The 50 Best Mysteries of All Time |
Selecting the 50 best mysteries of all time is an impossible task. There, I said it. Mysteries are narratives in which the who, why, or how of an event, usually a murder or some other type of crime, remains unknown until the end and drives the story forward. To write a successful mystery, authors must perform literary magic tricks—which is to say literary sleight of hand. They have to create a mystery, populate their story with believable characters, and then sustain the suspense while simultaneously giving readers clues and distracting them with the ever-so-tricky red herrings. In other words, mystery fiction is the art of juggling the unknown and all of its answers in front of readers, all while making sure they become obsessed with the latter and only see the former when the time is right. So here, in an incomplete list that merely scratches the surface of what the genre has to offer, are the best 50 mysteries ever written, in ranked order. |
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Nobody Is Doing Sneakers Like New Balance MADE in the USA |
I've never really put much thought into where the sneakers I wear are being produced. When I'm lacing up my shoes, I don't find myself wondering where the laces came from, or how long it took for the upper of the shoe to be stitched to the lower, or what the production—despite it dictating the overall quality of my shoes—is like. Last month, though, that all changed. New Balance is the brand that needs no introduction. You know its fantastic performance gear, and you know its sneakers, too, whether you prefer one for basketball or running or just living life. In April, I ventured to Boston to visit New Balance's headquarters, as well as its factory in Lawrence, MA, where the brand's Made in the USA shoes come from—these include the iconic 990s, the 993s, the 996s, and the 998s. You know, your favorite, classic lifestyle shoes. |
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On the Front Lines with Ukraine's Night Bombers |
Less than one mile from the Russian lines, a Ukrainian soldier sweats through the late-night chill as he readies the first of the night's armed drones. A red lamp attached to his head casts a dim light as he works. The drone's launching pad is made of battlefield debris—shattered ammunition crates, limbs from trees—concealed inside a fresh bomb crater. Once the drone is airborne, pilot and navigator confront a flurry of warning messages: "GPS ERROR" followed moments later by "BATTERY FAULT." The drone crashes. It's the start of a long, typical night for the Achilles Battalion on Ukraine's eastern front. Since June 2023, propaganda videos from both Ukrainian and Russian drones—known as first person view (FPV) drones—have spread across social media platforms, creating a new and modern narrative for the grinding war. The videos show drones that explode on impact, destroying vehicles, cutting down unaware soldiers or those fleeing the assault. At this point in the war, drone pilot is a highly sought-after role among Ukrainian forces. The fierce competition for the rare open positions draws both injured soldiers who must continue to serve and new soldiers wishing to avoid the horrors of frontline combat. But the fast-paced videos fail to accurately depict the grim realities and limitations of drone warfare. |
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Tucked inside Manhattan's Freehand Hotel is Bar Calico, and on a Friday night, I was surrounded by effortlessly chic patrons and expertly shaken cocktails. The bar is inlaid with thick, rich wood and centered on a big, succulent cactus. I felt fully enveloped in the culture and vibes of the American Southwest. But inside that cushy room is a spirit with a sensual history. I'm talking about sotol, aptly named after the plant it's distilled from, the sotol or desert spoon or Dasylirion cactus. This might sound pretty straightforward, but it took a fraught and arduous journey to get sotol from the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico into a flight of glasses at Bar Calico. Now the most important question: Why drink sotol? Because it's as flexible and essential as your favorite pair of jeans. The resilient nature of the plant means sotol has been cultivated in three areas of northern Mexico: the desert, the prairie, and the mountains. Each area produces its own unique flavor profile. That makes sotol much more adaptable as a spirit to mix into any of your favorite cocktails. |
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The Frenchest Chef in the World |
A few weeks ago, Alain Ducasse, wizened keeper of all French culinary tradition, met me in a walnut-walled 19th-century Bordeaux apothecary. There he sat, slightly slumped, his hair snowy white, his eyes peering over his glasses beneath wild eyebrows. Beside him was Emmanuelle Perrier, his communications director and longtime translator. I wish we had been in France, but it was Thursday and I had to pick up my kids from school in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The incessant honking of horns was a distant but audible reminder that we were actually in midtown Manhattan. The room—dubbed L'Officine—is on the second floor of Ducasse's New York bistro, Benoit, housed in the former home of La Côte Basque. In typical Ducassian fashion, the chef had the apothecary disassembled and shipped by boat to New York when he opened Benoit in 2008. But it makes sense to meet here. For one, it's quiet. For another, Ducasse is like the Wayne Coyne of the culinary world, a chef so French he seems to travel in a bubble of the Fifth Republic. At 67, Ducasse is stepping back, maybe one step, maybe a flurry of them. "This year, I made a resolution," he writes, "marking a shift that is crucial for me and the rest of the group. I want to encourage a generation of talented people in their thirties and place them in the highest positions." |
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The Truth About Donald Trump That Only the Courts See |
As part of his eloquent—if eventually futile—summation in defense of the wrongly accused Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch, the hero of the film To Kill a Mockingbird, tells the jury to put aside its ingrained cultural and social racism in order to look the plain facts dead in the face: "Now, gentlemen, in this country our courts are the great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal. I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system. That's no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality." We have spent a year wondering whether or not anyone believes this anymore. Senator Mitch McConnell leaves office with his life's political mission fulfilled. He remade the federal judiciary in his ideological image. He demolished every custom and norm of the confirmation process to do so. The current carefully cultivated conservative Supreme Court majority is his masterpiece—his Jupiter Symphony, his Mona Lisa, his Duck Soup. Over the past decade and a half, the court has wrecked reproductive rights, campaign finance regulation, and the prime accomplishment of the civil rights movement, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Heavily gerrymandered Republican majorities in the state legislatures thereupon leaped in and joined the effort to roll back the federal government past FDR's New Deal, all the way past his cousin Teddy's Square Deal. The lower federal courts are now the vehicle by which reactionary ideas and retrograde policies are insinuated into the judiciary and up the conservative legal food chain. This is what Mitch McConnell has achieved. |
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