It’s a defining feature (…or perhaps a bug) of my adult life that I say things like, “You know what would be cool? [X project]” and then do not content myself with my conversation-mates agreeing that said project would be cool, but rather decide that it must exist, and undertake it myself when nobody else volunteers. I have in recent years gotten slightly better about stashing whatever it is on a long-term to-do list for a decent interval1 , but when it comes to Best Evidence content, I don’t want ideas languishing on the seventh screen of Excel for too long.

I’d love to hear from you guys which of these sounds the most appealing — or if you have variations on them, or if there’s one I mentioned in passing in, like, 2020 and forgot about it because: 2020.

(And don’t forget: some of this stuff ends up behind the paywall, so if you don’t want to miss out, grab a paid subscription today. They’re on sale all week!)

Subscribe now

Okay, here’s a partial list of feature ideas…

• True Crime A To Z Redux (sadly, there’s no shortage of material to add/iterate on with this one)

• Calendar-Cluster Testing (remember my mid-July disaster-cluster “theory”? I suspect myself of confirmation bias and would like to dig in further, but it will take a while)

• True Crime 101 (I’ve periodically considered offering a true-crime “course” — what would that look like? what should go on the syllabus?)

  • A Billboard-esque true-crime “chart” (sort of similar to the genre Top 40s Mark and I have done recently on MASTAS, but for the true-crime genre — but 1) is that too flip a format, and 2) if it’s not, would I break it out into subgenres the way Billboard does — longform, books, podcasts, films, series — or just throw everything in together? and should that be annual or all-time)

• More flashback/“the year in” limited-series content (like the Edgar-nominee flashbacks, but in other genres — i.e., true-crime Emmy-winners of the mid-eighties; ranking seasons of classic Unsolved Mysteries; what Best American True Crime Writing 1977 would have looked like, had it existed)

• Weird True-Crime America (every state’s signature cases)

• “Today in random Wikipedia articles”

“Night of a Thousand Bet-Craps” isn’t NOT on the table, I’ll say that also. Leave a comment, let me know what you’d like to read (or help research! we do pay!). — SDB

Leave a comment

Tomorrow on Best Evidence: Fiction break!

What is this thing? This should help. Follow Best Evidence @bestevidencefyi on Twitter and Instagram. You can also call or text us any time at 919-75-CRIME.