Partners in Crime Media
50 episodes listed below
True crime criticism with sharp table talk.
Crime Writers On... evaluates true crime storytelling across podcasts, television, documentaries, and scripted-adjacent experiments. The conversations move from case framing and reporting choices to side chatter about books, pets, products, studios, and the panel’s own running jokes.
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Crime Writers On... is built around opinionated criticism of true crime and crime-adjacent media. Its recent episodes place podcasts, documentaries, television series, and odd pop-culture artifacts in the same conversational lane. The panel reviews titles including The Idiot, Adults in the Room, Model Wars, Scorched Earth, The Chinatown Sting, Neighbors, Jury Duty, and Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat. That range matters. The show is not limited to murder cases or investigative podcasts; it also has room for civil trials, residential disputes, hidden-camera television, modeling-industry exploitation, drug smuggling stories, and legal battles involving Big Oil. The discussion usually cares about how a story is made. Framing, reporting choices, credibility, tone, character construction, and the balance between entertainment and seriousness all become fair game. The table can be sharp. It can also be cheerfully distracted. Patreon notes, Amazon recommendations, book-club plugs, cat interruptions, studio jokes, and long-running bits sit right next to criticism of major podcast and television releases. That mix gives the show a lived-in feel rather than a polished critic’s desk. Rebecca Lavoie regularly introduces the program and steers the conversation. Kevin Flynn, Laura Bricker, and Toby Ball appear across the excerpts with clearly established voices and running dynamics. Ronald Young Jr. appears as a fill-in during the Model Wars episode. The humor can be blunt, but the show’s best use is practical: it helps a listener sort through crowded crime media without surrendering taste to hype. It also gives extra context around adjacent projects, including Toby Ball’s Deep Dive Book Club podcast and discussions of This House of Grief. For PlayNext, this is a show for listeners who want reviews with bite, personality, and enough craft talk to make the recommendation feel earned.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants help choosing crime podcasts, documentaries, and television without sitting through bland recap. It also fits someone who enjoys critic-panel chemistry, digressions, and firm opinions.
What sets it apart: The show’s edge is its collision of media criticism and familiar roundtable banter: case framing and storytelling craft share space with studio jokes, book talk, and domestic interruptions. It feels less like a verdict from one critic and more like a smart argument already in progress.
The original true crime review podcast that looks at other podcasts, TV, and pop culture. True crime authors and real-life couple Rebecca Lavoie and Kevin Flynn hold a pop-culture round table with noir novelist Toby Ball and journalist-turned-investigator Lara Bricker. The panel chats about other podcasts (including 'Serial') as well as journalism, storytelling, TV shows and films, and the special segment, 'Crime of the Week.' Show website: crimewriterson.com. Follow the show on X @crimewriterson. Find us on Facebook facebook.com/crimewritersonpodcast. Email the show at [email protected].
A fake jury gives you Rebecca Lavoie's roundtable debating why its one real juror makes the whole thing work.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grim, absurd true-crime premise gets a lively panel review, though the side chatter sometimes pulls focus.
The Idiot starts from a premise that is almost too strange to sit comfortably: relatives saw their cousin as an exhausting blowhard, before he was arrested for hiring a hitman to murder his ex-wife.
A student newspaper expose becomes an adult reinvestigation into claims about a science teacher.
Adults in the Room follows a high school newspaper expose about rumors around a teacher into a later reckoning with what was reported, what was questioned, and what changes when teenage journalism is viewed from adulthood.
A Swiss travel memory, an unwanted tableside serenade, and a true-crime book club send the hosts into an easy comic detour.
The episode uses a Switzerland trip as a loose frame, letting the hosts riff on Alpine horns, yodeling bands, old wooden skis turned into percussion, and the discomfort of being serenaded from very close range.
A warm, specific return to Jury Duty's staged trial, sincere juror, and comic jury-room friction.
Crime Writers On returns to Jury Duty by focusing on the show's best tension: a staged civil trial unfolding around Ronald, who believes he has been called for real jury service.
A lively, loose conversation turns fences, private roads, and property lines into absurd neighborhood conflict.
Crime Writers On takes up HBO's Neighbors through the small wars of fences, private roads, property lines, and residential irritation. Rebecca Lavoie guides the conversation with Kevin Flynn and Laura Bricker, whose true-crime and investigative backgrounds give the episode a…
ABC Audio's Theranos fraud series that also introduces its other true-crime podcasts.
LA Times reporter Christopher Goffard traces con man John Meehan's fraud, abuse, and its Bravo TV adaptation.
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Crime Writers On reviews Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, the hidden-camera comedy built around temp worker Anthony Norman and the fake company Rocking Grandma’s hot sauce.
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The hosts of Crime Writers On review the podcast Model Wars, which explores a gigolo who uses mob money to start a modeling agency in an industry built on sex and exploitation.
The Crime Writers On podcast reviews the Audible original 'Scorched Earth' about a lawyer who won a multi-billion dollar judgment against Big Oil and lost everything.
A review of the true crime podcast 'The Chinatown Sting' about a major drug smuggling operation involving Chinese gangs.
This episode introduces season 2 of Murder on Music Row with ads and host introductions.
A review of the true crime podcast 'Dirtbag Climber' about the murder of a rock climber using an assumed name.