The Strand Magazine

06/19/2025

📚✨ “My Top Ten Fantasy Novels” by Kate Elliott ✨📚

Award-winning author Kate Elliott doesn’t believe in fixed “top ten” lists—but she does love sharing fantasy books that have rocked her world. From Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to the epic Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu and the unforgettable Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee, this list is a treasure trove for any fantasy fan.

🧙‍♀️ Explore original world-building, mythic forests, zombie-fighting heroines, and retired pirates with unfinished business.

📖 Read the full list and discover your next great escape:
https://www.mysterycenter.com/2025/06/16/my-top-ten-fantasy-novels/

by Kate Elliott To be clear, I don’t have a fixed top ten fantasy novels. It would more like a top fifty, depending on my mood and the season or the year. I do understand [...]

06/17/2025

Many actors have taken a stab at portraying Agatha Christie's most renowned character, Hercule Poirot. But which actor was the best of the best?

06/13/2025

Understand American film noir with 11 genre-defining films from the 1940s and 1950s featuring cynical storylines and dark expressionist visuals.

06/09/2025

Forsyth, who sold 75 million books, is remembered as "one of the world's greatest thriller writers".

06/07/2025

🚨 TWENTY YEARS OF MURDER, MAYHEM… AND CUSTARD CREAMS? 🕵️‍♂️☕️

Stuart MacBride has been writing dark, twisted, uncomfortable crime fiction for two decades.

But he’s noticed something strange:
The detectives are softer. The killers are quirkier. And crime fiction? It’s gotten… cosy. 😳

What happened to the blood-soaked psychopaths with cymbal-banging monkey toys in their victims’ chests?

👉 Read MacBride’s brutally honest, wickedly funny take on 20 years in crime:
StuartMacBride

by Stuart MacBride Two decades ago, I embarked on a very strange journey when my first novel was published. It’s a trip that’s seen me go from being a fresh-faced “young turk” on the crime-fiction [...]

06/07/2025

📚✒️ Graham Greene: author, spy, wanderer, and master of literary cool.

We’ve rounded up five facts about the man who made Catholic guilt stylish and espionage unforgettable.

He turned down honors, vacationed in war zones, and moved to France to write, reflect, and maybe enjoy a croissant or two.

👉 Click to discover the facts — and step into the world of one of literature’s most fascinating figures.

06/05/2025

We are not short of audio versions of Brighton Rock, Graham Greene’s classic thriller from 1938 set in the eponymous seaside town. Past narrators have included Jacob Fortune‑Lloyd, Richard Brown and Tom O’Bedlam, and that’s before you get to the various radio dramatisations. But few can match this narration from the Howards End actor Samuel West, first recorded in 2011, which captures the menace and seediness that runs through Greene’s novel.

The seaside town’s seedy underbelly is vividly evoked in this timeless tale of murder, romance and revenge

06/03/2025

Here are the most essential Twilight Zone episodes

06/02/2025

Jon Land reviews the latest top-shelf thrillers PLUS issue 75 of The Strand!
"Both Greene’s “Reading at Night” and Fleming’s “A Shameful Dream” are packed with the very ingredients that defined the books that made them household names. Reading
these stories is like running into old friends you thought you’d never see again."
—Jon Land

Whether you're looking for gritty military action, spooky artifacts, time-traveling mysteries, newly discovered works by old favorites, serial killers, or psychological suspense, there's plenty here to keep you flipping pages all month long.

05/31/2025

My Ten Curated Crime Noir Novels
by Michael McGarrity

Michael McGarrity www.michaelmcgarrity.com I’m definitely not a fan of labels, and as a writer I dislike the categories novelists get stuck in. Is it hardboiled or noir? A cozy or a police procedural? A Western [...]

05/30/2025

James Bond is back in the spotlight with the publication of a rarely seen short story by his creator Ian Fleming and an auction focusing on Bondiana including novels, posters, and other related film items...

James Bond is back in the spotlight with the publication of a rarely seen short story by his creator Ian Fleming and an auction focusing on Bondiana including the novels, posters, and other related film items.

05/29/2025

Death Valley, starring Timothy Spall and Gwyneth Keyworth, is set in a fictional Welsh town.