The Crime Lady

The Crime Lady: A Few Questions for Kate Summerscale

May 6, 2025

Dear TCL Readers: Kate Summerscale is one of my true crime touchstones. She knows how to turn real-life historical mysteries into engaging narratives, and...

The Crime Lady: Latest Writings and Upcoming Events

April 18, 2025

Dear TCL Readers: I write you in the thick of work — the copyedit and the legal read for Without Consent landed simultaneously late last week, and...

The Crime Lady: Changing Guards

April 8, 2025

A Q&A with Jackie Sherbow, the newest editor-in-chief of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine 1000th issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, which was Janet...

The Crime Lady: Remembering Ken Bruen

March 31, 2025

Ken Bruen with editor Selina Walker and actor David Soul, 2006 Dear TCL Readers: Ken Bruen died over the weekend, just seventy-four years old. There was no...

The Crime Lady: On Private Detectives, and More

March 25, 2025

Dear TCL Readers: A few months ago my editor at the Book Review, Tina Jordan, asked if I would contribute some additional recommendation lists for their...

WITHOUT CONSENT Is Available For Pre-Order!

February 25, 2025

Dear TCL Readers, At long last, my new book, Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle To Make Spousal Rape a Crime, which will be...

The Crime Lady: Announcements Aplenty

February 19, 2025

Dear TCL Readers, Last week, I turned in the fully fact-checked draft of Without Consent to my editor. I’ll have lots more to say about the book, and where...

The Crime Lady: A Few Questions for Robert Littell

January 28, 2025

Dear TCL Readers: Robert Littell on Par Jupiter!, May 2019 A few years ago, deep into the pandemic, I decided it was time to acquaint myself with the...

The Crime Lady: Family Histories

January 2, 2025

Or, what I did on my winter vacation Bryna Bercovitch, 1940s (photo credit: Raquel Ary Derozza) Dear TCL Readers, It’s 2025. Already this new year is...

The Crime Lady: Best of 2024, Raymond Chandler Auction, and More

December 9, 2024

Dear TCL Readers: Well, it was a week. I suppose I’ll say that every week from now on, I grant. But it does feel like we’re speedrunning through history, and...

The Crime Lady: The Death and Life of Patricia McGlone

December 2, 2024

December 2024 Rolling Stone cover Dear TCL Readers: Later on in this newsletter I’ll speak more about the forthcoming book and some other things I’ve been...

The Crime Lady: Reboot, Redux

November 11, 2024

I'm back with updates on my new book, moving platforms, and plans for fresh essays!

Stay Tuned in 2024

December 22, 2023

Yes, I'm also leaving Substack for someplace TBD.

Substackers Against Nazis

December 14, 2023

A collective letter to Substack leadership

I'm (Not) Spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica

December 12, 2023

But I did spend far too much time researching the origin of this late-career Tom Lehrer song.

2023 Favorites; LoA Noir Event; and More

December 5, 2023

It's Best-of List Season.

What (Or Rather, Who) Got Left Out of MAESTRO

November 27, 2023

A newsletter about Judy Holliday (which means Patricia Highsmith will show up here somehow)

The Crime Lady: Domestic Disturbances, and Revisiting Hammett

November 22, 2023

Dear TCL Readers: Going to keep this newsletter on the briefer side, what with it being a holiday week. Earlier this year, it was a great pleasure to be...

Crime Lady: Staying Pesky in the Sunshine

November 16, 2023

Q&A with Mandy Matney, Author of BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS

Crime Novel Catch-Up #2: Before You Knew My Name

November 2, 2023

On an award-winning novel from 2022 I am only now getting around to reading

Crime Lady: Crime Novel Catch-Up

October 19, 2023

Introducing an occasional, but hopefully regular, feature on crime novels vintage and recent I didn't get around to reading until now

The Crime Lady: Helen Garner; You're Wrong About; and More

October 12, 2023

Dear TCL Readers: It’s fall, the news is terrible, I’m mostly hunkering down to work. So I’ll keep this newsletter on the briefer side. This past spring, I...

The Crime Lady: Thursday Murder Man

September 13, 2023

Dear TCL Readers: Happy Fall! Soon it will be Rosh Hashanah, the start of the High Holidays, and for a lot of reasons, I am looking forward to a new year and...

The Crime Lady: Making This A Proper Newsletter Again

July 28, 2023

Dear TCL Readers: It’s sweltering as I write this, as a heat wave has descended upon the Northeast after pummeling the Southwest for quite some time. It...

The Crime Lady: EVIDENCE OF THINGS SEEN Is Out Now

July 6, 2023

Dear TCL Readers: I will make this newsletter brief, because the news is in the headline. My latest anthology, Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era...

The Crime Lady: Events for Evidence of Things Seen, Recent Writing, and More

June 21, 2023

Dear TCL Readers, My next anthology, Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning, will be out on July 4, which is a little less than two weeks...

The Crime Lady: Dark Tales, Revisited

May 11, 2023

Dear TCL Readers: This newsletter is a little different. It republishes my June 12, 2011 article for The Daily, a long-defunct News Corp. publication that...

