#narrative-mystery

[ follow ]
#true-crime
Podcast
fromABC7 Los Angeles
1 week ago

ABC takes true crime storytelling to new levels with 'Betrayal: Secrets and Lies'

The series 'Betrayal: Secrets and Lies' showcases true stories of deception, including paternity fraud and domestic abuse.
Podcast
fromABC7 Los Angeles
1 week ago

ABC takes true crime storytelling to new levels with 'Betrayal: Secrets and Lies'

The series 'Betrayal: Secrets and Lies' showcases true stories of deception, including paternity fraud and domestic abuse.
Film
fromVulture
1 day ago

The Twist in The Drama Is Not the Problem

The film features a controversial plot twist involving a character's past plan for a school shooting, sparking significant online speculation and backlash.
#jo-nesb
#literature
fromThe Atlantic
1 day ago
Books

Unconventional Novels About Conventional People

Aging revolutionaries and conformists share parallel narratives of disillusionment and the loss of youthful dreams in recent literature.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 day ago

Unconventional Novels About Conventional People

Aging revolutionaries and conformists share parallel narratives of disillusionment and the loss of youthful dreams in recent literature.
Arts
fromwww.npr.org
4 days ago

'The Keeper' is a grand finale to Tana French's Cal Hooper crime series

The Keeper concludes the Cal Hooper series, emphasizing environmental themes and the darkness lurking beneath the surface of rural life in Ireland.
#horror
Independent films
fromVulture
1 week ago

Sure, They Will Kill You, But Can They Get On With It Already?

They Will Kill You satirizes rich Devil worshippers while contrasting them with the mundane lives of actual Satanists, challenging stereotypes and societal fears.
Television
fromVulture
1 week ago

Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Could've Been a Classic

A woman with a mysterious background and a sixth sense navigates family dynamics and impending doom before her wedding.
Writing
fromPolygon.com
1 week ago

This new crime thriller brings a haunting, video game-inspired edge to NYC noir

The novel is inspired by horror and mystery, set in 1990s New York, following a Polish immigrant's dark journey.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 week ago

Daunting, inspiring, comforting, terrifying: the writers who can make silence as eloquent as words

A vision lay before him: Fleet Street blanketed with snow, silent, empty, pure white, and, at the end of it, the huge and majestic form of Saint Paul's Cathedral. It was a spellbinding moment: the great thoroughfare temporarily devoid of carts and carriages, the cathedral looming blurrily out of the still-falling snowflakes a real-life snow globe.
London
Writing
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 week ago

Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh review high-concept adultery fable

Sophie Mackintosh's novel Permanence explores desire and infidelity through a surreal narrative of a couple trapped in a fantasy world.
#thriller
Film
fromThe Verge
6 days ago

Red Rooms makes online poker as thrilling as its serial killer

Red Rooms effectively combines realistic technology with expert tension building, creating an unpredictable thriller that keeps viewers engaged and questioning character motives.
fromBustle
2 months ago
Television

'Vanished' Starts Sweet, Then Drops You Into A Twist-Heavy Mystery You'll Devour

Film
fromThe Verge
6 days ago

Red Rooms makes online poker as thrilling as its serial killer

Red Rooms effectively combines realistic technology with expert tension building, creating an unpredictable thriller that keeps viewers engaged and questioning character motives.
fromBustle
2 months ago
Television

'Vanished' Starts Sweet, Then Drops You Into A Twist-Heavy Mystery You'll Devour

Books
fromThe New Yorker
3 days ago

The Sci-Fi Novelist Who Disappeared for Decades

Cameron Reed's science fiction explores cognitive estrangement, revealing alien worlds that reflect and challenge our own societal norms and moral dilemmas.
fromHyperallergic
1 week ago

Anki King's Nordic Noir

Anki King's work suggests an intimate engagement with New Image painting, particularly the later work of Susan Rothenberg, but she took it in a direction that is recognizably hers.
Arts
Artificial intelligence
fromThe Atlantic
2 weeks ago

