James Ellroy on his nervous breakdown, TV adaptations and plans for future books
The demon dog behind LA Confidential, American Tabloid, The Black Dahlia and new thriller This Storm joined us to answer readers’ questions
Richard Osman lands ‘seven-figure’ deal for crime novel written in secret
The Thursday Murder Club, which the Pointless TV presenter did not want to be seen as ‘a celebrity novel’, was the subject of a publishers’ bidding war
James Ellroy thinks he’s a moralist – do you agree?
American Tabloid is populated almost entirely with baddies of one sort or another, and ethical judgments are left up to the reader
James Ellroy: ‘I’ve been canonised. And that’s a gas’
The American crime writer on his love of everything big, why he doesn’t rate Raymond Chandler, and reading all 55 of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
Conviction by Denise Mina; The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver; The River by Peter Heller; Crushed by Kate Hamer; Little Darlings by Melanie Golding; The Divinities by Parker Bilal
From Agatha Christie to Gillian Flynn: 50 great thrillers by women
In response to a list of the 100 best crime novels that had only 28 female authors, Ann Cleeves, Val McDermid and Dreda Say Mitchell and other leading writers nominate some alternatives
James Ellroy wastes no time, or words, in pushing readers inside US history
American Tabloid’s flinty prose zooms us forward through five busy years of crimes high and low – straight into the past
Reading group: Which James Ellroy novel should we read in May?
With a new volume due in his second LA Quartet, it’s a good time to read this justly self-declared master of fiction. But which book?
Denise Mina: ‘I don’t think there’s any such thing as an apolitical writer’
Thrillers, plays, comic books and now a true crime project ... the writer on Glasgow’s dark side and why Brexit is the least of our worries
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
The King’s Evil by Andrew Taylor; Mrs Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkowa; Sleep by CL Taylor; Stone Mothers by Erin Kelly; Fallen Angel by Chris Brookmyre and Call Me Evie by JP Pomare
Throw Me to the Wolves by Patrick McGuinness review – memory and murder
Based on the story of Christopher Jefferies, hounded by the press for a crime he didn’t commit, this is an elegiac exploration of trauma
The Language of Birds by Jill Dawson review – a novel based on an unsolved crime
A fictional account of the murder of Sandra Rivett, nanny of Lord Lucan’s children
Things in Jars by Jess Kidd review – high-camp crime
A pipe-smokin’, crypt-crashin’ heroine brings originality and freshness to this Victorian detective drama
JK Rowling backs crime writing scheme for BAME and working-class women
The author is supporting the Killer Women mentoring programme saying she knows how hard it is to be unknown
The Wolf and the Watchman by Niklas Natt och Dag review – gruesome Swedish thriller
A debut vividly depicts acts of cruelty in lawless 18th-century Stockholm – but are its shocks gratuitous?