‘Stars & Screen’ Cinema & Media History Virtual Symposium | May 16, 2026 Next Saturday! You can find the whole program on line here and you can attend by RSVPing on the page. Here’s my subject (though I’ve only got 15 minutes so it may be a little bare bones): Haunted: Where Gothic Bleeds into…
Tag: crime
Losing My Religion
It being Sid James’ birthday today, here’s a little story I wrote some years back under another moniker (recently booted from his Twitter account, I find, having forgotten there was one). Like a lot of my Graham Wynd stories it’s a bit of crime and a bit of a laugh and you don’t have to…
Out Now!
CLUES 44:1 is out now with all kinds of crime writing fun, including a review by me of a new book that looks at links between Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and Leigh Brackett — and does it well. Introduction: Allusions and Illusions Spotlight on… Indian Crime FictionTARUN K. SAINT Rethinking Democracy and Detective Fiction: The…
No Other Choice/The Ax
Today is the day my late friend Adrean Darce Brent chose as her birthday; she told me once that the process took long enough that she had more than one day that could be considered so, but having to choose she went with that date. She died before her last birthday which I didn’t find…
‘Stars & Screen’ Virtual Symposium
I’m pleased to be giving a presentation on the borderline between Gothic and Noir using the films Ivy and Bedelia at the Cinema & Media History Virtual Symposium, 16 May 2026. Good news: it’s online and free to attend this whole day of presentations on a wide variety of films starting at 10am Eastern Time…
Noir: Flicka och Hyacinter (1950)
This film was mentioned on #filmsky and did not disappoint. A little Laura and a bit of The Seventh Victim, so like the latter should have cautions about it dealing rather grimly with suicide. We’re thrown in media res with people at a sort of party and then we see Dagmar (Eva Henning) leave to…
Reading into the New Year
I’ve been doing a lot of reading since I got here before Xmas and I wanted to try to keep track of as much as I can. A few books were waiting for me: some because shipping to the US was too much especially for contributor’s copies (why punish the publishers?). So very happily reading…
Out Now: Hobo Camp Review
Hobo Camp Review issue 50 is out, reminding us that in the midst of all the horrors we must create and play and communicate. Even editor James Duncan’s editorial for this issue reminds us. I’m pleased to be in this issue along with a bunch of names I recognise. I have a little story ‘The…
Daft Days & Discipline
In these daft days between the Yule and Hogmanay celebrations it’s easy to lose track of time, as Fergusson suggests. He also claims this is the time to enjoy ourselves in all the usual ways: Let mirth abound, let social cheerInvest the dawning of the year;Let blithesome innocence appearTo crown our joy;Nor envy wi sarcastic…
Review: The Conjure Man Dies
Rudolph Fisher’s 1932 novel The Conjure Man Dies evokes both the Harlem Renaissance and Golden Age mysteries as well as embodying in important ways the more authentic voice of the streets that Dashiell Hammett had begun to make sing. Of course Fisher’s voice remains distinct from all of these: a polymath who studied to be…