The best crime books and thrillers of 2017
Mark Lawson welcomes the return of George Smiley, drunken spooks and the recreation of a real-life murder trial
Places in the Darkness by Chris Brookmyre review – murder in zero-gravity
The Scottish writer puts his detectives aboard a city-in-space in a twisting, sci-fi-flavoured crime mystery
Best books of 2017 – part two
From moving memoirs to far-reaching fiction, novelists, poets and critics pick their best reads of the year
Best books of 2017 – part one
‘Funny, outrageous, touching, intimate, gorgeous’ … writers from George Saunders to Ali Smith pick their favourite reads of the past year
The best recent crime novels – review roundup
The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell; The House by Simon Lelic; The Vanishing Box by Elly Griffiths; The Man Who Died by Antti Tuomainen; East of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman
The Accident on the A35 by Graeme Macrae Burnet – review
An accomplished, multilayered crime story set in France from the Booker-shortlisted Scottish author
‘Los Angeles is the globe in a small space’: author Ryan Gattis
LA is the most diverse city in the US, says the thriller writer. And with regeneration, areas like Downtown are fizzing with cultural mashups and food fusions
On my radar: Carla Bruni’s cultural highlights
The musician and former French first lady on David Hockney, Big Little Lies, Leonard Cohen’s last album and the Yves Saint Laurent museum
Lynda La Plante: ‘Did you write Prime Suspect? asked my mother – three series in’
The screenwriter and novelist talks about growing up on Merseyside with a sports-mad father, mother and grandmother, and adopting her son Lorcan at 57
Top 10 twists in fiction
Court dramas, classic mysteries and bloody crimes ... from Du Maurier to Lehane, Sophie Hannah chooses her favourite twists in novels (or does she?)
The guilty secret: Chinese crime writer arrested for four cold-case murders
Liu Yongbiao had talked of plans for book about killer author who evades capture but police say he is now a suspect in multiple decades-old murders
‘Lazy and sloppy’: historical novelist Philippa Gregory’s bizarre take on genre writing
In an interview that raised many hackles, Gregory dismissed erotica as ‘pornography’ and crime novel villains as ‘blindingly obvious’ – despite her own novels occupying a distinct genre themselves
Novel recipes: roast chicken and artichokes from The Talented Mr Ripley
While chicken is a Sunday tradition according to the doomed Dickie Greenleaf, this easy but tasty dish is one for any day of the week, says Kate Young
Broken River by J Robert Lennon review – wickedly plotted slowburner
A psychological thriller about a middle-class family’s ill-starred house move, from a writer at the top of his game
Maigret, Morse, Poirot: none of them will help you crack a case in real life
The Met is inviting graduates to train as detectives without plodding the beat. Let’s just hope these high-flyers don’t take their cues from crime fiction