The Human Skill That Eludes AI

Generative AI has paradoxically declined in creative writing quality since GPT-2, despite advancing in technical capabilities, with current models producing formulaic, flawed prose despite access to centuries of literature.
#film-vs-literature
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
5 days ago

Monsters in the Archives by Caroline Bicks review the writing secrets of Stephen King

Caroline Bicks explores Stephen King's writing techniques through his archives to understand his impact on readers' emotions.
Television
fromBustle
2 weeks ago

Kerry Washington's New Thriller May Have A Shocking Twist

Apple TV's Imperfect Women follows three women navigating an affair and murder, exemplifying the 'good for her' genre where morally gray female characters make questionable choices in response to difficult circumstances.
fromInverse
2 weeks ago

25 Years Later, Christopher Nolan's First Great Noir Thriller Remains His Most Essential

Memento provides a Rosetta Stone to decode deeper meaning within his larger-scale efforts, offering a window into the complex paradoxes that add thematic weight to his intricately plotted stories. Nolan's films often jump from a familiar genre archetype. In Memento, Guy Pearce's Leonard Shelby recalls the weary antiheroes of film noir, but his filmography is full of familiar figures ranging from superheroes to great men of history.
Film
Books
fromPsychology Today
1 week ago

Fiction Is Indispensable to Life's Journey

Fiction is essential for emotional connection, learning, and social cognition, allowing us to escape reality and engage deeply with narratives.
#black-dahlia-murder
Arts
fromwww.npr.org
3 weeks ago

'Scarpetta' is a captivating murder mystery and a high-wire balancing act

Scarpetta alternates between two timelines with different actresses portraying Kay Scarpetta, supported by strong ensemble performances from established television actors.
Writing
fromThe Atlantic
3 weeks ago

Raymond Chandler and the Case of the Split Infinitive

Raymond Chandler clashed with The Atlantic's copy editor Margaret Mutch over her correction of a split infinitive, arguing that deliberate rule-breaking in language creates authentic, living prose.
Television
fromSlate Magazine
3 weeks ago

Nicole Kidman's New Crime Show Is Surprisingly Captivating-and Goes Unexpected Places

Nicole Kidman stars as Kay Scarpetta in Amazon Prime's new series adaptation, blending family drama with forensic investigation as Kay confronts a murder matching a serial killer she caught 25 years ago.
DC food
fromVulture
1 month ago

Dark Winds Is Finally Getting a Little Weird With It

Dark Winds season four allows Joe Leaphorn to break from his composed heroic archetype through a cat-and-mouse dynamic with a German assassin, enabling actor Zahn McClarnon to showcase comedic and vulnerable dimensions previously unexplored.
fromInverse
3 weeks ago

'Undertone' Is Scariest With What It Doesn't Show

The first thing you notice about undertone is how quiet it is; not just in its audio mix, but in how it's shot - primarily steady wide shots that slowly pan across empty rooms, allowing your eyes to frantically scan for something amiss. It's an understated form of filmmaking that allows for the movie's scares to hit all that much harder.
Film
Books
fromBustle
1 week ago

The 10 Best New Books About Women Breaking The Mold

Successful women often defy expectations, and quieter forms of rebellion deserve recognition alongside visible rule-breakers.
Writing
fromBig Think
3 weeks ago

"If it sounds literary, it isn't": The deceptively simple rules behind good writing

Neal Allen and Anne Lamott co-authored Good Writing by combining Allen's 36 writing rules with Lamott's annotations, creating a collaborative guide where Allen explains rules and Lamott provides practical examples and alternative perspectives.
#film-adaptation
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 weeks ago

The best recent crime and thrillers review roundup

Killing Me Softly and Whidbey explore complex themes of trauma, morality, and systemic failures in healthcare and society.
Music
fromwww.npr.org
1 month ago

Why music has become such a big part of the romance novel reading experience

Romance novel readers increasingly use pop music playlists to enhance their reading experiences, creating a community that bridges book fandom and music fandom, exemplified by Charli XCX's Wuthering Heights album.
Film
fromInsideHook
3 weeks ago

