#character-mystery

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#true-crime
Podcast
fromABC7 Los Angeles
1 week ago

ABC takes true crime storytelling to new levels with 'Betrayal: Secrets and Lies'

The series 'Betrayal: Secrets and Lies' showcases true stories of deception, including paternity fraud and domestic abuse.
Podcast
fromABC7 Los Angeles
1 week ago

ABC takes true crime storytelling to new levels with 'Betrayal: Secrets and Lies'

The series 'Betrayal: Secrets and Lies' showcases true stories of deception, including paternity fraud and domestic abuse.
#literature
fromThe Atlantic
2 days ago
Books

Unconventional Novels About Conventional People

Aging revolutionaries and conformists share parallel narratives of disillusionment and the loss of youthful dreams in recent literature.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
2 days ago

Unconventional Novels About Conventional People

Aging revolutionaries and conformists share parallel narratives of disillusionment and the loss of youthful dreams in recent literature.
Film
fromMetro
2 days ago

The Drama criticised for 'sick' plot twist after misleading marketing

The marketing for The Drama misleads audiences about its serious themes, particularly regarding a shocking plot twist involving a school shooting.
Arts
fromwww.npr.org
5 days ago

'The Keeper' is a grand finale to Tana French's Cal Hooper crime series

The Keeper concludes the Cal Hooper series, emphasizing environmental themes and the darkness lurking beneath the surface of rural life in Ireland.
Film
fromVulture
2 days ago

The Twist in The Drama Is Not the Problem

The film features a controversial plot twist involving a character's past plan for a school shooting, sparking significant online speculation and backlash.
Television
fromVulture
1 week ago

Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Could've Been a Classic

A woman with a mysterious background and a sixth sense navigates family dynamics and impending doom before her wedding.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 week ago

The Writer and the Traitor by Robert Verkaik review divided loyalties

Graham Greene announced that he was resigning from MI6. Kim Philby, his chief in Section V, MI6's counterespionage arm, blinked. Greene had played his part in tending the illusion.
London politics
Books
fromThe New Yorker
4 days ago

The Sci-Fi Novelist Who Disappeared for Decades

Cameron Reed's science fiction explores cognitive estrangement, revealing alien worlds that reflect and challenge our own societal norms and moral dilemmas.
fromHyperallergic
1 week ago

Anki King's Nordic Noir

Anki King's work suggests an intimate engagement with New Image painting, particularly the later work of Susan Rothenberg, but she took it in a direction that is recognizably hers.
Arts
Television
fromBustle
2 weeks ago

Kerry Washington's New Thriller May Have A Shocking Twist

Apple TV's Imperfect Women follows three women navigating an affair and murder, exemplifying the 'good for her' genre where morally gray female characters make questionable choices in response to difficult circumstances.
Writing
fromThe Atlantic
3 weeks ago

Raymond Chandler and the Case of the Split Infinitive

Raymond Chandler clashed with The Atlantic's copy editor Margaret Mutch over her correction of a split infinitive, arguing that deliberate rule-breaking in language creates authentic, living prose.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 week ago

Benjamin Wood: John Fowles's The Magus was so frustrating I threw it at the wall'

My mother bought me Stanley Bagshaw and the Short-sighted Football Trainer by Bob Wilson. I grew up thinking he was the same Bob Wilson who played in goal for Arsenal and presented sport on ITV.
Books
Books
fromAnOther
1 week ago

Polly Barton's Debut Novel Is an All-Consuming Exploration of Obsession

The protagonist navigates intense limerence while exploring self-actualization and cultural themes in Polly Barton's debut novel.
Arts
fromwww.npr.org
3 weeks ago

'Scarpetta' is a captivating murder mystery and a high-wire balancing act

Scarpetta alternates between two timelines with different actresses portraying Kay Scarpetta, supported by strong ensemble performances from established television actors.
#black-dahlia-murder
Books
fromPsychology Today
1 week ago

