The Marlowe Papers: playing poetically with the playwright’s murder

Robert McCrum: Literary dialogue comes in many forms – webs of allusion, reference and literary homage. And Ros Barber's new novel The Marlowe Papers takes this conversation to another level

Simon Hoggart’s week: Jeremy Hunt and the art of self-deception

Simon Hoggart|Bizarre yarn with the ring of truth, paying tribute to the A303 and James Bond's switch from dry martinis to Heineken

The Blue Death by Joan Brady – review

There's something in the water in Joan Brady's unlikely thriller, writes Alison Flood

What are James Bond’s greatest gadgets?

Open thread: The author William Boyd wants to take the super-spy back to his roots. Tell us how you feel about a device-free 007

The Hunger Games review – enjoyable futurist adventure, presented with a compelling, beady-eyed intensity

There's a tang of satire in this televised survival-contest thriller that allows it to outrun the Twilight comparisons

The Expats by Chris Pavone – review

An American mum abroad juggles playdates, coffee mornings and her CIA past in this accomplished debut thriller, writes Alison Flood

Jo Nesbø: ‘I am a vulture’

The bestselling Norwegian crime writer tells Andrew Anthony about the violence in his books, Anders Breivik and why his baddies are Arsenal fans

The President by Georges Simenon – review

This 1958 novella is an astute psychological study of a politician in possession of the means to bring down a government, says Kristen Treen

Scarlett Johansson to play Janet Leigh in the Making of Psycho

Johansson to star opposite Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren in Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho

Absolution by Patrick Flanery – review

A literary thriller intersecting lives in a South Africa torn apart by struggle evokes Graham Greene, writes Adam O'Riordan

Kind of Cruel by Sophie Hannah – review

Sophie Hannah's seventh foray into the world of thrillers is cool, calculating and chilling, writes Alison Flood

Pantheon by Sam Bourne – review

Jonathan Freedland's latest pacy thriller as Sam Bourne connects a number of leftwing intellectuals to a real-life scandal that brought shame upon Yale, writes Ben Shephard

Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon – review

Mary Elizabeth Braddon scandalised Victorian England with her bestselling murder mystery, writes Rhiannon Williams

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo cancelled in India

Oscar-nominated thriller withdrawn from release in India after director David Fincher refuses to cut 'unsuitable' sex scenes

The Devil’s Garden by Edward Docx – review

Edward Docx's South American jungle eco-thriller addresses big questions about power and progress, writes James Purdon