The Sensational 19th-Century Adaptation That's Not "Wuthering Heights"

The Count of Monte Cristo PBS adaptation is an exceptional book-to-screen adaptation featuring an Oscar-winning director and acclaimed actors bringing Alexandre Dumas's 1840s classic to thrilling life.
Psychology
fromPsychology Today
1 month ago

The Value of True Crime

Evolutionary psychology explains true crime fascination as a survival mechanism for identifying threats, yet successful predators still evade detection through deception and social bonding.
Books
fromwww.npr.org
3 weeks ago

Author Luke Kennard talks about his novel, 'Black Bag'

Luke Kennard's novel 'Black Bag' fictionalizes a 1967 psychology experiment where a silent, bagged actor in a classroom gradually becomes liked by students through repeated exposure, exploring how familiarity transforms perception.
fromMedium
1 month ago

Things that don't matter when you write

To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul. The concept I stick to - my core principle - is simple: I write in plain English, and only when I actually have something to say.
Writing
Books
fromThe New Yorker
3 weeks ago

Patricia Cornwell on Crime and Creativity

Fear is the primary obstacle to creativity; overcoming it and persisting through rejection enables successful creative work.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

The best recent crime and thrillers review roundup

Obnoxious jewellery dealer Rodney Manderson has been killed outside the Bowery auction rooms, stabbed through the eye with the Victorian hatpin that his boss, Rose Bowery, has brandished in front of the nation on Bargain Hunt. As she discussed the pin's virtues as a deadly weapon as well as its millinerial uses, the fiercely loyal Rilke decides while feeling grateful to have skipped lunch and trying not to think of jelly to remove it before calling the police.
LGBT
Video games
fromGameSpot
2 months ago

Here Are The Best Detective Games To Check Out

Industry layoffs and studio closures coincide with major game updates, gameplay impressions, character trailers, and recommendations including Steam Detective Fest deals and free PC games.
fromVulture
2 months ago

Agatha Christie's Seven Dials Finale Recap: In Which Points Are Made

Everything Bundle has accomplished is substantive and worthy of celebration, but in the course of learning who she can trust and foiling the theft of Dr. Matip's formula, she's lost Jimmy and Loraine, who represented her one remaining connection to Gerry. She's also been forced to reckon with the knowledge that although Lady Caterham loves her, she's never really seen Bundle and her gifts accurately. Worse still, Bundle realizes that she's never really been enough for her mother.
UK politics
fromThe Atlantic
4 weeks ago

Pushing the Limits of Historical Fiction

Enrigue's 'penchant for shooting the facts of history through the prism of the absurd' makes him singular-but it also puts him firmly in a long literary tradition. The book 'distills a byzantine swirl of historical events through the lives of a handful of very colorful characters,' intertwining several real and invented incidents with major moments in the Apache Wars, a series of skirmishes involving Native Americans, the U.S., and Mexico across the Southwest borderlands.
Books
Medicine
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

When a heart attack left me in a coma, my hallucinations inspired a novel and a new life

A man experienced a cardiac arrest during lockdown, was revived after 40 minutes, and returned home with brain injury, visual impairment and changed perspective.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

They by Helle Helle review a novel to make the reader slow down and take notice

A Danish novel explores the deepening bond between a teenage daughter and terminally ill mother through minimalist prose that captures unspoken emotional intimacy and life's quiet, defining moments.
#black-dahlia
Television
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

I'm a crime writer. Here's why we make the best Traitors contestants

Crime fiction specialists' observational, empathetic, and deceptive-character skills make them natural contestants and formidable analysts on The Traitors.
Psychology
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

3 Cognitive Biases in Netflix's "Death Cap: The Mushroom Murders"

Cognitive biases like normalcy bias and cognitive dissonance can cause underestimation of risk and silence despite prior warning signs.
fromwww.npr.org
1 month ago