Fiction Is Indispensable to Life's Journey

Fiction is essential for emotional connection, learning, and social cognition, allowing us to escape reality and engage deeply with narratives.
Television
fromSlate Magazine
3 weeks ago

Nicole Kidman's New Crime Show Is Surprisingly Captivating-and Goes Unexpected Places

Nicole Kidman stars as Kay Scarpetta in Amazon Prime's new series adaptation, blending family drama with forensic investigation as Kay confronts a murder matching a serial killer she caught 25 years ago.
Film
fromInsideHook
3 weeks ago

The Sensational 19th-Century Adaptation That's Not "Wuthering Heights"

The Count of Monte Cristo PBS adaptation is an exceptional book-to-screen adaptation featuring an Oscar-winning director and acclaimed actors bringing Alexandre Dumas's 1840s classic to thrilling life.
Books
fromSlate Magazine
1 week ago

Netflix's New Crime Thriller Is So Deep in Sicko Territory It's Almost Funny

Norwegian author Jo Nesbø's adaptation of his Harry Hole novels struggles to translate complex narratives into a coherent screen format.
Books
fromInverse
1 week ago

Behind 'Project Hail Mary' And The Hard Sci-Fi Renaissance - And What's Next

Andy Weir's evolution as a sci-fi author reflects a blend of realism and personal growth in his characters and storytelling.
Psychology
fromPsychology Today
1 month ago

The Value of True Crime

Evolutionary psychology explains true crime fascination as a survival mechanism for identifying threats, yet successful predators still evade detection through deception and social bonding.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 weeks ago

The best recent crime and thrillers review roundup

Killing Me Softly and Whidbey explore complex themes of trauma, morality, and systemic failures in healthcare and society.
Film
fromIndieWire
1 month ago

'Young Sherlock' Stars Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Joseph Fiennes Crack the Case on Big Spoilers and Real Chemistry

Hero Fiennes Tiffin stars in Prime Video's "Young Sherlock" opposite his uncle Joseph Fiennes, marking their first significant on-camera collaboration in a major project.
Music
fromwww.npr.org
1 month ago

Why music has become such a big part of the romance novel reading experience

Romance novel readers increasingly use pop music playlists to enhance their reading experiences, creating a community that bridges book fandom and music fandom, exemplified by Charli XCX's Wuthering Heights album.
fromBustle
1 month ago

Exclusive: Leo Woodwall Breaks Down The *Very* Twisted Ending Of 'Vladimir'

There is an allure about him. There's a warmth to him, and something new about him, but also it's the timing. The backlash of her open relationship with John is really starting to take on a new shape, and I think he's a sort of exciting escape from it too.
Television
Books
fromwww.npr.org
3 weeks ago

Author Luke Kennard talks about his novel, 'Black Bag'

Luke Kennard's novel 'Black Bag' fictionalizes a 1967 psychology experiment where a silent, bagged actor in a classroom gradually becomes liked by students through repeated exposure, exploring how familiarity transforms perception.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

The best recent crime and thrillers review roundup

Obnoxious jewellery dealer Rodney Manderson has been killed outside the Bowery auction rooms, stabbed through the eye with the Victorian hatpin that his boss, Rose Bowery, has brandished in front of the nation on Bargain Hunt. As she discussed the pin's virtues as a deadly weapon as well as its millinerial uses, the fiercely loyal Rilke decides while feeling grateful to have skipped lunch and trying not to think of jelly to remove it before calling the police.
LGBT
Books
fromThe New Yorker
3 weeks ago

Patricia Cornwell on Crime and Creativity

Fear is the primary obstacle to creativity; overcoming it and persisting through rejection enables successful creative work.
fromVulture
2 months ago

