The Crime Lady: Thursday Murder Man

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 some new beginnings. (Also to finally getting back to my book-in-progress.) It was also great to be at Bouchercon in San Diego over Labor Day weekend, catching up with friends and fellow writers and readers, soaking up the beautiful weather, and generally being reminded why the mystery community remains the best. (Thankfully, too, I dodged COVID, which I know felled far too many people. I wish everyone a continued speedy recovery! And to getting that new reformulated shot.)

I’m also happy that my other summer project is finally live: my profile of Richard Osman, author of the Thursday Murder Club series, for Esquire. It’s hardly a secret that I love this series, and have said so on several occasions in the column. But I knew, with The Last Devil to Die, which will be out next week, that I wanted to delve further into why these books have resonated with millions of readers, and why Osman became the fastest-selling debut novelist in the UK who has also found substantial audiences around the world.

The simple answer? The books are really good, endlessly quotable, full of characters major and minor you want to spend time with, and have a lot of heart. The Last Devil to Die is also very moving in places, particularly its treatment of dementia. But of course the societal need to find comfort and escape, especially acute these last three years, coincided with the publication of the first book. It gave readers what they didn’t know they wanted.

But one also cannot divorce Osman’s background in television, quiz shows, and popular entertainment from his success. He’s made a study of it all for his entire life, and derives pleasure from pleasing audiences while having it down to a near-science. The author I most compare him to, even as their work appears to be quite different, is Lee Child — also with a television production background, also with a profound sense of grand ambition, met and exceeded. Jack Reacher was the thriller hero for the post-9/11 age in particular, and Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim are the mystery-solving quartet for the COVID age and aftermath.

Please enjoy the piece, my first for Esquire — and specifically, books & culture editor Adrienne Westenfeld, who was a total joy to work with. (For a different approach to profiling Osman, see the Guardian.) And I’d be remiss in omitting the reaction from my mother, who is a minor character in the profile: “Lovely! And one of the few to use ‘whomever’ correctly.”

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A little more self-promotion: September’s Crime & Mystery column is also up, and I raved about Reykjavik, the crime novel by Ragnar Jonasson & Iceland’s prime minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, and also focused my attention on new/forthcoming books by Nina Simon, Jake Lamar, and Mia P. Manansala.

When I was at the National Book Festival last month — here’s the archived video of my conversation with Rebecca Makkai and Angie Kim, by the way — I chatted with Elizabeth Held about my work and all things true crime for her newsletter What To Read If.

And coming later this fall: Criterion Collection is issuing a special DVD version of Claude Chabrol’s late-career masterpiece La Ceremonie (1995), adapted in part from Ruth Rendell’s classic 1997 psychological thriller A Judgement in Stone. I was thrilled to write a companion essay, which should be online closer to the end of the year. I’ll link it when it’s up.

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READ/LISTEN/WATCH

• Really enjoyed Parul Sehgal’s essay on James Ellroy, what makes him work and lately, what hasn’t worked at all.

• Lauren Groff is one of our greatest living writers, yes, but she’s also one of the most astute and widely-read people I know, and that comes through in this recent profile.

• Keri Blakinger is always required reading but this essay, on playing Dungeons & Dragons in prison, is a real standout.

• Truthfully, I’d maxed out on grifter stories — there are so many — but once it became clear this particular one emerged from Lakewood, a New Jersey town I am forever fascinated with because of its essential transformation into an ultra-Orthodox Jewish enclave, I got way more interested.

• Now that I’m further into Only Murders in the Building, I’ve cast aside skepticism and just really dig the vibe again.

• Everything good you heard about the “Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison” essay? Yes, and then some.

• This story, about an ob-gyn who got away with horrific sexual assaults under the auspices and complicity of Columbia University, will infuriate you, but it’s extremely important. (Another important one is Jen Percy’s magazine feature on why “freezing” is a common response to sexual assault and how it should never be held against victims.)

• In podcasts, Fiasco: Vigilante, on the Bernie Goetz story, is really excellent, probably the best season of this series to date. As I get ever pickier about podcasts and prioritize strong reporting and storytelling, Leon Neyfakh really knows how to do this. I’ve also been listening avidly to If Books Could Kill (the latest episode is on William F. Buckley’s God and Man at Yale) and In Bed with the Right.

• Finally, there are two new documentaries about prominent literary figures that are in limited release. I’d give Radical Wolfe, on Tom Wolfe, a miss — it did not make the case for why contemporary readers should care about his work. However, Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in Service of the Mind, is pretty good — particularly the vintage footage, also that of her with her late second husband Charles Gross.

I’ll be back soon with some more updates, ruminations, and recommendations.

Until then, I remain,

The Crime Lady