The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith review – a terrific, tightly plotted romp

With four murder inquiries in play, JK Rowling’s eighth Cormoran Strike novel avoids the page-padding longueurs of previous volumes – but will he finally tell Robin how he feels about her?

‘Visceral, sensual wonders’: why The Talented Mr Ripley is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers detailing their most rewatched comfort films is a reminder of Anthony Minghella’s starry, sad and sinister 1999 thriller

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

A Particularly Nasty Case by Adam Kay; Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman; The Final Vow by MW Craven; The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine

Bryce Courtenay, conspiracies and campfire cooking: the best Australian books out in August

Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on

What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in July

Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

The stranger in a strange place is an enduring narrative in Australian fiction. But what if the crime scene is a whole continent?

In my new novel The Leap, there is no single mystery to solve, no killer to track down. Just deliberately forgotten truths about racism, massacres and hatred

The best recent crime and thrillers – roundup

Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson; Kill Your Darlings by Peter Swanson; The Good Liar by Denise Mina; The Hole by Hye-Young Pyun; Gunner by Alan Parks

A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan review – an immersive but imperfect coming-of-age mystery

Subject of a fierce bidding war, this charming debut shows Trevelyan has an impressive knack for character, but is let down by a predictable plot

Chris Hammer: ‘The suburbs can be delightfully sinister. The blandness is a great setting for crime books’

The novelist reflects on his trip along the drought-stricken Murray-Darling that prompted the leap into writing and how the Australian bush inspires his bestselling crime fiction

The best recent crime and thrillers – roundup

Fox by Joyce Carol Oates; A Schooling in Murder by Andrew Taylor; Death of a Diplomat by Eliza Reid; Actually, I’m a Murderer by Terry Deary; Can You Solve the Murder? by Antony Johnston

The 10 best audiobooks for summer

To soundtrack those long, lazy afternoons try Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s torrid love affair, a real-life pirate of the Caribbean or Peter Dinklage as Hercule Poirot

The Empress Murders by Toby Schmitz review – jazz age mystery packed with corpses and charisma

The actor’s first novel, set on (and sometimes narrated by) a luxury boat in 1925, swerves from cosy Christie homage into something far more brutal

Peter Lovesey obituary

Crime writer known for his ‘history-mystery’ series about the Victorian detective Sergeant Cribb

BBC harnesses AI to create writing classes given by Agatha Christie

Videos will share author’s tips on everything from story structure and plot twists to the art of suspense

‘You have to be taken inside Poirot’s brain’: Ken Ludwig on the secret to adapting Agatha Christie

The US playwright and anglophile behind much-revived comedies has a flair for crime and is following a crowd-pleasing Murder on the Orient Express with Death on the Nile