Blog Posts by Subject: Mysteries, Crime, Thrillers

Below are a few of the newest books to hit NYPL shelves...

To jumpstart our brainstorming session of DVDs that were released in 2010, I printed out a list from amazon.com of their top-selling DVDs and brought it to my last Teen Advisory Group meeting.  My kids agreed with some of titles on that list, violently disagreed with others, and used the titles on that list as starting points to remember even more of their favorite films and TV shows that were released this year.  Their favorite DVDs of the year were filled with plenty of action, special effects, humor, and horror.

Below are a few of the newest books to hit NYPL shelves...

Katarina Bishop grew up all over Europe, but she isn’t an heiress. She has a Faberge egg, but she isn’t a Romanov. Kat is used to looking at a room and seeing all the angles, but that was before she stole a whole other life at the Colgan School only to walk away from it months later without a trace.

That was before everything went sideways.

When I asked Vince Clarke, founding member of Depeche Mode and musical genius behind synth bands Erasure & Yaz, to list his top five favorite books of all time he said, "that's impossible." Therefore, Vince shares with us (in his words) just "5 books out of 1000" that he enjoys:

Below are a few of the newest books to hit NYPL shelves...

That time of year has descended upon us yet again—it is time to celebrate the macabre, to relish the goblins and embrace the demons (no, I am not referring to fast approaching interactions with family members during Thanksgiving that many experience, although one of my family members is suspiciously too financially enriched in October.  The apparent financial windfall enjoyed by the relevant family member every October has given rise to some rather nasty rumors that he is receiving royalties on the literal plethora of devil costumes donned by various entities on Halloween. For the sake of peace, I have learned to ignore these rumors as well as the pertinent relative's 

"She's a grifter, shamus. I'm a grifter. We're all grifters. So we sell each other out for a nickel."
—Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

Do you remember the tropical storm of October 1?  Winds howling, sky boiling like a pot of dirty oatmeal, rain sluicing down?  What a good day it would have been to huddle at home in slippers and robe, brew a pot of tea, and curl up with a mystery novel.  And yet, on that nasty afternoon, a number of ardent mystery fans donned their rain gear and ventured out into the maelstrom to attend the first presentation of “Sinister Reading: Crime, Mystery, and Detective Fiction at the New 

They are among the most asked Library questions of the past year:  "Do you have those books? You know the ones I'm talking about? The ones I see everyone reading. The Girl Who Played with Dragons? The Girl Who Kicked the Fire? The Girl with the Hornet's Nest Tattoo?"

Below are a few of the newest books to hit NYPL shelves...

Below are a few of the newest books to hit NYPL shelves...

Hands can become dangerous weapons with the right training. But what if the lightest touch was enough? What if a finger placed on bare skin could change a person’s luck? What if it could make a person fall in love? What if it could transform them? What if it could steal a memory? What if a single, slight touch was enough to kill?

Below are a few of the newest books to hit NYPL shelves...

Three things jumped out at me when I first saw the cover of this book:

- The author: (Todd Strasser? I LOVE his stuff!)

- The title: (Wish You Were Dead?  I am SO there!)

- The picture: (Is that a hand reaching out to kill me?  Or a hand reaching out for help?)

“I loved Emma Rabbit. You shouldn’t be ashamed of your beloved.

Love had come stealthily. Love had waited, lain in wait and attacked when I least expected it.

I’d been defenseless.

When James Myers Thompson died in Los Angeles, 1977, not a single book of his was available in print. Beset for decades by his frail mental health, alcoholism and financial precarity, Thompson had turned to hackwork in Hollywood to make ends meet (an unfortunate fate for many great writers of the 20th century). While posthumous fame is nothing to be celebrated without great qualification, it is ironic that a man who was slavishly devoted to his craft and yet always cheated of success (by Stanley Kubrick, no less), is now a literary star undoubtedly soaring in ascent.

Welcome to the June 2010 edition of the Reader's Den!

A while ago, babble.com created a list of the 26 Most Disturbing Kids Movies of all time. Watership Down made the list, and if you’ve never read the book by Richard Adams, get yourself a copy, it’s a great book. At any rate, it made me think about disturbing anthropomorphized characters in literature and that, in turn, led me to think about books about animals doing people things, and that in turn led me to Amberville (in this case, stuffed animals doing people things) and finally, to Scandinavian crime fiction and cinema. I know, it’s a convoluted path, but stick with me and I’m 

Below are a few of the newest books to hit NYPL shelves...

If I had to pin down my favorite genres of fiction they would be: numero uno mystery/thriller, followed closely by romance and historical fiction (I love fantasy and sometimes sci-fi too but that is another blog post). I know I have found my own personal nirvana when I find a book that has all three! There has been a recent resurgence of great teen mystery titles in the past few years in teen book publishing. Books that have classic mystery plots and where teen detectives are at the forefront of the story.

Here are some of my new favorites that are in collections now: