Pile by the Bed reviews Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone – Benjamin Stevenson’s take on the Golden Age of crime.
Pile by the Bed’s top 5 crime fiction novels for 2020 and 6 equally worthy honourable mentions. So overall a top 11 for the year.
Pile by the Bed reviews Either Side of Midnight by Benjamin Stevenson, once again featuring Jack Quick, this time trying to solve a seemingly impossible crime.
Pile By the Bed’s Top 5 crime fiction books for 2018 with 5 honourable mentions
The rise of the popularity of true crime podcasts and tv shows has not gone unnoticed in the fictional world. The fact that journalists or entertainers are reviewing settled court decisions and, through their interpretation of the evidence, putting pressure on lawmakers to reconsider these cases is a situation ripe for drama. This year already we have had Charlie Donlea’s Don’t Believe It and now we have Benjamin Stevenson’s debut Greenlight. In both cases, a documentary maker exploring a cold case becomes a little too close to their subject. Greenlight opens with an intriguing cold open, cheekily headed “Cold Open” (in fact the chapter structure and names are taken from the fictional series, including a final, twisty “Mid-Credits Sequence”). A woman called Eliza has been held in a cellar of some kind for an indeterminate length of time when something strange starts to happen and walls of her cell appear to start bleeding. Cut to the present where producer Jack Quick is wrapping up the last episode of his TV series which casts doubt on the conviction of Curtis Wade, accused of murdering Eliza whose body was found on his vineyard. When Curtis is released and his defence laywer dies…