Tana French: ‘Nobody with imagination should commit a crime. You wouldn’t handle the stress’

The author has branched out with the twisty, psychological thriller The Wych Elm. She shares her conversations with a retired detective and why she’s not interested in true crime

Muscle by Alan Trotter review – a new take on noir

As with the best pulp fiction, there’s serious existential heft to this dazzling debut about a pair of toughs marauding around 50s America

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Last by Hanna Jameson; To Kill the Truth by Sam Bourne; The Lost Man by Jane Harper; Flowers Over the Inferno by Ilaria Tuti; The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides; and Fade to Grey by John Lincoln

Second AJ Finn novel on way despite Dan Mallory scandal, says publisher

Revelations that the author of The Woman in the Window lied repeatedly about having cancer have not dissuaded HarperCollins from publishing a followup

Smart goons and a character called _____: the subversive hardboiled crime of Alan Trotter

The novelist explains his experimental approach to the noir detective, focusing on characters traditionally forgotten, even in their down time between jobs

In brief: Born to Be Posthumous; The Chestnut Man; How to Rule the World

A biography of the influential American illustrator Edward Gorey, debut crime fiction from the creator of The Killing, and a comic novel from Tibor Fischer about a documentary film-maker

Slow Motion Ghosts by Jeff Noon review – murder and glam rock

Noon’s foray into crime fiction is a journey into the underworlds of police violence and occult obsession

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley; The Flower Girls by Alice Clark-Platts; Red Snow by Will Dean; Fog Island by Mariette Lindstein; A Long Night in Paris by Dov Alfon

The Krull House by Georges Simenon review – a dark masterpiece

First published in 1939, this eerily prophetic study of race hatred and mass hysteria in a small French town is vintage Simenon

Turbulence by David Szalay review – stark tales of life in flux

A series of stories arranged around plane journeys creates a close-up portrait of our common humanity

The best recent crime novels – review roundup

Scrublands by Chris Hammer; Slugger by Martin Holmén; Good Samaritans by Will Carver; My Name Is Anna by Lizzy Barber; and Night of Camp David by Fletcher Knebel

Agatha Christie: the case of theatre’s criminal mastermind

The queen of the whodunnit has never gone away, but with John Malkovich playing Poirot and two radical stage adaptations, it’s no mystery why a new generation is falling for her

Award for thriller without violence against women goes to Jock Serong

Inaugural Staunch prize won by the Australian novelist’s On the Java Ridge, in which a group of surfers tries to rescue a refugee boat from a storm

I agree with Lee Child – compact Tom Cruise isn’t enough of a Reacher

As the author asks readers for advice on a taller actor to replace Cruise, we look at other books miscastings

Agatha Christie webchat with Sophie Hannah – your questions answered on Poirot, writing and grudges

After our reading of Endless Night and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the author of Hercule Poirot’s authorised new adventures is joining now