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?
Metropolis by Philip Kerr review – the last outing for Bernie Gunther
This posthumously published novel sees the world-weary Berlin cop join the murder squad on the eve of the Nazi rise to power
In brief: Untitled: The Real Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor; The King’s Evil; Circe – reviews
A sympathetic biography of Edward VIII’s American wife, an enthralling Restoration crime thriller and Madeline Miller’s excellent retelling of The Odyssey
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
Kill [redacted] by Anthony Good; The Guilty Party by Mel McGrath; The Mobster’s Lament by Ray Celestin; Casanova and the Faceless Woman by Olivier Borde-Cabuçon; Cruel Acts by Jane Casey; and A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself by William Boyle
The Plotters by Un-su Kim review – a sniper in Seoul
A contract killer finds himself at the centre of a conspiracy in a dreamlike alternative Korea