Quotes from Sarah Weinman

'Basic Black with Pearls', upon its publication in 1980, was greeted with a mix of praise and misunderstanding. Critics sensed its daring and applauded its formal inventiveness, but those qualities also kept people at bay.

'The Chill,' by Jason Starr and Mick Bertilorenzi, was both a wise and nervy choice to start the year: Starr's standalone novels, such as 'Hard Feelings' and 'The Follower,' sustain a mood not unlike the perpetual unscratchable itch on one's back, and go Highsmith-level deep into the sociopathic mind.

Judging by the volume of titles published each year, mystery readers are restless in their pursuit of literary escape. They might travel to far-flung places or stick close to home with their favorite hobbies. They can solve the world's greatest conspiracies or root for a lone wolf grappling with personal problems mundane and bleak.

Authors don't tend to stay with the same agents and editors over their entire lifetimes, but Grafton worked with Marian Wood, her editor at Putnam, from Kinsey's first outing, and signed with Molly Friedrich, still her literary agent, with the publication of 'B Is for Burglar.'

A lot of the major players in the 1960s were the same as the 1940s and 1950s - Hitchen's 'Sleep with Slander.' Armstong's 'Lemon in the Basket,' which is a fusion of the political assassination thriller and a family drama. And Hughes's 'The Expendable Man.'

Ultimately, bridging the practice of forensic science and the public's need for story may be difficult. We crave narrative, order from chaos, a mystery solved, good guys winning out over the bad ones. But science, and forensic science, should be more neutral and, thus, more nuanced.

The Boston run of 'Lolita, My Love' ended after a mere nine performances - though one of them was recorded at decent enough quality to be preserved by the New York Public Library.

In 1953, the idea of a single female police recruit to the New York City Police Department, let alone a handful, was big news.

If you think the shifting tectonics of world history might make for a juicy crime fiction backdrop, the last decade or so has proved you right.

In 2011, I contributed an essay to Tin House, 'The Dark Side of Dinner Dishes, Laundry, and Child Care,' talking about women writers I felt had fallen off the map.

As I considered Parker and his absurdist reflection in the Westlake-authored 'Dortmunder' novels, I wrote, 'His natural ability to observe human behavior and to follow an idea, no matter how bizarre, through to its proper, rightful finish echoed the vision of an architect.'

Britain proves to be an ideal setting for many a medieval-minded crime novelist, regardless of century.

Dorothy B. Hughes - there's a robust elegance to her writing that I keep responding to again and again. I've read her novel 'In a Lonely Place' about eight or nine times.

Artists, in theory, should not be limited to their personal experience, culture, identity, and worldview. But they must also accept that the degree of difficulty in imagining beyond their own borders is steep, and the failure rate is high.

'A Burglar's Guide to the City' makes disparate connections seem obvious in hindsight, and my worldview is altered a little bit more, and far for the better, as a result. We'll never know, but I suspect Donald Westlake would have enjoyed it - and perhaps been a little unsettled by it, too.

In 'A Bone in the Throat,' he describes his protagonist and alter ego, the cook Tommy Pagano, as 'darker, and not as tall as the chef, his hair stood up straight and spiky like a young Trotsky's.' He describes Little Italy with such verve, such flavor, that it is impossible not to smell the streets or taste the food.

Wambaugh's naturalistic portrait of the cop world turned 'Centurions' and 'The Blue Knight' (1972) into bestsellers, but his next two books made him relevant to a larger audience and to the next generation of crime writers.

George V. Higgins's 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle' (1970) added an extra literary layer to the con novel; James Crumley's 'The Last Good Kiss' (1978) influenced countless writers and will be remembered forever for its opening line, quoted often in obituaries of the author.

Out of the ashes of the Great War came the freewheeling cultural renaissance that was the Jazz Age, but the decade-long party of flapper dresses and bootlegging came to a crashing halt with the Crash of '29 - triggering the Great Depression and the New Deal that would help America get back on its feet, just in time for another, greater war.

'Child 44' has no room for inconsequential choices because Stalinist Russia had no room for them, either.

The 'Vampire of Ropraz' claims to be based on a true story, but the name of Rosa's father matches that of a notable Swiss artist and restorer. The eventual suspect has the overlong teeth and shambling menace of a would-be vampire, but Chessex leaves the real possibility of his guilt an open question.

The quality I appreciated most about Grafton was her loyalty. She stuck with 'Kinsey Millhone' and the alphabet series conceit for her entire career but did not allow herself to stagnate as a writer. Kinsey's first-person narrative gradually made room for other, third-person perspectives.

Oddly, the anti-heroes of both 'The Chill' and veteran comics writer Peter Milligan's 'The Bronx Kill' share a first name, though their occupations and plights couldn't be any more different.

As an inveterate lover of mystery, cracking the code of a writer's true identity has the same effect, for me, as tasting forbidden fruit.