‘You’re not the nice guy I thought you were’: the Australian crime novelist and the French bank thief

Marele Day has spent a lifetime writing crime fiction, but it took decades to tell the epic story of a real-life criminal she had come to call a friend

Anne Perry obituary

Bestselling historical crime novelist whose troubled adolescence, and part in a notorious murder, was the subject of a film by Peter Jackson

The best recent crime and thriller writing – review roundup

A village treasure hunt digs up trouble, a game of dares goes too far and a Mary Higgins Clark classic is revisited in this month’s highlights

Loving Highsmith review – Ripley author tribute soft-pedals writer’s nasty side

Ostensibly about the relationships of the celebrated novelist, this documentary is coy about Patricia Highsmith’s obsessiveness and antisemitism

In brief: The Wakes; Humanly Possible; A Tidy Ending – reviews

A wittily poignant tale of friendship, death and unexpected joy; an impressively wide-ranging history of humanism; and a darkly comic crime novel

Eric Brown, science fiction author and Guardian critic, dies aged 62

Writers, publishers and agents pay tribute to a warm, generous figure, author of more than 50 books ranging from SFF to crime to children’s literature

Christopher Fowler obituary

Author of the Bryant & May detective novels, short stories and essays on forgotten writers – including himself

The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane review – the lost boy

Otherworldly sunsets, family tensions and Aboriginal lore collide in a blazing mystery set in the colonial outback

Bryant & May novelist Christopher Fowler has died aged 69

Crime writers have paid tribute to the London-born author behind the long-running detective series, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2020

Top 10 criminal duos in fiction

Authors from James M Cain to Patricia Highsmith show how partners in crime can really bring out the worst in each other

The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis review – an inspired fever dream of a book

A teenage Bret and his uber-privileged friends cruise around 80s LA while a serial killer stalks the city in a gleefully meta return to form by the author of American Psycho

What links Cate Blanchett’s new film Tár to Sissy Spacek and hot sauce?

A composer and conductor opens the door to Loretta Lynn, Wings of Desire and classic 90s rock from Goo Goo Dolls

Guess who? Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, Sophie Hannah and other crime writers reveal their favourite detectives

At the end of a year when murder mysteries rode high in the charts, we ask crime writers to celebrate the best fictional detectives

‘Hillary and I were both broken women’: Louise Penny on writing a political thriller with Clinton

As her most famous creation hits the screen, the author talks about the inspiration for Inspector Gamache, her fearless, fine-dining Canadian cop – and remembers how she co-wrote a hit with the presidential hopeful

The best crime and thriller books of 2022

Ajay Chowdhury and Ian Rankin are among the authors of this year’s standout novels, including cosy escapes, dodgy cops and a murder told backwards