of the 2011 Edgar Award for best first novel, as he races to find the arsonist who is destroying lives in his hometown of Providence, RI. Best-selling author Allison Brennan's protagonist Maxine Revere is an investigative reporter driven to solve cold murder cases, and the series launches with Notorious, in which Max returns to old haunts to attend the funeral of a troubled high school friend once accused of an unsolved murder. Brenda English has created Sutton McPhee, a Washington, D.C., newspaper writer. The first in the series, Corruption of Faith, finds McPhee drawn into a murder case involving her own sister. There are also non-series journalist sleuths from some of my favorite authors, such as Sandra Brown, Harlan Coben and Fiona Davis. Brown's Seeing Red features TV journalist Kerra Bailey seeking an exclusive interview with the reclusive hero of a Dallas hotel bombing, only to be attacked by mysterious assailants. In Coben's Caught, reporter Wendy Tynes is making a name televising stings of sexual offenders when a male social worker walks into the trap, and old crimes and complex motives are revealed by the master of the plot twist. Finally, The Dollhouse by Davis is the haunting tale of a present-day journalist ferreting out the old, dark secrets of New York City's glamorous Barbizon Hotel for Women, where a generation of aspiring career women clawed for success in the 1950s. For more journalists in mystery/thriller fiction, see https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/books/detective-fiction/detective-fiction-journalists/_/N-29Z8q8Z16gs

Crime and Mystery Writers Tackle Football

In the latest headlines, American football has collided with politics, corruption and social conflict. So it's no wonder authors have been drawn to the gridiron for murder mystery and crime thriller plots. Consider Paydirt, by Edgar nominee and best-selling author Paul Levine: Bobby Gallagher is a broken man, fired from his prestigious job, disbarred from the legal profession, divorced from the wife he loves, and in debt to the mob. So he decides to win it all back by rigging the Super Bowl. Assisted by his 12-year-old son, he must fix the game, win a huge bet and avoid getting killed. Also focusing on the Super Bowl is Thomas Harris' best-selling thriller Black Sunday (later a movie) about a plot by terrorists to commit mass murder during the Super Bowl in New Orleans, turning the innocuous blimp into a death machine. Harlan Coben, Edgar Award-winner and master of the surprise twist, turns to football with Deal Breaker. Myron Bolitar is a sports agent whose prize client, a rookie football quarterback, is poised on the edge of the big time. Then the young quarterback gets a phone call from a former girlfriend—a woman believed dead—and Myron must confront the dark side of the sports business and unravel dangerous truths about a family tragedy, a woman’s secret, and a man’s lies. Of course, as a University of Michigan grad, I can't resist mentioning Bleeding Maize and Blue by Susan Holtzer. In football-obsessed Ann Arbor, computer consultant Anneke Haagen is swept up in the UM President's Weekend festivities where her boyfriend, police lieutenant Karl Genesko, is set to be honored as one of Michigan's brightest former football stars. Then a student sportswriter breaks the story of an NCAA probe of UM recruiting, and the agency's investigator turns up murdered in the stadium end zone. Anneke uses her analytic mind to help probe deadly secrets and shady deals involving deep alumni pockets. Finally, before either pro football or college football, there is high-school football, the proving ground of young athletes and community pride. In The Prophet by best-selling author Michael Koryta, the murder of a teenage girl  reopens decades-old wounds and forces two estranged brothers, one a bail bondsman on the social fringes and one the beloved coach of the local high school football team, to unite to stop a killer. For more football-themed mysteries and crime thrillers, see http://themysteryshop.com/murder-at-the-super-bowl-other-football-crime-fiction/

The Special Satisfaction of Solving Cold Cases

The other day I was reading the latest mystery from Tami Hoag, The Bitter Season, including a cold-case investigation of the 25-year-old murder of a sex crimes detective, and I began to think about the fascination of cold cases. Not only are there many TV series, both the fictional and "reality" variety, built around cold cases, there are also many cold-case mysteries by top authors. For example, there is The Drop by Michael Connelly, in which LAPD detective Harry Bosch is asked to look into why DNA from a rape and murder 21-years earlier matches a 29-year-old convicted rapist. Is the new regional crime lab compromised, or is something even darker going on? Kate Atkinson launched her PI Jackson Brodie series with Case Histories, about three investigations--a little girl who went missing 30 years before, a random maniacal attack on an officer worker, and a grisly crime by an overwhelmed new mother--which turn out to have surprise connections. From Harlan Coben, a favorite for plot twists, comes Stay Close, about a detective doggedly pursuing the 17-year-old unsolved disappearance of a husband and father until the hidden secrets of past and present suburban lives disastrously collide. Laura Lippman's After I'm Gone also explores how one man’s disappearance affects his wife, mistress (who later disappears and ends up dead) and daughters, and then ensnares a retired Baltimore detective working the cold cases 36 years later. Similarly, in The Dead Will Tell by Linda Castillo, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder finds that her investigation of an old man's murder links to the tragic past of the abandoned, haunted farm where an Amish father and his four children perished, and his young wife disappeared, 35 years earlier. And finally, one of my favorite forensic mystery writers, Kathy Reichs, offers Bones to Ashes, in which forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (the inspiration for the "Bones" TV series) works to solve the mystery of a young girl's skeleton. Could she be Brennan's childhood friend who vanished 30 years earlier? Or are the bones tied to a series of cold cases that have left three girls dead and four missing? I find there's a special pleasure in reading about the solution to a cold case. For one, there's the thrill of solving a puzzle that has baffled others. And then there's the satisfaction of the hunt, of capturing the murderer who almost got away. Most important, the long shadow of justice is affirmed, and the mystery ends with cathartic closure to tragic history. In reality as opposed to fiction, many cold cases remain unsolved, and those solved owe less to detective brilliance than to improved forensics, especially DNA, and belated witnesses or confessions. For examples of real cold case solutions, see http://www.forensicscolleges.com/blog/resources/10-cold-cases-solved