The Greatest Assassin Films
From The Day of the Jackal to The Killer, twenty assassin films that take the moral question seriously. What does killing for money cost, who does it, and what does the work make of them? The genre at its best…
Tag: Crime (Page 15)
American DecayVice Noir Movies – Where the City Eats Its Own
The darkest streets of American cinema: twenty-one films that descend into urban vice, neon-lit corruption, and moral rot with the unflinching eye of a crime reporter and the visual grammar of noir. These are the movies that looked at the…
CrimeBest Heist Movies – The Perfect Crime
Twenty-two of cinema's greatest heist films, from The Asphalt Jungle to Wrath of Man. The plans, the execution, and what goes wrong, across seven decades of the genre's finest work.
CrimeGreatest Mafia Movies – Blood and Family
Twenty-two of cinema's greatest crime and mafia films, from Little Caesar to Godfather of Harlem. The American Dream with its mask off, across nine decades of the genre's finest work.
CrimeThe Godfather Review
The Godfather is the best film ever made from a craft perspective. Not the most entertaining, not the most beloved, not the most influential, though it is all three.
Book ReviewsForensics
If a crime writer owns one forensics reference, this is probably the one: comprehensive, authoritative, and written by a physician who knows how to teach writers and correct the TV-forensics myths. The cornerstone of the Howdunit series, notably more current…
Book ReviewsThe Book of Poisons
Poison is the most literary of murder weapons, quiet, premeditated, often untraceable, and this is arguably the standard reference for it: substances catalogued with the symptoms, timing, and detectability that make a poisoning believable and turn poison into plot. Held…
Book ReviewsModus Operandi
A reference on how crimes are really committed, the methods and patterns that lend mystery fiction realism, with the sharp angle that a criminal's method is both a character signature and a clue. The mid-1990s specifics are dated, and it…
Book ReviewsMalicious Intent
A reference on the criminal mind: who offenders are, why they act, how they choose victims, and how police catch them, weighted toward psychology over forensics. Useful for grounding believable criminals and investigations, though the mid-1990s criminology is dated and…
Book ReviewsCause of Death
A physician's forensic reference on death, autopsy, and the procedures that follow, the companion to a wounding guide. Competent on the timeless basics, but its early-1990s detail is badly dated in a field transformed by DNA. A foundation to verify…
Book ReviewsArmed and Dangerous
Get a gun wrong in a thriller and you lose the knowledgeable half of your readers on the spot. Newton's reference is sound on how firearms work and which common mistakes betray a lack of research. The 1990 detail is…
Book ReviewsDeadly Doses
A Howdunit reference for depicting poisoning believably, a verisimilitude tool for the mystery writer who wants a plot that convinces genre-savvy readers. The 1990 science is significantly dated in a fast-moving field, so verify every specific against current sources.