The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Heights by Ian Rankin; The Mortons by Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier; Murder Most Cryptic by Alys Cummings; The Deadly Inheritance of Everest Macdonald by AJ West; Inheritance by Gillian Slovo

Peter May obituary

Crime writer whose bestselling novels set on the Isle of Lewis garnered literary awards around the world

John Cooper Clarke looks back: ‘Getting older sucks – it’s marginally better than being dead’

The punk poet on his heroin years, dressing like Ronnie Wood, and achieving his boyhood ambition

Murder Before Evensong review – the Rev Richard Coles’s village mystery squeezes into cosy theatre

Ian Hallard impresses in a thoughtful adaptation that sometimes strains under a villageful of suspects, victims and doubling actors

I was asked to write a new Miss Marple, so I sent her to the Alps

Her last case was 50 years ago, written by Agatha Christie just before she died. Could I really follow in the footsteps of the Queen of Crime?

Lesley Grant-Adamson obituary

Other lives: Prolific crime writer whose first novels drew on her background in journalism

$2m crime novel deal collapses amid questions over AI use

Agents withdraw Jerry Falade’s hotly anticipated debut after saying they can no longer authenticate ‘how the manuscript evolved’

‘We’ve always been wary of working together’: Val McDermid and Jo Sharp on writing a novel as a couple

The bestselling crime writer and Scotland’s first female Geographer Royal had long kept their work separate, until a chance discovery about a doomed 17th-century expedition forced them to collaborate

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Runner by Scarlett Thomas; The Madman by Henning Mankell; Everything She Didn’t Say by Jane Casey; The Spy and the Snake by MJ Robotham; Murder at the End of the World by Akane Araki

Nine out of 10 bestselling novels in UK have one thing in common: a woman is murdered

Author Wendy Jones highlighted the trend in an Instagram post: ‘What is going on here?’

Night Swimming by Sharon Kernot review – a sharp, sexy and tremendously satisfying thriller in verse

As in Dorothy Porter’s The Monkey’s Mask, the form is perfectly suited to the story: of a sleep-deprived woman unravelling as she’s haunted by her past

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Pinnacle by Abir Mukherjee; A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper; Murder on the Red River by Marcie R Rendon; The Devoted by Catherine Cho; The Repentants by Kate Foster

The Long Drop review – Denise Mina’s whisky-soaked tale of triple murder is horribly gripping

The novel is adapted with equal parts wit and horror to capture the depravity of a notorious crime in Glasgow

James Ellroy: ‘It’s satanic to me, the dependency people have on computers’

The outspoken crime novelist talks about his provocative new book, his hatred of technology and why the film adaptation of LA Confidential is a ‘turkey’

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

Honey by Imani Thompson; Quite Ugly One Evening by Chris Brookmyre; The Final Chapter by CB Everett; The Hollow Boys by Tariq Ashkanani; Shrink Solves Murder by Philippa Perry