'Crime 101' is an old-fashioned heist film that pays off

If there's anything I miss in pop culture, it's the presence of ordinary movies. I don't mean blockbusters like Avatar or cultural events like Barbenheimer or Oscar contenders like One Battle After Another. I'm talking about the routine, well-made entertainments that, for nearly a century, used to open in theaters every week. You'd go see them because the story sounded good or you liked the stars or you just wanted to enjoy something as part of an audience.
Arts
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

How to Put Sex in a Novel

Contemporary literary fiction increasingly avoids depicting heterosexual intimacy while queer novelists freely explore sex's complexities, as exemplified by Jan Saenz's unconventional novel about selling experimental orgasm-inducing pills.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

When Did Literature Get Less Dirty?

Philip Roth's Zuckerman Unbound functioned as a response to the controversial reception of Portnoy's Complaint, with Roth's protagonist expressing regret over writing sexually explicit material that drew accusations of anti-Semitism and misogyny.
fromJezebel
1 month ago

Turns Out, When You Write a Novel About Killing a Politician, People Tell You How They'd Do It

When the people who are after me get here, they'll arrest me and put me on trial, or they'll disappear me to some black site. Or they won't bother with any of that and they'll just kill me. All of these seem like plausible outcomes, but in the novel's prologue, the narrator seems much more confident of her success: I am a fucking genius, a gorgeous fucking genius, and the only thing left to do is sit down and write.
Books
Arts
fromwww.npr.org
2 months ago

'Islands' is a spare and satisfying slow-burn thriller

Islands is a spare, slow-burn drama set on barren Fuerteventura that examines alienation and luxury through a broken tennis pro's interactions with a wealthy family.
#agatha-christie
fromRoger Ebert
2 months ago
Television

"Agatha Christie's Seven Dials" Will Send Your Snooze Button Into Overdrive | TV/Streaming | Roger Ebert

fromRoger Ebert
2 months ago
Television

"Agatha Christie's Seven Dials" Will Send Your Snooze Button Into Overdrive | TV/Streaming | Roger Ebert

Film
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

"Dead Man's Wire" Is a Tangle of Loose Threads

A DJ's improvised on-air intervention and a TV reporter's determination highlight media influence and legal, law-enforcement complexities, though broader ambitions remain underdeveloped.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

The best recent crime and thrillers review roundup

Two contemporary novels probe suburban domesticity, revealing secrets, manipulation, and moral ambiguity through slow-burn suspense and darkly comic plotting.
Film
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Hitchcock's The Lodger has been turned into a vertical microdrama. What's next Psycho on Snapchat?

Tattle TV reframes Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger as a vertically cropped, phone-first microdrama, altering original 4:3 compositions and raising preservation and aesthetics concerns.
Film
fromVulture
1 month ago

Why Are So Many Movies About Kidnappings Right Now?

Contemporary hostage films use captivity to interrogate power imbalances, allowing marginalized figures to confront untouchable elites and reflect wider social anxieties.
fromInverse
2 months ago

Netflix's Most Intriguing New Drama Has An Unexpected Supernatural Twist

When Netflix aired live sporting events over the 2025 holidays, one teaser kept playing over and over during the ad breaks: a mysterious short sequence following a young woman as she encountered strange phenomena that all tied into major Netflix shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, , and Stranger Things. It ended with a tease of a big announcement on January 7th. Well, it's now January 7th, and the announcement is here.
Television
Film
fromwww.dw.com
2 months ago

An undying trend: How vampires hold a mirror to society

Vampires in storytelling symbolize societal fears and reflect historical social and racial violence, as shown by a 1930s-set horror about community-targeted vampires.
Television
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Eternally spellbinding': the TV shows that baffle you but you can't get enough of

Catterick, Monkey Dust, The OA, and Mrs Davies deliver surreal, darkly comic, and increasingly bizarre narratives blending crime, dreamlike animation, sci‑fi, and oddball humor.
Television
fromwww.esquire.com
2 months ago

