Hay festival temptations: heaven is other people’s books

Sarah Crown: My determination to mug up on the authors I'm meeting is overpowered by the lure of a little row of paperbacks

Theakstons prize: women close the gap in crime

Longlist for major UK crime writing award shows more even gender balance, with Susan Hill, Val McDermid and Martina Cole in running

Innocent by Scott Turow

America's foremost legal-thriller writer puts his most famous defendant back on trial, writes Alison Flood

Villains in the Vatican

Mark Lawson: From Foreign Office memo writers to prescient novelists, the pope and Catholicism have become the evil force of choice

Blood Harvest by SJ Bolton

This adept thriller writer's third novel, set in a remote corner of the Pennines, is her creepiest yet, says Alison Flood

Bolt

Radio 7's serialisation of the Dick Francis thriller is an event to savour, says Camilla Redmond

How the tattoo went high street

Libby Brooks: A new film shows how the cultural role of body art has changed. While some new insignias may irk, I'm still glad of mine

The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre

This existential thriller about sex scandals in the church is a worthy winner of Canada's Giller prize, says Rosalind Porter

Crime novelist sued for setting plot around Paris landmark

Lalie Walker wrote latest thriller as a tribute to a Montmartre fabric store, but store's owners say the book is defamatory

61 Hours by Lee Child

Just when thriller addicts thought they had seen the last of the great heroes, Jack Reacher strikes again, writes Euan Ferguson

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Stieg Larsson's blockbuster crime thriller is brought successfully to the screen, writes Philip French

Stieg Larsson – by the woman who shared his life

The first film of the Swedish writer's work is about to open in Britain, his books are smashing sales records round the world, and an ex-colleague has written a book questioning his reputation. Now the woman who shared Larsson's life tells Rachel Cooke of the grief she suffered, and her crusade to guard his flame