Raymond Chandler’s 1944 essay in The Atlantic Magazine, The Simple Art of Murder, is a great touchstone for anyone writing genre fiction. Chandler was incredibly influential. He was one of [...]
“As far as I can tell, the first murder in New England was committed in 1630 with a gun.” Thomas McDade, The Annals of Murder. John Billington was probably not the first man to commit [...]
On a summer’s day in 1799, a group of men were driving cattle from Kentucky to Virginia, along a road known as Boone’s Trace, when the cows suddenly quit the road and rushed into the woods. Once [...]
I had always thought of ‘murder in the first degree’ as something dating back to mediaeval times in England. It certainly has that ring to it. But it turns out, it’s not an [...]
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