How Patricia Highsmith became hip

Big names are lining up to make films and books based on Highsmith's novels. John Dugdale finds out what it is that makes her work so adaptable

Tony Parsons could read plenty of crime novels with heart if he wanted to

Crime writers are understandably outraged that the Man and Boy author says their genre lacks feeling. Can we compose a corrective reading list for him?

Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society takes off

New York book club inspired by 'good books and sunny days and enjoying both as nearly in the altogether as the law allows'

Why is first person narrative so popular in detective novels?

Readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific concepts

Would squeaky clean detective fiction be too true to be good?

Liz Williams: A chief constable says fictional detectives should be better behaved and less corrupt. It's a fair cop, guv

Genre fiction radiates from a literary centre

In the fourth of our series on literary definitions, novelist Anita Mason argues that while genre novels tell specific kinds of story, literary novels open onto the universal

Sophie Hannah: ‘It’s surprising how many poems turn out to be about sex’

The crime writer and poet talks to Kate Kellaway about contrasting literary disciplines, the poetry of sex and the genius of Agatha Christie

Books set in Hull can be as gritty as any Nordic noir. So why the snobbery?

Novelist David Mark was told by a London bookstore his Hull-set crime tales were 'too Northern'. Here he explains why he hopes attitudes to 2017's City of Culture are changing

The Black-Eyed Blonde review – John Banville brings Philip Marlowe back to life

John Banville, using his crime-writing pseudonym, has produced an entertaining, note-perfect piece of literary ventriloquism, writes Alison Flood

Julian Barnes’s pseudonymous detective novels stay under cover

John Dugdale: The crime fiction he wrote as Dan Kavanagh in the 80s is being reissued with a very low profile

English readers don’t need independence from Scottish writers

With a few star exceptions, London publishers are wary of writing from Scotland. But good storytelling transcends nationality

Patricia Highsmith’s criminal neglect

Diane Shipley: Film adaptations mean she's not unknown, but her tense and unsettling thrillers deserve a much wider readership

No one else should play Inspector Morse, says his creator Colin Dexter

First there was John Thaw, then there was young Shaun Evans. Now there must never be anyone else to take on the role of the detective, stipulates a clause in the writer's will

The 100 best novels: No 26 – The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle (1890)

Sherlock Holmes's second outing sees Conan Doyle's brilliant sleuth – and his bluff sidekick Watson – come into their own, writes Robert McCrum

Lynda La Plante writing Prime Suspect prequel

Writer to adapt her new novel, called Tennison, for TV in 2016, the 25th anniversary of the hit ITV drama starring Helen Mirren. By John Plunkett