Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith – review
When friends mean less than plots ... a flawed portrayal of the noir novelist as a figure bordering on the grotesque
Mick Herron: ‘I look at Jackson Lamb and think: My God, did I write that? My mother reads this stuff!’
As the first book in his spy series, Slow Horses, is made into a TV drama, Herron talks about his slow-burn success – and the resemblance of a certain blustering villain to our PM
Shelter by Catherine Jinks review – frenetic outback thriller from a masterful storyteller
Tension and terror from a prolific author who’s demonstrated she’s just as comfortable penning picture books as mapping the terrain of vicious killers
Stuart MacBride: ‘I love writing fictional serial killers. But I cannot stand reading about real ones’
The bestselling novelist stresses that his relish for the kind of bloodshed that features in new novel The Coffinmaker’s Garden is strictly confined to stories
Jolly, artificial and extremely satisfying: the simple joy of ‘Grandma lit’
With these books you know what you’re getting. And this year, for me, that has been a very uncomplicated form of self-care
Top 10 Christmas crime stories
From Dashiell Hammett to Agatha Christie and PD James, the festive season has inspired some of fiction’s finest criminal minds
Will Dean: ‘The whole book came to me between midnight and 6am’
The Tuva Moodyson author on his tense new thriller The Last Thing to Burn and why he has abandoned the UK for life in the Swedish woods
‘I’ve never felt less festive’: the art of writing Christmas novels, 365 days a year
Drinking sherry, bingeing Downton Abbey ... how authors keep up the spirit of the season, even when writing during heatwaves and a nightmarish Christmas
Alanna Knight obituary
Prolific author of romantic and crime fiction, and active supporter of new Scottish writing
How writing saved my life – twice
After being mugged, crime author Chris Whitaker found himself unable to cope with the trauma. Putting his thoughts down on paper helped – then disaster struck again
Ian Rankin to complete William McIlvanney’s final novel The Dark Remains
Due out next year, the novel will see the Rebus creator fill out notes for another Laidlaw mystery left by the revered Scottish crime writer on his death in 2015
Arthur Calder-Marshall, the forgotten author Orson Welles almost made famous
A gifted writer blessed with impeccable connections, he has nonetheless remained in the shadows, eclipsed by accidents and grander egos
Best crime and thrillers of 2020
From hard-hitting debuts and gritty mysteries to a cosy caper and a swashbuckling maritime puzzle
Val McDermid: ‘The Mermaids Singing felt like a narrative emergency’
The award-winning crime writer on how the plot of the novel that became ITV’s hit series Wire in the Blood arrived, fully formed, while she was driving on the M6
Library ebook lending surges as UK turns to fiction during lockdown
Charity says ebooks borrowing up 146% from March to August, with crime thrillers popular