Features

CIS: Rediscovering Margaret Millar

It’s not that Margaret Millar was ever completely forgotten. She was admired by Truman Capote, Agatha Christie and Evelyn Waugh. She is often cited by modern crime writers like Laura Lippman and Gillian Flynn as a great influence. Millar features regularly on lists of top suspense or mystery…
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Black Teeth

Written by Zane Lovitt — Documentary filmmaker and author Zane Lovitt is a long-time member of the Melbourne crime-writing scene, putting out a bunch of short stories and a couple of novels in a style that can be best described as modern noir with an Aussie…
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Features

CIS: Why Maisie Dobbs is already a classic

Is it paradoxical to call Jacqueline Winspear’s book a classic when it was first published not quite 15 years ago? Though Maisie Dobbs hasn’t acquired the patina of age, the legion of fans for the 13-book series would no doubt enthusiastically endorse its classic status….
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CIS: The Big Sleep revisited

It’s impossible to imagine a proper historical survey of noir fiction without reference to Philip Marlowe, the iconic character created by Raymond Chandler in his ground-breaking 1939 debut novel The Big Sleep. Marlowe is the prototypical hardboiled private eye. Street-smart and tough, he reads people and situations at…
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Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic

Over the five years I’ve been reviewing for Crime Fiction Lover, some of my most memorable reads have featured protagonists who are that little bit different. There was Maggie Quinn, terrified of the dark in Dianne Gallagher’s Too Dark to Sleep; Alison Gaylin’s hyperthymestic syndrome sufferer,…
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From the Shadows

Written by Neil White — From the Shadows opens with a nameless stalker watching a woman from inside her flat. He’s a professional, and knows how break in, stalk silently in the shadows and remain unseen. It’s 1am. But things don’t go as we suspect they…
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IQ

Written by Joe Ide, narrated by Sullivan Jones — Japanese-American author Joe Ide grew up in South Central Los Angeles, and it’s obvious he kept his ears open. He has a remarkable ability to capture the cadence, vocabulary, put-downs, and jiving of the mostly African-American…
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