In brief: When Time Stopped; The Book of Echoes; The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective – reviews

A gripping family memoir reaching back to Nazi Germany, a debut novel tracing two centuries of colonialism and a quest to discover the identity of a pioneering female sleuth

Georges Simenon webchat – his son John on his daily habits, favourite books and future adaptations

Concluding our look at the Inspector Maigret mysteries, the author’s son joined us to field your questions about his father’s career

‘The most boring part’: why the killer didn’t matter to Georges Simenon

Identifying the murderer in Maigret and the Man on the Bench is of scant concern to a writer preoccupied with deeper secrets

The best recent crime and thrillers

The Guest List by Lucy Foley; The Better Liar by Tanen Jones; The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue; The Memory Wood by Sam Lloyd; and GBH by Ted Lewis

The Snow Was Dirty is bleak and uncomfortable – but it’s also a masterpiece

Georges Simenon’s remarkable novel manages to make its loathsome protagonist compelling company

How locked-room mystery king Seishi Yokomizo broke into English at last

With a reputation in Japan to rival Agatha Christie’s, the master of ingenious plotting is finally on the case for anglophone readers

‘No Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition or Mumbo Jumbo’: Dorothy L Sayers and the Detection Club

Sayers, creator of the detective Lord Peter Wimsey, was a founding member of the Detection Club, a secret society for crime writers founded in 1930, and still going today

Taking Maigret’s first case in for questioning

Georges Simenon’s Pietr the Latvian is over-written and features some very discomfiting attitudes – but still holds up under interrogation

Long Bright River by Liz Moore review – startlingly fresh

A novel about a killer targeting sex workers amid America’s opioid crisis offers a memorable portrait of devastation

Nora Roberts: ‘I could fill all the bookstores in all the land’

Her 220 novels – from crime to romance to suspense – have sold 500m copies around the world. Her secret? Early morning Diet Pepsis and an eight-hour day

Reading group: which Georges Simenon book should we read in February?

Adored by writers from André Gide to Muriel Spark, Simenon was astonishingly prolific. Help us choose which of his novels we should read

The best recent thrillers – review roundup

Ageless children and a trio of women taking over a PI firm

Liz Moore: ‘It made a big impression to know early what addiction was’

Long Bright River portrays the blight of addiction in Philadelphia and in a troubled family. The novelist explains how her own experience informed its story

Lee Child letting go of his creation is a tale told by other bestsellers

The Jack Reacher author says he will hand on his character to his brother – following other writers who have surrendered their stories

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha; The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda; Our Fathers by Rebecca Wait; Long Bright River by Liz Moore; and A Dark Matter by Doug Johnstone