Last One Out by Jane Harper review – satisfying thriller lacks the heft of her previous novels

The Australian crime writer’s latest is less about the dead than it is about the living, in a dilapidated town left suffocating in the aftermath of tragedy

Lesley Cookman obituary

Other lives: Author of the Libby Sarjeant ‘cosy crime’ series

Mischa Barton to make UK stage debut in Double Indemnity

The OC star will take the role made famous by Barbara Stanwyck in James M Cain’s classic noir tale of murder and deceit, touring the UK in early 2026

The Lodger review – ingenious penny dreadful take on Hitchcock’s foggy mystery

Puppetry and silent cinema techniques are used to retell Marie Belloc Lowndes’ novel and its film version in a show played for laughs rather than thrills

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Predicament by William Boyd; The Killer Question by Janice Hallett; The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman; 59 Minutes by Holly Seddon; Deadman’s Pool by Kate Rhodes

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