The Crime Lady: "Truth" in True Crime; Violinist Unsolved Mystery; and More

April 17, 2023

Dear TCL Readers: April is halfway over but it feels like it has encompassed a century. Perhaps it was Passover. Perhaps it was spending the Seders in my...

The Crime Lady: Essential Highsmith; NYRB Letters; and More

March 20, 2023

Dear TCL Readers: The last couple of months have been eventful professionally, to say the least. Let’s get right to it: Thanks for reading The Crime Lady!...

The Crime Lady: Contending With Capote

January 23, 2023

Dear TCL Readers, I hope your 2023 is starting well. Mine is, thank goodness, after a last-few-weeks-of-2022 best forgotten (a second bout of Covid is...

The Crime Lady: New Projects Ahead

October 12, 2022

Dear TCL Readers, Well, it’s certainly been a while. But I’m back in your inboxes after so long to tell you what I’ve been up to over the past six months,...

The Crime Lady: East Village Kidnappings; SCOUNDREL Updates; and More

April 11, 2022

Dear TCL Readers: It took longer than anticipated to send out this newsletter, but then, the publication of Scoundrel has kept me busy since the book’s...

The Crime Lady: SCOUNDREL Is Published Today

February 22, 2022

Dear TCL Readers: At long last, my newest book, Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and...

The Crime Lady: Events for SCOUNDREL, and More

February 4, 2022

Dear TCL Readers, 2022 is, shall we say, off to an eventful start. For me, I began the year in isolation, recovering from Omicron. It was technically a mild...

The Crime Lady: Farewell To a Dear Friend

January 14, 2022

Dear TCL Readers: I’d meant my first newsletter of 2022 to be about other things. And in time, it will. But for now, all my thoughts are about yesterday’s...

The Crime Lady: My Year in Crime

December 7, 2021

Dear TCL Readers: Once again, it’s been a while. 2021 has been like that, moving agonizingly slow and blindingly fast, sometimes at the same time. The year...

The Crime Lady: Introducing SCOUNDREL, My Next Book

July 21, 2021

Dear TCL Readers: Hi, it’s been a while. So much has happened in the world, in your own lives, and in mine. I write this newsletter from my childhood home,...

The Crime Lady: Give a Dose To the One You Love Most

March 1, 2021

Dear TCL Readers: I got my first dose last Friday at the racetrack. I don’t gamble and even if I did I wouldn’t bet on horses and so I’d never visited the...

The Crime Lady: Long Overdue, and Some News

February 12, 2021

Dear TCL Readers: Hi, it’s been a while. January was…well, it seemed like every time I thought about writing a newsletter, there would be an insurrection or...

The Crime Lady: The Year That Wasn't, The Year That Will Be

December 15, 2020

Dear TCL Readers, A year ago we had hardly an inkling of the virus known as SARS-CoV-2, and this week the first Americans are being vaccinated. A year ago we...

The Crime Lady: Linda Millar; Party For One Thanksgiving Reading; and More

November 24, 2020

Dear TCL Readers: For years I have wondered about Linda Millar, daughter of the crime writers Ross Macdonald and Margaret Millar. I have wondered about what...

The Crime Lady: Return to MacDowell

October 27, 2020

Dear TCL Readers:It’s crunch time for, well everything. For me, that is book revisions. I am working on them at something of a feverish clip at MacDowell,...

The Crime Lady: Pulp Dangers

$ · October 13, 2020

Dear TCL Subscribers:When I was working on The Real Lolita, one of the many research rabbit holes centered around an ex-con named Russell Trainer, who began...

The Crime Lady: Best American Mystery & Suspense Stories Gets Its New Editor

September 3, 2020

Dear TCL Readers, It has been a while! And much has transpired. Unspeakable Acts published to considerable critical acclaim (and healthy sales, too.) The...

The Crime Lady: In Celebration, In Memory

August 5, 2020

Dear TCL Readers: Last week brought a bounty of good news in these parts. Unspeakable Acts rolled out with far more fanfare that I was expecting, including a...

The Crime Lady: UNSPEAKABLE ACTS: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession Publishes Today

July 28, 2020

Dear TCL Readers:Today, July 28, is publication day for Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit & Obsession, an anthology of features and...

The Crime Lady: Anthology Events, Reckonings, and More

June 29, 2020

Dear TCL Readers, Unspeakable Acts publishes in just about a month. And in this strange ongoing pandemic-inflected world, publicity and promotion looks...

The Crime Lady: Shirley, You Jest

$ · June 9, 2020

Dear TCL Subscribers:I did not expect to like Shirley, Josephine Decker’s newest film. I had very much disliked its source material (Susan Scarf Merrell’s...

The Crime Lady: Escape Hatch

May 19, 2020

Dear TCL Readers,Unspeakable Acts publishes in a little over two months and all of the prepublication trade reviews are now in — with Publishers Weekly...

The Crime Lady: More Cases That Haunt

May 4, 2020

Dear TCL Readers:Last year, one of my favorite crime writers, William Boyle, reached out to ask me to contribute to a project he was guest-editing for a film...