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PRIMED IS OUT TODAY! Gary Lawlor broke the day his sons were murdered in a car bomb meant for him. He failed to find the killer, and drank himself into a hole of self-recrimination and shame. [...]

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 [...]

When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783 and the King’s soldiers departed for England, the King’s laws went with them. Good riddance, most people said. British rule had been oppressive, [...]

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 [...]

I reviewed New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe’s book Say Nothing, A True Story of Murder and Memory In Northern Ireland, for NPR. Say Nothing is the story of the abduction and murder of [...]

I don’t often read true crime, but Kate Summerscale might have turned me into a devotee. At the very least I’ve become a devotee of her work. Her re-creation of the case of a [...]