The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry review – pastiche Victoriana
An anaesthetist’s assistant and a plucky housemaid team up in a historical crime caper from husband-and-wife team Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman
The best recent thrillers – review roundup
Tenacious detectives in Victorian London and strangers with secrets in a health resort
Berta Isla by Javier Marías review – till espionage us do part
A couple’s marriage is threatened by the husband’s work for the secret service in a thought-provoking spin on the spy thriller
Gemma Arterton and Keira Knightley write hardhitting pieces for feminist collection
Arterton reimagines her Bond girl role for the #MeToo era, while Knightley writes frankly about the experience of motherhood
The best recent thrillers – review roundup
In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin; Shell Game by Sara Paretsky; Absolute Proof by Peter James; The Comforts of Home by Susan Hill; The Fox by Frederick Forsyth; The Syndicate by Guy Bolton; and Vanish in an Instant by Margaret Millar
Not the Booker: The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan review – thriller lost in plot
Opening with a powerful, sensitively drawn portrait of two bereaved children, this book’s drama soon becomes mechanical
The 50 biggest books of autumn 2018
From Haruki Murakami to Michelle Obama, what to read this season
Thrillers review: Breathe; Brothers in Blood; The Shrouded Path
A probationary constable hunts down a serial killer in fog-shrouded London; an ex-jailbird searches for a missing daughter; and the return of DC Connie Childs
The best recent thrillers – review roundup
Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne, Inhuman Resources by Pierre Lemaitre, Overkill by Vanda Symon, The Man Who Came Uptown by George Pelecanos, The Rival by Charlotte Duckworth and The Shrouded Path by Sarah Ward
Top 10 cliques in fiction
From the droogs in A Clockwork Orange to Donna Tartt’s murderous classicists in The Secret History, these intense friendships often involve bullying, rivalry and obsession
Vox by Christina Dalcher review – overblown feminist dystopia
Women get electric shocks if they speak more than 100 words a day in the latest speculative thriller to jump on the Handmaid’s Tale bandwagon
Thrillers review: A Double Life; Resin; Broken Ground
A tale inspired by Lord Lucan and a Danish Christmas nightmare are among this month’s standouts – along with the return of Val McDermid’s DCI Pirie
The Darkest Minds review – YA tropes smother teens-on-the-run drama
Amandla Stenberg and Mandy Moore star in this dystopian thriller about teenagers with superpowers attempting to escape a government internment camp
Firefly by Henry Porter review – flight from Isis
A gripping procedural takes us into a world of suffering refugees in the Middle East
The best recent thrillers – review roundup
Broken Ground by Val McDermid; Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill; A Summer of Murder by Oliver Bottini; A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott; Trust No One by Anthony Mosawi; Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter