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

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.

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

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?

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.