Nicolás Obregón: ‘Tokyo is a million cities … and it’s full of secrets’

A city that can be ‘Blade Runner and old Japan all at once’ inspired Blue Light Yokohama novelist Nicolás Obregón – who is in thrall to Tokyo’s towers, street food and quiet corners

The Long Drop by Denise Mina review – meet Scotland’s worst serial killer

This true crime story about Peter Manuel, ‘the Beast of Birkenshaw’, alternates between a bizarre pub crawl with a relative of the victims and his trial for murder in 1958

The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson review – suspense in 60s Suffolk

Patricia Highsmith is involved with a married woman in this fascinating fictional biography of the late writer

Is reading a murder mystery somehow better than watching one on TV?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific concepts

Vanguard of Brexit fiction set to appear in 2017

Mark Billingham, Amanda Craig and Douglas Board will be among the first novelists to tackle the EU referendum and its wider implications

The best Australian beach reads: 10 sharply written page-turners

Summer holiday books don’t need to be light and frothy but you must want to read them non-stop

Top 10 slangy crime novels

As well as masterful exercises in suspense and social realism, the best fiction in this genre is also a rich repository of slang. And that’s no Archbishop Laud

JK Rowling reveals she’s working on two new novels

The Harry Potter author revealed to fans on Twitter that she has two books in the pipeline, one under her own name and one as Robert Galbraith

Hidden gems of 2016: the best books you may have missed

From AJ Lees’s extraordinary memoir Mentored By a Madman to Fiona Melrose’s Midwinter and Julie Myerson’s chiller The Stopped Heart, our critics recommend the reads that slipped under the radar

‘I used to look for crime fiction novels set in Amsterdam, but ended up writing my own’

Amsterdam’s trading and gin heritage fascinates crime writer Daniel Pembrey, while its canals and Red Light District provide an evocative setting for his books

Stanley Reynolds obituary

Journalist, literary critic and author with a reputation as a hard-drinking hellraiser

Best books of 2016 – part two

Paula Hawkins reflects on guilt, Jackie Kay seeks hope post-Brexit, and David Nicholls is lured into the lonely city … writers pick their best books of 2016

Best books of 2016 – part one

From Zadie Smith’s Swing Time to horror in the Highlands and a brief history of tomorrow ... writers choose their best reads of 2016

‘We might abolish the death penalty in 20 years’: He Jiahong on justice in China

Born into China’s cultural revolution, He Jiahong spent years working in the fields before studying law to win over his girlfriend’s parents. Now he is a leading authority on miscarriages of justice, and a writer of hit detective novels to boot

Horror in the outback: Jane Harper, Charlotte Wood and the landscape of fear

From Hanging Rock to Bitter Wash Road, the Australian bush has long provided writers with a backdrop of terror. A new wave of crime fiction is taking it up a notch