Line By Line

Daring bank robbers. Sophisticated jewel thieves. Sadistic serial killers. And of course, the tough-talking, brilliant detectives who chase them down. Crime stories have always held a powerful place in our collective imagination. One hundred and eighty years ago, Edgar Allan Poe created the modern detective story. Decades later, Arthur Conan Doyle gave us Sherlock Holmes—genius, methodical, and iconic. Then came the revolution. In the 1920s through the 1940s, American writers reshaped crime f...

Today would have been my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary—if I hadn’t wrecked my marriage to the only woman I’ve ever truly loved. But wreck it I did, just as I would go on to wreck most good things in my life. Almost as if I couldn’t stand to let any real contentment settle. As if peace were something to be avoided at all costs, and chaos something to be chased. I’m forty-five now, as alone as I’ve ever been. I think back to all the women who warned me this would happen—that I’d grow old and ...