Book of the month
David Horspool on Train by Pete Dexter
The rapist hunter
Stuart Jeffries: Linda Fairstein was America's best known prosecutor of sex crimes. Now she is using her expert knowledge of New York's dark side as the basis for her series of bestselling novels.
The Guardian profile: John le Carré
He is best known for his cold war thrillers in which the villains were KGB spymasters, but in his latest book the master of the spy novel hits out at the neo-conservatives behind the invasion of Iraq.
‘I was guilty. I did my time’: Anne Perry, the novelist whose past caught up with her
Anne Perry is a bestselling novelist - and a convicted killer whose past caught up with her unexpectedly. Angela Neustatter meets her
Who slew the angel?
Michael Collins combines fine writing with strong storytelling in his police procedural, Lost Souls. Perhaps it takes an outsider to make sense of America's Midwest, says Jay Rayner
‘She was so full of life, spirits, energy’
Celebrated thriller writer Henning Mankell, who was born in Stockholm in 1948, gives his reaction to the murder of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh.
The unknown man
Film noir wouldn't be the same without Georges Simenon's tales of mystery, scandal and sexual misdemeanour. But how much were his stories inspired by his own life?
High priest of low-life America
Interview: Loved by Hollywood and lionised by fellow writers, Elmore Leonard still can't see what all the fuss is about.
Precious Ramotswe and me
How did a Scottish professor of medical law come to write novels about a Botswanan private eye? Alexander McCall Smith talks to Marcel Berlins.
After the Yorkshire Ripper
Maxim Jakubowski on Nineteen Eighty-Three | Sanctum | A Presumption of Death | The Ambitious Stepmother
Criminal masterminds
Anthony Bourdain, of Kitchen Confidential fame, also writes crime novels. Ian Rankin is the creator of choleric, compassionate Rebus. When two crime writers get together, what do they talk about?
Young writers on trial
The teenage winners of a short crime story competition are much possessed by death, and have a penchant for criminal animals. Stephen Moss talks to the competition judges.
Just because you’re paranoid…
Michael Dibdin's conspiratorial novel, the latest Aurelio Zen thriller And Then You Die, is unnervingly close to Italian reality, says Tobias Jones
Murders she wrote
Maxim Jakubowski on Elizabeth Sanxay Holding, the pulp writer whose rattling tales of immorality shocked America and paved the way for Highsmith and Rendell
‘I think bank robbers are fabulous’
Jeffrey Archer thinks they're rubbish, but Martina Cole's East End crime novels are bestsellers in Essex - and prisoners everywhere just can't get enough of them. Jonathan Margolis meets her.