Tag: mysteries

  • Let Me Re-Introduce Myself

    Welcome back to Opening a Mystery, where I hoped to share with you my love for mystery stories and novels.

  • The 2021 Shamus Awards Finalists

    Guy Toltl Kinman, Chairperson for the Shamus Awards, released the finalists for the 2021 awards. Categories include Best PI Novel, Best Original PI Paperback, Best PI Short Story, and Best First PI Novel. The Private Eye Writers of America award the Shamus Awards for the best detective fiction genre novels and short stories of the…

  • 2021 Edgar Award Winners

    On April 29th, the Mystery Writers of America celebrated its 75th year and awarded the 2021 Edgar Awards.

  • Evan Hunter Was Ed McBain

    Hunter’s best-known pseudonym was first used in the 87th Precinct debut novel, Cop Hater (1956).  He knew he wanted to make the books to give a realistic look into the life and work of a cop, but he had no experience as a police officer. So, according to his friend and mystery columnist for The…

  • The Hardboiled Mystery

    The hardboiled American detective was much more cynical than his English counterpart. It wasn’t a game or puzzle to him, but a more personal battle against evil, often of life or death.

  • Josephine Bell

    Calling Josephine Bell a writer from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction does her a disservice.

  • Dashiell Hammett

    Dashiell Hammett

    Although Dashiell Hammett only wrote five novels, he is known as one of the pioneers of detective fiction. He brought us Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, and the Continental Op. Many of the best-selling mystery writers, including Raymond Chandler, say that they were influenced by his style and stories.

  • Judge Deborah Knotts

    The rural farmland of North Carolina is one of the last places one would go to find the lead in a modern mystery series. Yet that is exactly where Margaret Maron finds the lead of her Deborah Knotts series. The series lasted over 20 books and had a very promising start with the first book…

  • Jennifer Dornbush’s Hole In the Woods

    Based on a true story, this book is about a police officer who investigates the cold case of the murder of a seventeen-year-old girl thirty years ago

  • Lillian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who Series

    I remember being one of the many readers who got caught up on the speeding train known as The Cat Who . . . series. Lillian Jackson Braun ‘s The Cat Who series introduced us to a former big-city journalist who has moved to a small town called Pickax, which was “400 miles north of…