Independence Square by AD Miller review – thriller in post-Soviet Ukraine

From Kiev to London by way of Greeneland … the Booker-shortlisted author’s protagonist searches for answers

‘The most boring part’: why the killer didn’t matter to Georges Simenon

Identifying the murderer in Maigret and the Man on the Bench is of scant concern to a writer preoccupied with deeper secrets

British Book awards balance art and selling power to decide best writer in 30 years

Novelists rub shoulders with presidents, chefs, comedians and thriller megastars on longlist to define the title with the biggest impact on the book world

John Sweeney: ‘You can’t be as neurotic as the BBC and cope with someone like me’

The investigative journalist famed for high-volume encounters with ‘baddies’ of all shades was let go by the corporation. But he’s turned it into material for a novel

Kirk Douglas: Hollywood’s impossibly handsome Colossus of Rhodes

Peter Bradshaw: He was an actor who blazed with a hyperreal masculinity – and heart-on-sleeve passion

‘Queen of Suspense’ Mary Higgins Clark dies aged 92

Each of the American author’s 56 novels was a bestseller and her fiction was extolled by writers from Scott Turow to David Foster Wallace

Long Bright River by Liz Moore review – startlingly fresh

A novel about a killer targeting sex workers amid America’s opioid crisis offers a memorable portrait of devastation

Nora Roberts: ‘I could fill all the bookstores in all the land’

Her 220 novels – from crime to romance to suspense – have sold 500m copies around the world. Her secret? Early morning Diet Pepsis and an eight-hour day

The Last Thing He Wanted review – misfiring Anne Hathaway thriller

Mudbound director Dee Rees stumbles with a confused Netflix adaptation of Joan Didion’s political thriller about a conflicted journalist in the 80s

The best recent thrillers – review roundup

Ageless children and a trio of women taking over a PI firm

Pine by Francine Toon review – a chilling gothic thriller

The empty house, the dark forest … an atmospheric ghost story set in the Scottish Highlands feels spookily familiar

Liz Moore: ‘It made a big impression to know early what addiction was’

Long Bright River portrays the blight of addiction in Philadelphia and in a troubled family. The novelist explains how her own experience informed its story

Lee Child letting go of his creation is a tale told by other bestsellers

The Jack Reacher author says he will hand on his character to his brother – following other writers who have surrendered their stories

Tom Watson’s betrayal thriller – and other politicians who vent in fiction

After quitting parliament over its ‘brutality’, Watson is co-writing thriller The House. Can we expect a tale about a deputy leader righting wrongs?

Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton review – 180 nail-biting minutes

The tension of a school siege is mingled with a meditation on the bonds of friendship