Agatha Christie's Seven Dials Finale Recap: In Which Points Are Made

Everything Bundle has accomplished is substantive and worthy of celebration, but in the course of learning who she can trust and foiling the theft of Dr. Matip's formula, she's lost Jimmy and Loraine, who represented her one remaining connection to Gerry. She's also been forced to reckon with the knowledge that although Lady Caterham loves her, she's never really seen Bundle and her gifts accurately. Worse still, Bundle realizes that she's never really been enough for her mother.
UK politics
Video games
fromGameSpot
2 months ago

Here Are The Best Detective Games To Check Out

Industry layoffs and studio closures coincide with major game updates, gameplay impressions, character trailers, and recommendations including Steam Detective Fest deals and free PC games.
#black-dahlia
#tr-49
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

From luxury dupes' to literary doubles: why doppelgangers are everywhere right now

The doppelganger figure permeates contemporary culture across literature, fashion, and film, reflecting widespread paranoia about identity and authenticity in modern society.
fromThe Atlantic
4 weeks ago

Pushing the Limits of Historical Fiction

Enrigue's 'penchant for shooting the facts of history through the prism of the absurd' makes him singular-but it also puts him firmly in a long literary tradition. The book 'distills a byzantine swirl of historical events through the lives of a handful of very colorful characters,' intertwining several real and invented incidents with major moments in the Apache Wars, a series of skirmishes involving Native Americans, the U.S., and Mexico across the Southwest borderlands.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

The Bed Trick by Izabella Scott review a bizarre story of sexual duplicity

In September 2015, Gayle Newland stood trial accused of sex by deception. It was alleged that she created an online identity as a man and used this character, Kye Fortune, to lure another woman into a sexual relationship, which was consummated repeatedly with the assistance of a blindfold and a prosthetic penis. The woman believed she was having sex with Kye until one day her ring caught on his hat and she felt long hair.
US news
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

They by Helle Helle review a novel to make the reader slow down and take notice

A Danish novel explores the deepening bond between a teenage daughter and terminally ill mother through minimalist prose that captures unspoken emotional intimacy and life's quiet, defining moments.
Television
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

I'm a crime writer. Here's why we make the best Traitors contestants

Crime fiction specialists' observational, empathetic, and deceptive-character skills make them natural contestants and formidable analysts on The Traitors.
fromwww.npr.org
1 month ago

'Crime 101' is an old-fashioned heist film that pays off

If there's anything I miss in pop culture, it's the presence of ordinary movies. I don't mean blockbusters like Avatar or cultural events like Barbenheimer or Oscar contenders like One Battle After Another. I'm talking about the routine, well-made entertainments that, for nearly a century, used to open in theaters every week. You'd go see them because the story sounded good or you liked the stars or you just wanted to enjoy something as part of an audience.
Arts
Film
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

"Dead Man's Wire" Is a Tangle of Loose Threads

A DJ's improvised on-air intervention and a TV reporter's determination highlight media influence and legal, law-enforcement complexities, though broader ambitions remain underdeveloped.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Ben Markovits: I used to think any book concerned with people falling in love can't be very good'

Reading shaped formative years through detective stories, fantasy epics, and memoirs that provided companionship and escape during frequent moves and family transitions.
Film
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

My Sister's Bones review drab adaptation doesn't deliver the dark punch of the bestselling novel

A drab psychological-thriller film fails to generate intrigue despite a strong cast, weak pacing, and an underpowered twist ending.
Arts
fromwww.npr.org
2 months ago

'Islands' is a spare and satisfying slow-burn thriller

Islands is a spare, slow-burn drama set on barren Fuerteventura that examines alienation and luxury through a broken tennis pro's interactions with a wealthy family.
fromJezebel
1 month ago

Turns Out, When You Write a Novel About Killing a Politician, People Tell You How They'd Do It

When the people who are after me get here, they'll arrest me and put me on trial, or they'll disappear me to some black site. Or they won't bother with any of that and they'll just kill me. All of these seem like plausible outcomes, but in the novel's prologue, the narrator seems much more confident of her success: I am a fucking genius, a gorgeous fucking genius, and the only thing left to do is sit down and write.
Books
Television
fromBustle
2 months ago

