The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
Widespread Panic by James Ellroy; People Like Them by Samira Sedira; Razorblade Tears by SA Cosby; The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell; and Whitethroat by James Henry
12 Bytes by Jeanette Winterson review – how we got here and where we might go next
Twelve essays drawing on years of research into artificial intelligence ask challenging questions about humanity, art, religion and the way we live and love
Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith review – hunting for ghosts
A marvellous, confounding debut that moves from eerie Vietnamese forests to rundown zoos and crowded nightclubs
Old review – M Night Shyamalan’s fast-ageing beach horror is top notch hokum
With a cast worthy of Agatha Christie, this tale of a resort where time has been terrifyingly accelerated is brilliantly poised between serious and silly
The Last Letter from Your Lover review – sappy romance is nothing to write home about
The adaptation of Jojo Moyes’s 2012 novel, starring Shailene Woodley and Felicity Jones, toggles between two love stories and shortchanges both
Objects of Desire by Clare Sestanovich review – stories of self-definition
A debut collection from a writer with an outsize gift for metaphor is almost too self-aware
Spike by Jeremy Farrar and Anjana Ahuja; and Vaxxers by Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green – review
Two urgent and fascinating accounts from the frontlines show how scientists succeeded, and failed, at saving us from Covid-19
Sista Sister by Candice Brathwaite review – direct, accessible and very funny
The bestselling author of I Am Not Your Baby Mother is back, with a collection of frank and funny essays about money, friendship and what some women will do to their hair
The Pages by Hugo Hamilton review – if a book could talk
The narrator of this ingenious fable about Germany, nationalism and the tides of history is a century-old Joseph Roth novel
It’s Not What You Thought It Would Be by Lizzy Stewart review – it’s different for girls
This brilliant debut collection explores the intensity of teenage ennui and female friendship, with a deft feel for its slights and tensions
This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan review – the trip of a lifetime
This fascinating insight into our relationship with mind-altering plants weaves personal experimentation with cultural history
Come Closer by Sara Gran review – a woman possessed
A female architect’s life is destroyed by a supernatural entity in a seductive and disturbing novel first published in 2003
The Sea Is Not Made of Water by Adam Nicolson review – of mollusc and men
This lyrical dive into rock pools illuminates the interconnectedness of all natural habitats
Landslide by Michael Wolff review – Trump’s final days of delirium
Wolff concludes his jocular trilogy of books about the chaotic Trump administration by absolving the former president of blame
In brief: The Turnout; Conversations on Love; To Be a Man – reviews
Megan Abbott’s gripping ballet thriller, moving meditations on love, and Nicole Krauss’s impressive short story collection