It’s always wonderful when a novel becomes a cheap excuse to do a deep dive into a subject near and dear to your heart. When researching Death of a Showman, the fourth Jane Prescott mystery, I was … Read the article
The first images that usually pop to mind with the word “Prohibition” are of dapper men and women in speakeasies enjoying illicit libations… until police officers brandishing guns and batons rush in to raid the joint and … Read the article
The Golden Age of detective fiction, the era of classic murder mystery novels, is defined as those written in the 1920s and 1930s, which saw the advent of authors such as Agatha Christie, G.K.Chesterton, Georgette Heyer, Dorothy … Read the article
The television series The Crown, written by Peter Morgan, inspired by the history of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II from 1947 to the present day, is hugely popular on both sides of the Atlantic. Fantastic … Read the article
“I do not believe there ever was any life more attractive to a vigorous young fellow than life on a cattle ranch in those days.”
–Theodore Roosevelt
‘So, you are writing another novel about Catherine the Great?’
Err – no!
Before there was Catherine II, or the Great, whose life and rule has inspired dozens of adaptations, there was Catherine I of Russia—the most … Read the article
It’s a well-known fact that cats and writers share a special bond.
As the American author, Andre Norton (1912-2005) said, “Perhaps it is because cats do not live by human patterns, do not fit themselves into prescribed … Read the article
In 1714, the gardener and caretaker Edmund Howard supervised his employer’s move to a new home. It was an exhausting endeavor, and anyone who has stared into an overfull cardboard box at four in the morning on … Read the article
While conducting research for her novel, author Ellen Feldman stumbled upon one of the most remarkable anomalies in WWII history: Jewish soldiers in Hitler’s army. Read on for more about Feldman’s research and how it influenced her … Read the article
It was a cool, grey spring day in Paris. I was standing in the Montparnasse Cemetery in front of the grave of the Romantic poet Charles Baudelaire, still a shrine to his many fans, who leave offerings … Read the article