A few years ago, author Joe McGinniss, whose Fatal Vision is among a handful of acknowledged classics in true crime, pronounced the genre deader than Marley: “The last three books I’ve written have been about soccer, which nobody in America cares about; horse racing, which nobody in America cares about; and true crime, a genre that expired sometime last century . . .” If the genre is dead, it died fairly young. It hasn’t even been 50 years … [Read more...]
NAKED ADDICTION-Caitlin Rother-The Tribulations of Publishing
After 17 years of trying to get my crime novel, NAKED ADDICTION, published—my first and only novel, and the first book I ever wrote—I was thrilled to finally hold the book in my hand in 2007. But the joy was fleeting. Unfortunately, Dorchester, the original publisher, did nothing to promote the book and in the days before social media there wasn’t much opportunity for a newbie author like me to do so. Based on the fast and furious sales of … [Read more...]
BOGEYMAN-Channeling In Cold Blood
Veteran true crime author Steve Jackson channels the well-established In Cold Blood tradition of absenting himself from the plot, like a journalist, while constructing a narrative, driven by action and dialog, influenced by novel-writing technique. Jackson’s gradually unfolding story feels familiar to anybody accustomed to reading police procedurals and crime thrillers. The horrifying aspects of Jackson’s narrative, of the very killer every … [Read more...]
How Persistence Paid Off for New York Times Bestselling Author, Caitlin Rother
NAKED ADDICTION started off as a short story, inspired by a news article I wrote when I was the Northampton City Hall reporter for the Springfield Union-News in Massachusetts about 25 years ago. A young woman, who was an old friend of my then-boyfriend, was murdered in New York City and he took me to her wake. That true crime story worked as a creative catalyst for me to create the character of the first murder victim, Tania Marcus, who, by the … [Read more...]
MAN OVERBOARD-Praised by newspaper as “darkly funny”
"Barer pulls no punches in his telling of the story," writes Frank Girodot, the senior editor of the San Gabriel Valley News Group, "which begins humorously enough: “Phil Champagne died Aug. 31, 1982, in a tragic boating accident off Lopez Island, Washington. He was 52. Champagne was survived by his wife of 28 years, four grown children, an octogenarian mother and two despondent brothers. Phil didn’t know he was dead until he read it in the … [Read more...]
BOGEYMAN-‘He stands on the edge of a foul dark pond …”
"He stands on the edge of a foul dark pond as the cold winds of hell howl around him. In his cruel hands, he holds a collection of shiny pebbles that represent every child he took, subjected to unspeakable horrors and pain, and then remorselessly killed in the most terrifying manner imaginable. With each murder, the monster, this bogeyman, this nightmare, tosses a pebble into the bottomless waters causing ripples of misery and devastation to … [Read more...]
MAN OVERBOARD-Q&A With Burl Barer
Author Burl Barer answers questions about the special 20th Anniversary edition of his true crime classic MAN OVERBOARD: The Counterfeit Resurrection of Phil Champagne Q: How much of this story is true? A : Good question. If it is a pack of lies, the lies are well packaged and expertly delivered. As an investigative journalist, I am trained to investigate. Am I always correct? Yes, eventually. I am perfectly willing to be corrected. Once … [Read more...]
