AGENT X
@dark_pages
CRIME SCENE
WELCOME
Welcome to THE DARK PAGES, the home of crooks and villains, mobsters and terrorists, spies and private eyes; where the plots are twistier than a knotted noose and the pacing tighter than Marlon Brando’s braces.
CLASSIC CRIME
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Forgive the radio silence.
You may remember that the last time I left you I was on my way to a date with destiny; heart thumping and a little misty eyed (and not just from the cologne) I sat in Sal’s Bar awaiting the return of Lola – light of my life, fire of my loins (she’s the lady who once poured a steaming coffee in my lap). I waited. And waited. The gimlet I’d ordered her sat lonely on the bar, so I steadied my nerves and ordered her another. My nerves got steadier and my eyes got mistier until eventually Sal closed up and I dragged myself home, taking the circuitous route down Memory Lane, via the Heartbreak Hotel, along Lonely Street – I avoided Electric Avenue, I just wasn’t in the mood for it.
CLOSE MY EYES
Sophie McKenzie
I stand in the doorway feeling my stomach drop away. I am still holding the door chain. I press my finger against the metal nub until it hurts.
"What?" I say. A car zooms past the house. A man shouts in the distance. The world is going on somewhere else. Here, everything has been turned inside out. "What did you say?"
And Then There Were None
Agatha Christie
reviewed by Sophie McKenzie
A series of mysterious invitations brings ten strangers together on an island off the Devon coast. One by one they are murdered, but which among them is the killer? Agatha Christie is the world’s best-selling fiction author of all time. And some of the reasons for her success are made clear in this beautifully plotted book, which provides the template for many hundreds of the suspense novels and films that have followed in its footsteps.
VIDEO
What Dark Pages first tickled your fancy?
Sophie McKenzie discusses Close My Eyes
BOOK OF THE MONTH
MARY HIGGINS CLARK
The international bestselling author discusses the process of becoming a writer:
You asked about the first book that inspired me to write and why.
I wasn’t inspired to write. I was writing from the time I was 6 years old and could put two sentences together.
I have always maintained that at our cradles, the legendary Godmothers visit each one of us and leave a gift. The one who might have given me the voice of an angel was out of town. The one who might have made me dance like Ginger Rogers did not show up. I have absolutely no ability to thread a needle or sew a button. My daughters remind me that the hems of their school uniforms were scotch taped and they were entirely accurate.
I raised and fed five children and not one of them was malnourished but no one ever begged an invitation to my dinner table.
The one Godmother who showed up whispered – “I give you the gift of being a storyteller.” I am so happy she came that evening.