Genius Unbound

Former detective and forensic investigator Steve Rush explains how real-world knowledge, careful research, and the smallest details can make crime fiction feel authentic.

When true crime focuses on the mystery, the victim can disappear behind it. Alexandra Kitty’s work on the murder of Carol Jenkins asks whose stories get remembered—and whose are too easily forgotten.

A childhood love of the Beatles eventually led Andrea Thorfinson from Abbey Road to Liverpool and even gave a meditation book its unlikely title.

One murder case led to an exoneration—and then to another man spending 15 years in prison. Steve Scarborough examines the Anthony Porter case and the questions it raised for him about evidence, advocacy, and wrongful convictions.

Learning to recognize dangerous behavior doesn’t have to make the world feel more frightening. Tye Holand’s Red Flag Ready explores how awareness, boundaries, and trusting your instincts can help you move through it with greater confidence.

Before bootleg records became an underground industry, two Los Angeles music fans pressed an album they weren't supposed to have—and changed record collecting.

Five members of an Illinois family were murdered with an axe in 1874. Their dog survived—and may have left investigators with one of the case’s strangest clues.

A dead man was found carrying two pages of coded notes. More than two decades later, even FBI cryptanalysts have been unable to explain what they mean.

Is playing a song correctly the same thing as playing it well? Kevin Kane explores what happens when musicians serve the song instead of the notes.