In this series of posts I want to look at what links horror fiction and crime fiction. The posts are part of the launch of my Vermont based novel The Pure And The Hated. I have spent several years if my life in Vermont. My wife is from the state and the novel is set there. While it is a crime novel, it is also Noir, it is a revenge tragedy, and it is part horror. What do we mean when we talk about horror? What is it that horrifies us? The genre … [Read more...]
Richard Godwin: The Bad Guy in Crime Fiction
Savage Highway is about bad guys and the breakdown of law and why justice fails. In a lawless world revenge is justice. I want to discuss other authors here before I focus on the novel itself. Savage Highway is about the frontier. Both of the authors I will be discussing today portray bad guys in a variety of ways. In Burke we have the pairing of two lawless cops, Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell. And Purcell is an extreme example of the bad … [Read more...]
Monte Francis on the Cases Behind His New True Crime Book ICE AND BONE
I began reporting on crimes and murder trials as a TV reporter for the NBC affiliate in Fresno, California, KSEE in 1999. During the five years I spent in California’s Central Valley, I had the opportunity to cover a number of high-profile cases. Among them was the trial of Scott Peterson, who was ultimately convicted of murdering his pregnant wife Laci in 2004. Two years prior, I covered the trial of Cary Stayner, the hotel handyman responsible … [Read more...]
Why the Fascination with Ted Bundy?
It’s true; Ted Bundy is different from all other serial killers. It’s not that he’s more evil or callus than the rest of that diabolical lot. It’s just that when you look at him, at his appearance and demeanor, and what he’d accomplished and where he was going, he just doesn’t fit the mold of a cold-blooded killer. But it isn’t just how he appeared on the outside that both fascinate, and yes, startles, but what he did while committing … [Read more...]
Nickell’s Cents; Volume 5 Repeat Offender Update
REPEAT OFFENDER UPDATE: Once again, we're back with Sin City Cop and Author Bradley Nickell for an important update about the Daimon Monroe case detailed in Bradley's wildly popular true crime thriller, REPEAT OFFENDER. The case is back in the courtroom for what might be the final provocative, chaotic, and hopefully inspiring episode. Check out the video below for the Repeat Offender update. If you haven't read the book yet, you're … [Read more...]
Richard Godwin’s SAVAGE HIGHWAY Receives Great Review from Dead End Follies
International bestselling author Richard Godwin's new thriller noir book, SAVAGE HIGHWAY, received a great review from the Dead End Follies blog. SAVAGE HIGHWAY follows the mystery of the disappearance of women from a truck stop on a remote highway in Arizona and was released from WildBlue Press on January 19th, 2016. Get your copy of SAVAGE HIGHWAY today! "Richard Godwin writes the extreme and the disturbing very well. He's very good at … [Read more...]
True Crime Author Steve Jackson Interviewed For 48 Hours Story On Oregon Murder Case
Show aired March 5 In the course of working on a potential book in Oregon about a man accused of murdering his girlfriend and mother of his child by pushing her off a cliff in 2009, I suddenly became a focal point of a January hearing over a defense motion to dismiss the case. Pre-trial efforts to dismiss a case are not unusual. However, the defense attorney, Mike Arnold, partly based his witness questioning during testimony on the … [Read more...]
True Crime Author Steve Jackson Books Hot Topics On 48 Hours, Investigation Discovery
Author To Fight Defense Attorney's Subpoenas Holy Smokes! I'm suddenly a hot commodity with 48 Hours for two separate books I'm working on. And in the meantime, another book project about serial killer Roy Melanson will be the featured topic on the Investigation Discovery channel's new show Epic Mysteries in April. Working on a book in Oregon about a man accused of murdering his girlfriend and the mother of his child by pushing her off a … [Read more...]
My Association with Postmortem Ted Bundy
True Crime author Kevin Sullivan Reflects On His Connection To A Serial Killer This piece was previously published with a typo that mis-dated the below picture of Ted Bundy at 1984, when he would have been in prison in Florida. According to Kevin Sullivan, the picture below was taken in 1975 or 1976 in Utah. Ted Bundy was never supposed to be a part of my life. I’d first heard about the guy after his escape from Colorado, and I remember … [Read more...]
Recording History While We Can
When I was a teenager, my father said he wanted to introduce me to a man who went by the nickname of “Irish”. He was originally from Ireland, my father explained, but he'd joined the Canadian Army and fought the Germans in the First World War. Prior to our meeting, dad told me some of the stories Irish told him about fighting in the trenches, especially about the Battle of Vimy Ridge in France in April 1917. Being a voracious reader of military … [Read more...]