'Vanished' Starts Sweet, Then Drops You Into A Twist-Heavy Mystery You'll Devour

A woman’s romantic trip turns into a dangerous, twisty thriller as she pursues her mysteriously disappeared boyfriend across Europe, becoming a competent, action-ready heroine.
Film
fromVulture
1 month ago

Mark Strong Answers Every Question We Have About Sherlock Holmes

British actors often play Hollywood villains; Mark Strong's Lord Blackwood in Guy Ritchie's 2009 Sherlock Holmes exemplified that trend and boosted his profile.
Film
fromVulture
1 month ago

Why Are So Many Movies About Kidnappings Right Now?

Contemporary hostage films use captivity to interrogate power imbalances, allowing marginalized figures to confront untouchable elites and reflect wider social anxieties.
#agatha-christie
fromRoger Ebert
2 months ago
Television

"Agatha Christie's Seven Dials" Will Send Your Snooze Button Into Overdrive | TV/Streaming | Roger Ebert

fromRoger Ebert
2 months ago
Television

"Agatha Christie's Seven Dials" Will Send Your Snooze Button Into Overdrive | TV/Streaming | Roger Ebert

Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

The best recent crime and thrillers review roundup

Two contemporary novels probe suburban domesticity, revealing secrets, manipulation, and moral ambiguity through slow-burn suspense and darkly comic plotting.
Film
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Hitchcock's The Lodger has been turned into a vertical microdrama. What's next Psycho on Snapchat?

Tattle TV reframes Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger as a vertically cropped, phone-first microdrama, altering original 4:3 compositions and raising preservation and aesthetics concerns.
Film
fromInverse
1 month ago

'Wuthering Heights' Is Not The Sicko Gothic Fantasy We Were Promised

Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights impresses visually but fails to deliver the provocative, scandalous reinterpretation many expected of the classic novel.
Film
fromwww.dw.com
2 months ago

An undying trend: How vampires hold a mirror to society

Vampires in storytelling symbolize societal fears and reflect historical social and racial violence, as shown by a 1930s-set horror about community-targeted vampires.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

I'll Be the Monster by Sean Gilbert review are they fantasists or psychopaths?

Glimpse them chatting in a restaurant or posing on Instagram, and you might think they have it all. The pair live in London but often travel, drawing the eyes of other guests, their skin glowing, their limbs artfully at ease. She writes affirmations on hotel stationery; he claims to taste notes of bark and tobacco in his chianti. As Sean Gilbert's dark, observant debut opens in Istanbul, this apparently perfect couple bicker and sweat, for secrets lurk behind their facade and one of them might be murder.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Watson season two review a Sherlock Holmes spinoff full of naughty wit

Long before that, the biggest drama in the world was House, which was set in a hospital but featured a mercurial genius solving baffling mysteries once the House-Home-Holmes penny dropped, you knew you were watching Sherlock in disguise. Watson is the latest attempt by US network television to keep the Conan Doyle canon firing, and it's a straight cross between House and Elementary.
Television
Television
fromwww.esquire.com
2 months ago

'Landman' Season 2, Episode 9 Twist Ending, Explained

Billy Bob Thornton's character Tommy Norris remains central to Landman despite being fired, and Thornton says he'll star as long as the show wants him.
Books
fromEngadget
1 month ago

What to read this weekend: The unsettling new horror novel, Persona

A trans woman uncovers non-consensual pornography of herself and is drawn into escalating horrors involving identity, exploitation, internet influence, and economic precarity.
fromInverse
2 months ago