'Landman' Season 2, Episode 9 Twist Ending, Explained

Billy Bob Thornton's character Tommy Norris remains central to Landman despite being fired, and Thornton says he'll star as long as the show wants him.
Books
fromEngadget
1 month ago

What to read this weekend: The unsettling new horror novel, Persona

A trans woman uncovers non-consensual pornography of herself and is drawn into escalating horrors involving identity, exploitation, internet influence, and economic precarity.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

From 24 to Danger Mouse: it's TV's all-time top spies!

this gadget-wielding Cary Grant-alike was the small screen's answer to 007 partly because Bond creator Ian Fleming was a consultant on the NBC series. Napoleon no relation to Han Solo and his stoic Russian sidekick Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) worked for the United Network Command for Law & Enforcement, foiling the evil THRUSH (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables & the Subjugation of Humanity) and its dastardly plans for world domination. Somehow they kept straight faces amid all the absurd acronyms.
Television
Television
fromCN Traveller
2 months ago

Where was Agatha Christie's Seven Dials filmed? Behind the scenes of the lavish Netflix murder mystery

Filming took place at Badminton House and across Bristol, including Barrel House and streets such as Queens Square, All Saints Street and Clare Street.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Good People by Patmeena Sabit review addictive mystery caters to modern attention spans

A novel uses short testimonies to unravel a teenager's death while exposing immigrant family dynamics, communal gossip, wealth-driven envy, and cultural tensions.
Books
fromVulture
2 months ago

Agatha Christie's Seven Dials Recap: Battle Commences

Jimmy and Bundle investigate linked deaths of Gerry and Ronnie, uncovering connections to "Seven Dials" while Bundle's bold detective actions drive the plot forward.
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

A Biography Without 'The Boring Bits'

Sophia Stewart poses a choice that many biographers struggle with: "what to do with the boring bits."
Books
Books
fromOregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News
2 months ago

PuzzleWatch: What the Dickens * Oregon ArtsWatch

Charles Dickens achieved lasting literary celebrity through prolific serialized novels, vivid characters, public lectures, and enduring popularity that keeps his works continuously in print.
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

"This Is How It Happens," by Molly Aitken

You are leaving work, your suit still damp from the morning's downpour, the skin on your palms peeling. You are clutching two supermarket bags, tins of cream soup and tuna knocking against one another. The rain is hard and your anorak is cheap. You are on your way to Stockbridge, to your parents' house, which only your father inhabits now that your mother is gone.
Books
Books
fromPsychology Today
1 month ago

Curing Zombies in "The Bone Temple"

Monsters evolve to mirror the cultural anxieties and ambitions of their eras, revealing societal fears about race, empire, mental health, and scientific cure.
Books
fromwww.npr.org
2 months ago

'Even the Dead' wraps up John Banville's smart, moody mystery series

Quirke mysteries combine noir darkness with literary prose, following a Dublin coroner confronting trauma, moral ambiguity, and hidden crimes in 1950s settings.
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

The Writer's Magic Trick

A writer is a kind of magician. Their job is to create living, three-dimensional people out of the ordinary stuff of ink and paper. This is no easy task, because readers can't literally hear, touch, or observe a character. Everything that defines a human being in real life-the physical space they occupy, or how they smell, feel, and sound-is stripped away, replaced by description. But authors have one major, mystical advantage: They can show you what's happening inside of someone's brain.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry review a dazzling puzzle-box of a debut

We are initiated into a world in which historically accurate foodstuffs can be ordered online a half oyster shell, the exposed flesh shining as if with the freshest brine, is 31.25 for a single piece and begin to understand one of the most striking things about this novel: its insistence upon detail, its utter specificity, set against a deliberate lack of specificity regarding the larger details that the reader's mind naturally itches to fill in.
Books
Books
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

How Do You Write About the Inexplicable?

Rational skepticism coexists with a persistent tendency to personify evil and read coincidences as omens.
[ Load more ]