The Chopping Blog

Where noir sought to make crime and mystery as real as possible, cozy takes one giant step away from that level of realism and looks back at the Golden Age of mystery.

If mystery novels are fundamentally an attempt by the detective to impose order on a chaotic world, then messy relationship arcs become a great way to add more chaos.

Mystery runs on a particular fantasy: the deliverance of order out of chaos. No matter how bad the mess gets, the detective is going to set the world right. But what we’re really here for is to follow one specific person solving a case in a way nobody else quite could.

Maybe your protagonist has a great backstory, an evocative subplot, or a fascinating side quest, but if none of these elements actually intersect, create consequence, or complicate the main trajectory, they aren’t part of the symphony.

The quality we’re striving for in fiction maybe above all else is authenticity. We want our work to have the ring of truth to it.

Linwood House in Roberts Creek has been such a hit that we're returning for the third year in a row.

Mark your calendar: June 21 to July 4

The emotional draw of a story comes less from explosions and arguments, and more from the interplay between plot and character—from the way a character's inner life is woven into the events they move through.

Gone Girl is a brilliant example of how to handle some tricky elements in the mystery genre.

Before there was a mystery genre, there was mystery. And these are not the same thing.

The only limit to the possibilities of mystery subgenres is your imagination.

Mysteries deal with difficult emotions: violence, fear, betrayal. But they do it in a contained structure.