Familiarity breeds delight
Two of my favorite practitioners of the traditional mystery — Carolyn Hart and Katherine Hall Page — share a publisher (William Morrow) and this year they’ve shared a publication date and theme as...
View Article‘The Body in the Gazebo’: murder, embezzlement & food
Working within the challenging confines of an amateur detective premise, Katherine Hall Page has created a terrific series of novels about suburban Boston caterer/sleuth Faith Fairchild. Where many...
View ArticleWho tried to push Faith Fairchild off a subway platform?
Any avid mystery reader knows how tough it can be to maintain a series character for more than a few years. Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta is just one of many fictional sleuths I’ve given up on...
View Article‘The Body in the Piazza’: keeping a mystery series fresh
“The Body in the Piazza” (William Morrow) is Katherine Hall Page’s 21st entry in the Faith Fairchild mystery series that follows a caterer married to a minister in a fictional town about 20 minutes...
View ArticleWhy do so many nice people enjoy tales of murder?
That was one of the questions buzzing in my head as I hung out at the 25th annual Malice Domestic conference in the Washington, D.C. suburbs last weekend. 600 writers and fans were there to celebrate...
View ArticleNPR top 100 has readers asking — What’s a thriller?
Crime novel genre subdivisions are always tricky to navigate — reviewers and bookstores separate the “cozy” books from the “hard-boiled” detective novels, and the mysteries from the thrillers, but to...
View Article‘Accused’: the return of Mary DiNunzio & the Rosato gang
Any popular entertainer faces the challenge of keeping longtime fans happy while trying to grow as an artist (and bring new people into the tent). Some of my favorite novelists have been able to give...
View Article‘The Body in the Birches’: sophisticated comfort food
Book by book for more than 20 years, Katherine Hall Page has earned a place among the best American mystery writers. The fact that Page has done this within the confines of a single series about an...
View Article‘Body in the Wardrobe’: keeping standards high
This weekend in suburban Washington, D.C., the annual convention of mystery writers, Malice Domestic, will present Katherine Hall Page with its lifetime achievement award. It’s a well-deserved honor,...
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