Top 10 books about probation
Writers including Jonathan Trigell, Helen Fitzgerald and Elmore Leonard have found rich, human stories in the space between prison and the rest of life
Reading group: which PD James novel should we read this month?
James’s novels spanned cosy crime and tough police procedurals as well as an eerie dystopia and an Austen pastiche. To mark her centenary, help choose one
Robin Stevens: ‘We assume writing for adults is the pinnacle, but what book changed your life?’
As her bestselling Murder Most Unladylike series comes to an end, the children’s author talks about cosy crime, gay characters and watching her schoolgirl detectives grow up
The best recent thrillers – review roundup
Double-dealing in the murky world of espionage, the hunt for an environmental terrorist, creepy neighbours and the return of an old friend
Crime fiction boom as book sales rocket past 2019 levels
With bookshops still closed in parts of the UK, sales have surpassed last year’s numbers, with 3.8m print books sold in the last week
Lee Child on Jack Reacher: ‘I don’t like him that much’
Author says he takes a hard-hearted approach to character and planned to kill him off
Tips, links and suggestions: what are you reading this week?
Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
The House on Fripp Island by Rebecca Kauffman; Seven Years of Darkness by You-jeong Jeong; The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish; The Devil You Know by Emma Kavanagh; Die for Me by Luke Jennings
The best recent thrillers – review roundup
Missing memories and secret lives galore in new titles from Karin Slaughter, Louise Candlish and more
Remain Silent by Susie Steiner review – home is where the hurt is
DI Manon Bradshaw’s domestic life is under strain as she investigates the death of a Lithuanian migrant worker in this entertaining third outing for the formidable Fenland sleuth
Top 10 Scottish crime novels
Scottish novelists from William McIlvanney to Ian Rankin and Denise Mina deliver all the gut-punch thrills of crime without forgetting its human cost
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins; We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker; Making Wolf by Tade Thompson; The Lizard by Dugald Bruce-Lockhart; The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos; and Love in Amsterdam by Nicolas Freeling
Bill Clinton writing second thriller with James Patterson
Pair behind The President is Missing writing novel about kidnapping of a former president’s daughter
In brief: The World Aflame; The Last Protector; Beneath the Streets – review
Images of the world wars are given colour; Andrew Taylor’s latest 17th-century mystery; and what if Jeremy Thorpe got away with murder?
Whodunnit? Did Agatha Christie ‘borrow’ the plot for acclaimed novel?
Translator uncovers twist in the tale of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd … it may have been inspired by Norwegian author’s story