Netflix's Most Intriguing New Drama Has An Unexpected Supernatural Twist

When Netflix aired live sporting events over the 2025 holidays, one teaser kept playing over and over during the ad breaks: a mysterious short sequence following a young woman as she encountered strange phenomena that all tied into major Netflix shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, , and Stranger Things. It ended with a tease of a big announcement on January 7th. Well, it's now January 7th, and the announcement is here.
Television
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Good People by Patmeena Sabit review addictive mystery caters to modern attention spans

A novel uses short testimonies to unravel a teenager's death while exposing immigrant family dynamics, communal gossip, wealth-driven envy, and cultural tensions.
Television
fromCN Traveller
2 months ago

Where was Agatha Christie's Seven Dials filmed? Behind the scenes of the lavish Netflix murder mystery

Filming took place at Badminton House and across Bristol, including Barrel House and streets such as Queens Square, All Saints Street and Clare Street.
Books
fromVulture
2 months ago

Agatha Christie's Seven Dials Recap: Battle Commences

Jimmy and Bundle investigate linked deaths of Gerry and Ronnie, uncovering connections to "Seven Dials" while Bundle's bold detective actions drive the plot forward.
Television
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Eternally spellbinding': the TV shows that baffle you but you can't get enough of

Catterick, Monkey Dust, The OA, and Mrs Davies deliver surreal, darkly comic, and increasingly bizarre narratives blending crime, dreamlike animation, sci‑fi, and oddball humor.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

From 24 to Danger Mouse: it's TV's all-time top spies!

this gadget-wielding Cary Grant-alike was the small screen's answer to 007 partly because Bond creator Ian Fleming was a consultant on the NBC series. Napoleon no relation to Han Solo and his stoic Russian sidekick Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) worked for the United Network Command for Law & Enforcement, foiling the evil THRUSH (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables & the Subjugation of Humanity) and its dastardly plans for world domination. Somehow they kept straight faces amid all the absurd acronyms.
Television
Television
fromBoston.com
2 months ago

Separating fact from fiction in the Karen Read Lifetime movie

Lifetime's film condenses Karen Read's three-year legal saga into under 90 minutes, recreating key scenes while taking liberties and omitting details.
Books
fromOregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News
2 months ago

PuzzleWatch: What the Dickens * Oregon ArtsWatch

Charles Dickens achieved lasting literary celebrity through prolific serialized novels, vivid characters, public lectures, and enduring popularity that keeps his works continuously in print.
Television
fromBustle
2 months ago

You'll Never Guess The Killer In Tessa Thompson's Steamy Netflix Thriller

Former couple Anna and Jack reunite to investigate a small-town murder tied to their past while grieving their lost baby and confronting personal demons.
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

"This Is How It Happens," by Molly Aitken

You are leaving work, your suit still damp from the morning's downpour, the skin on your palms peeling. You are clutching two supermarket bags, tins of cream soup and tuna knocking against one another. The rain is hard and your anorak is cheap. You are on your way to Stockbridge, to your parents' house, which only your father inhabits now that your mother is gone.
Books
Books
fromwww.npr.org
2 months ago

'Even the Dead' wraps up John Banville's smart, moody mystery series

Quirke mysteries combine noir darkness with literary prose, following a Dublin coroner confronting trauma, moral ambiguity, and hidden crimes in 1950s settings.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry review a dazzling puzzle-box of a debut

We are initiated into a world in which historically accurate foodstuffs can be ordered online a half oyster shell, the exposed flesh shining as if with the freshest brine, is 31.25 for a single piece and begin to understand one of the most striking things about this novel: its insistence upon detail, its utter specificity, set against a deliberate lack of specificity regarding the larger details that the reader's mind naturally itches to fill in.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

A Biography Without 'The Boring Bits'

Sophia Stewart poses a choice that many biographers struggle with: "what to do with the boring bits."
Books
Books
fromPsychology Today
1 month ago

Curing Zombies in "The Bone Temple"

Monsters evolve to mirror the cultural anxieties and ambitions of their eras, revealing societal fears about race, empire, mental health, and scientific cure.
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