Whodunit, Ruth Rendell?

The British crime novelist’s work displays a growing acuity of psychological perception and an authority to her moral vision.

Charles Taylor

Ball of Fire

The life and unvarnished style of Barbara Stanwyck.

Charles Taylor

Uninvisible: On Dorothy B. Hughes

In The Expendable Man, the story of an innocent under suspicion is given a racial twist.

Charles Taylor

Letters

From the grassy knoll; democracy is coming to town; phenotype in the pea patch; acclaim suduko frenzy without you, I hear

Our Readers and Charles Taylor

You Can’t Always Get What You Want: On Stephen King

In 11/22/63, Stephen King conveys the horrors of American exceptionalism.

Charles Taylor

Letters

Our Readers and Charles Taylor

The Ballad of John and J.D.: On John Lennon and J.D. Salinger

Mark David Chapman was carrying a copy of The Catcher in the Rye when he shot John Lennon. The murder was a collision of cultures.

Charles Taylor

A Wink and a Con: On W.L. Gresham

In Nightmare Alley, whoever you are, you can always depend on the cruelty of strangers.

Charles Taylor

At Least, At Most: The Novels of Don Carpenter

With his plain, weather-beaten prose, Don Carpenter was a good enough novelist not to have to prove it.

Charles Taylor

Chop Shops

Over a decade ago, in his novel The Ax, Donald E. Westlake captured the ruthlessness and anomie of economic Darwinism.

Charles Taylor