I’m beginning 2025 with a new commitment – as a member of the Board of Directors for SoCal Mystery Writers of America. The organization supports and promotes the careers of published and aspiring mystery and thriller authors in California and Nevada – below the 36th parallel – as well as all of Arizona and Hawaii.
Yeah, that’s a lot of territory – which explains the group’s 300-plus members.
Our first board meeting, led by president and Edgar-winning writer-editor (and esteemed Sherlockian) Leslie S. Klinger, is upcoming. Looking forward to working with Les and my fellow board members – and to doing my best to promote mystery-crime. The writing kind!
Pat H.
Broeske
Author/Journalist
Pop Culture Maven
So-Cal Gal
Growing up within a freeway’s crawl of Los Angeles, my “3 R’s” were reading, writing and … show business. For me, it wasn’t the romance — tour a Hollywood backlot and you discover how much is make believe. I was always interested in finding out how the magic was made. Today, whatever project I’m on, I’m still looking beyond the facades.
Work
If you think it’s tough now, consider these political thrillers!
pathbroeske.com
(October 2024)
As the seconds, hours and days tick down to the presidential election, and the reverberations that are sure to follow--no matter who wins--it seems an apt time to go in search of another kind of political thriller. The Hollywood kind. It’s tough terrain, fraught with brain washing, attempted military coups, assassinations, nuclear detonations . .…
Read More“I’m Gonna Make‘em a Movie They Can’t Refuse…” 8 Crime Films That Actually Won at the Oscars
Mystery Scene
(March 2024)
This year’s Academy Awards race finds Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon—a verrrry long (206 minutes) crime drama—among the nominated titles. Adapted from David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction book, which is subtitled The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, the film is nominated in 10 categories, including Best Picture. Inevitably, there are a…
Read MoreLove Hurts: 10 Films Where Love Doesn’t Conquer All
Mystery Scene
(February 2024)
Love is in the air, right? Hearts, flowers, Cupid. But Cupid’s arrows can be deadly . . . and some couplings are incendiary. With that, my recommendation of 10 mystery-crime movies, adapted from books, in which romantic duos—and love triangles—remind us that love doesn’t always conquer all. l. Double Indemnity (1944) Barbara Stanwyck is Phyllis…
Read MoreLove Hurts: 10 Films Where Love Doesn’t Conquer All
Mystery Scene
(February 2024)
Love is in the air, right? Hearts, flowers, Cupid. But Cupid’s arrows can be deadly . . . and some couplings are incendiary. With that, my recommendation of 10 mystery-crime movies, adapted from books, in which romantic duos—and love triangles—remind us that love doesn’t always conquer all. l. Double Indemnity (1944) Barbara Stanwyck is Phyllis…
Read MorePBS Series “Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen”
Mystery Scene
(November 30, 2023)
A decade ago, British TV presenter Lucy Worsley examined her nation’s obsession with crime. “Every murder tells a good story,” she said of the British docu-series A Very British Murder, which investigated the real crimes that influenced novelists such as Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, and Graham Greene, and the filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. More recently, Worsley has…
Read MoreJust the Facts: Nonfiction Books Reviewed
Mystery Scene
(Winter 2022)
Curious about the history of mysteries and the folks who write them?
Read MoreCapitol Crimes – Intrigue in the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches
Mystery Scene
(Spring 2022)
Like governments, political thrillers come in all forms. Some anticipate true history, others bank on it. Many reflect contemporary anxieties.
Read More
Biography
The byline “Pat H. Broeske” has appeared on stories as disparate as an examination of Jim Morrison’s poetry and the ABCs of cataloguing a major archaeological collection. But it’s as a veteran chronicler of Hollywood that Broeske is best known, covering everything from popular trends to the actual business of “the Business.”
Writing credits include: The New York Times, Orange Coast, Emmy, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times (staff writer), Us, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Chicago Tribune, Interview, Soap Opera Digest, Elle, Redbook, Family Circle, Fitness, American Archaeology.
Fascinated by “Hollywood & Crime,” Pat H. Broeske is an experienced producer/writer/consultant for reality docu-dramas, with TV credits including truTV’s “Anatomy of Crime“ and “Video Justice.” She has co-authored two best-selling biographies, Howard Hughes: The Untold Story and Down at the End of Lonely Street: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley, and written Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Lisa Marie Presley Story under the pseudonym “Katharine Cummings.”
Broeske has been a consultant for university press publishers and taught at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. She currently teaches non-fiction writing and film as literature at Saddleback College Emeritus Institute.
A native of Southern California, she lives in Orange County with her architect husband, James Broeske, and rescue pets. She is a lifelong mystery buff, serving on the board of Orange County Sisters in Crime and is a member of Mystery Writers of America.
News
Flash
Excited to be joining the board of SoCal MWA!
December 31, 2024
Contact
Literary Representative, Alice Martell: The Martell Agency
1350 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 1205, New York, NY 10019
(212) 317-2672