I reached out to a number authors whose works speak to both horror and crime readers.
So I invited a whole bunch of authors with horror novels out in 2021 to join me for a roundtable discussion on the genre and its appeal to crime fans, and in which I could stealthily attempt to figure what exactly horror is-and why we’re all enjoying it so much during the pandemic. And yet, despite my newfound fandom, I’m about as poorly informed a horror reader as one could be (I’ve only read one Stephen King novel and it was Mr Mercedes). Crime and horror have, after all, been slowly converging for many years, as domestic suspense transformed into the New Gothic, and psychological thrillers took over from procedurals as the dominant trend in the genre. I came to horror the same way I came to Rihanna-later than most, but with the commensurate fiery passion of a true convert.
