I’m entangled with the Criminal Element once again. Bad Paper: Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld follows the strange-but-true exploits of a cast of scalawags in the only slice of the financial industry that can make derivatives trading look honest: debt collection. Journalist Jake Halpern brings you bankers,…
Mossad as Superspy: Is the Myth Slipping?
Nathan Abrams, a professor of film studies in the UK, has written an opinion piece in The Conversation, the title of which says everything you need to know about it: “Mossad Agents Were Suave and Effective on Screen, Now They’re Ineffective Blunderers.” Is he right? In another brush with the…
The Honourable Woman: Trapped Inside the Feedback Loop
[It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything even remotely related to my international thriller Doha 12, but this certainly qualifies. It also marks my return to Criminal Element after a long hiatus. Enjoy.] Like the Cold War, the endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the dramatist’s gift that keeps on giving….
Criminal Element: Crossing Lines
I’m caught up in the Criminal Element again. This time, I consider the case of Crossing Lines: Crossing Lines, NBC’s ten-episode Eurocrime entry into the summer-series derby, probably sounded like a great idea in the pitch meeting. Crime! Europe! Sexy cops! Paris! Donald Sutherland! Europe! The short-run series has done…
Criminal Element: Line of Duty
I’m involved in another flirtation with the Criminal Element. This time, it’s a review of a limited-run BBC2 cop-noir series, Line of Duty. The normal British TV depiction of police work goes something like this: the hero DI or DCI and his trusty sidekick badger witnesses and arrest the wrong…
Criminal Element: Addicted to Addicted Detectives
Once more, I’m consorting with the Criminal Element. This installment is a think piece about why so many literary detectives are addicts. Crime fiction is cheerfully described as an addiction by many of its fans, including such diverse personalities as Sigmund Freud and Woodrow Wilson. Just as neurochemical addicts have…
Criminal Element: The Godfather Down Under
I’m consorting with the Criminal Element again, this time with a profile on the Australian gangster TV series The Straits: Things we think about when we think of Australia: kangaroos, the Sydney Opera House, endless beaches, tropical reefs, Paul Hogan, Anna Torv (or Elle Macpherson, if you’re of a certain…
Criminal Element: What’s in Your Museum?
I’m back among the Criminal Element again, this time with a story about antiquities smuggling: Our story begins with a pot and a pig. In 1970, an Italian man working on a canal near Naples discovered a remarkable piece of crockery: a 27-inch-tall, double-handled chalice or krater, black with red…
Criminal Element: The al-Mabhouh Caper, and a Book Giveaway
Doha 12 is inspired by a real-life incident: Mossad’s 2010 assassination in Dubai of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. I’ve written a summary of this operation and its fallout for the good folks at Criminal Element, and now it’s available for your delectation. As an added incentive to check it out,…
I’ve Joined the Criminal Element: Continuum
Criminal Element, a mystery/thriller/crime site run by Macmillan, has just posted the first of what I hope will be several articles written by…me. Continuum: Future Cop on Today’s Beat Continuum, SyFy’s latest series (U.S. debut on January 14), drops a cop and some villains from the future into 2012 and…