A brush with the law

In 1998, bored lawyer Kenneth Walton tried to sell a fake painting on eBay. Boosted by pretend bids from a friend, the price rose to $135,805. Then the FBI knocked at the door. Dan Glaister reports.

Whip hand

Stuart Jeffries: After Dick Francis took a tumble in the final seconds of the Grand National in 1956 he stopped racing and became a writer. Now, after a six-year break, he's writing again.

Stealing beats borrowing

Rose George: Selfishness is trumping sharing as £150m worth of books are filched from local libraries every year.

An offer I couldn’t refuse

Crime writer Michael Dibdin was well aware that the remote wilds of Sardinia were a haven for kidnappers and brigands. But what were the intentions of the roughneck stranger who insisted on befriending him?

Hachette finds crime doesn’t pay

8am: Magazine publisher Hachette Filipacchi is expected to close its real-life title Crime Confidential after just four issues following disappointing sales. By Claire Cozens.

Crime: so much more fun when it’s made up …

Victoria Coren: The other day, I was chairing a Radio 4 chat show about the British interest in crime stories. We all love a bit of Poirot or Jane Tennison - but is this fun so innocent (I was intending to ask my three guests), given that we also love poring over the grisly details of real-life crime as well?

True crime

Fred Vargas is a highly successful French crime writer, but since she declared her support for an Italian author faced with extradition, her calls are monitored and she is followed by the intelligence services. She tells Jon Henley how life came to imitate art.

Dark star of LA noir

James Ellroy's mother was murdered when he was 10. As a teenager, he began a descent into drink, drugs and crime. In his 30s, clean and sober, he published his first novel, launching a career as a bestselling crime writer. His latest collection is the final word on his own story.

Sunshine satirist

From an early career as an investigative journalist in Miami Carl Hiaasen began writing novels lampooning the rape of Florida by developers. When not fighting environmental degradation, political intransigence and bureaucracy, he tries to play the guitar. Now, as a columnist, he is braced for a showdown over next month's US election.

Singing detectives

Inspector Morse likes his Wagner, Sherlock Holmes was a mean violinist and Philip Marlowe discussed pianists with police officers. Mike Ashman investigates the curious connection between crime and classical music.

For whom the bells don’t toll

Murders and mysterious disappearances are always chilling, but nothing unites us in grief as much as the killing of a child. Yet not all victims make the news, not even the young - not if it means relinquishing our ideal of childhood itself. Nicci Gerrard on the faces we forgot to mourn.

Dead calm

The Executioner’s Song, his spare, quiet retelling of the life of a double murderer is one of Norman Mailer’s best works, but he never rated it himself. Gordon Burn wonders why