I ratted out my bank robber brothers

A powerful real-life story about a gang of three brothers and violent father, convicted in 1990s Sweden, is a bestseller there. Only one person could have told the tale – the fourth brother, who resisted a life of crime

Coen brothers sign up for Ross Macdonald adaptation Black Money

Writer-director duo have agreed to write script for adaptation of hardboiled detective novel, and possibly direct it further down the line

Murder most cosy: why mystery novels involving quilts and cats are big business

Who needs gritty, dark psychological horror when you can settle in your armchair and read a book about a kitten catching a killer?

The lady’s not for turning: cinematic portrayals of lesbians need to get real

Films about lesbians too often involve the conversion of a younger, straight woman by an older gay woman. It’s time to drop the predatory trope

Best holiday reads 2015

Authors, critics and philosophers tell us which books they will be reading on the beach

Detective duos in fiction – quiz

Brace yourself for a new BBC series based on Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence stories by testing your knowledge of literature's partners in crime-fighting

Patricia Highsmith webchat with John Sutherland – as it happened

The acclaimed critic joined us on the site to discuss Patricia Highsmith’s charismatic killer, Tom Ripley. Here’s what happened

Killer timing: why comedy and crime writing share a secret weapon

When it comes to structure and plotting, standup and crime fiction employ the same tricks, explains bestselling author and ex-comic Mark Billingham

Creative writing lessons from Patricia Highsmith

Highsmith’s book Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction is an inspiring primer for budding psycho-crime novelists

Mr Ripley’s great talent? Making us like a killer and his crimes

The Reading group verdict is in: Patricia Highsmith’s amoral protagonist in The Talented Mr Ripley offers a queasy kind of entertainment – and an armchair psychologist’s perfect case study

How crime fighting provides clues to crime writing

As well as procedural rules, my past life as a police officer taught me how to tell the painful human stories behind the charge sheets

June’s Reading group: The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

For the next month, as he turns 60, we’ll be investigating one of literature’s best loved psychopaths

The Infidel Stain review – MJ Carter’s smartly plotted murder mystery

Political unrest and poverty plague 19th-century London in the novelist’s skilful follow-up to last year’s lauded The Strangler Vine

Crime writer Ann Cleeves on the Shetland Islands

The author on four decades of inspiration from the austere but beautiful islands that you must call Shetland and not the Shetlands

Killer women: crime writers strike back at the mid-list murderers

Female crime writers have a message for publishers: don’t push us into the chasm between JK Rowling and next big thing