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
Ruth Rendell: From the archive
Ruth Rendell interviews from the Guardian and Observer archive