The Landscape of Canadian Women's Crime Fiction

Tag: thriller

  • Gone Girl: Gillian Flynn’s Genius (and Subsequent Silence)

    Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck in “Gone Girl,” directed by David Fincher. Photo: Merrick Morton/20th Century Fox Gillian Flynn published three novels, culminating in the 2012 sensation Gone Girl. Since then–no more books. It’s a bit like Willy Wonka shutting down the chocolate factory. Sharp Objects, adapted as an acclaimed television series, is about Camille,…

  • Dial M for Murder: From Grace Kelly to a Lesbian Update

    Grace Kelly as Margot and Anthony Dawson as her would-be killer; a still from the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock film. Earlier in February I spent several days in Vancouver conducting interviews and doing background research for two features that I’m hoping to finish up over the next few months. One is on the play’s director, the…

  • “Turn Back, Turn Back, You Young Bride”: Grim/m Stories of Murderous Husbands

    The most common trope of one strand of domestic thriller is the murderous spouse, nearly always a husband. In a milder version of the story, he’s merely untrustworthy: a liar, a con man, a bigamist (arguably, Jane Eyre‘s Rochester is all three). But from Hitchcock’s Suspicion to the gaslighting husband of The Girl on the…