Posts By: Brash Books

How “Blanche On the Lam” Inspired Naomi Hirahara

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Our guest blogger Naomi Hirahara is the award-winning author of the mysteries featuring gardener-sleuth Mas Arai: Summer of the Big Bachi, Gasa-Gasa Girl, Blood Hina, and the Edgar Award-winning Snakeskin Shamisen. Hirahara is the past president of the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Today she talks about how much she loves Barbara Neely's Blanche on the Lam. Before Mma Precious Ramotswe came on the American scene, there was another “traditionally built” sleuth who had been introduced to mystery readers here--Barbara Neely’s Blanche White, an African-American housekeeper in the South who is on the run for writing some bad checks in the first book in the... more

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Bragg: Credit Due

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Whenever long term mystery fans gather there is often talk of obscure private eye series still considered to be gems of the hardboiled genre, like Jack Lynch's Bragg novels. These long out of print, usually paperback original series, are learned about by word of mouth from one mystery fan to another. This action often causes mini-tsunamis on Internet used book sites as the new fan seeks out the titles to which they have been referred.  Tattered copies often change hands for ridiculously high prices for what are slim volumes with bad ‘70s cover art. However, it is the words between those tattered covers that keep readers rediscovering the series again and again. Other series falling... more

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Delilah West – Crime Fiction’s First Female Private Eye

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Death is Forever by author Maxine O'Callaghan

Bestselling author Marcia Muller, creator of the Sharon McCone mysteries, talks about her fondness for Maxine O’Callaghan’s groundbreaking private eye, Delilah West. Before dozens of fictional female private investigators took to the mean streets, Delilah West had already solved her first case, in the short story, “A Change of Clients.” Before dozens of women authors began to alter the face of a previously male-dominated subgenre, Maxine O’Callaghan introduced her engaging detective to wide audiences in the action-packed and emotionally charged novel Death is Forever. Now this impressive start to an excellent series has been re-issued by Brash Books. Readers who are already... more

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Female Thriller Authors Bring Girl Power to Crime Fiction

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From gritty detectives to hard-boiled bounty hunters, men might be the face of crime fiction – but any fan of the detective genre knows that women are the heart of it. Female thriller authors have been shaping the mystery genre since it started, breaking ground with bestselling books and beloved heroines. These ladies of crime fiction prove that no bad guy stands a chance when it comes to girl power. Agatha Christie's Groundbreaking Mysteries The biggest, baddest female crime fiction writer of them all, Agatha Christie hasn’t just sold more mysteries than any other author – she’s sold more books than any other author in history. Christie was instrumental during that Golden Age of... more

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