‘The Booker prize money wouldn’t even keep me in cigarettes’
Her thrillers sell in their millions, so why do critics ignore her? Writer Martina Cole talks gangs, gongs and the good life with Carole Cadwalladr
Dan Brown and the literati’s pen envy
Peter Beech: Elitist critics have come out in force against Dan Brown's new book. But what exactly has provoked their ire?
The demon in Dan Brown
Carrie Quinlan: I share the Vatican's horror at the flouting of a ban on filming Angels and Demons. But mainly because it's a rubbish book
Small cameras and fake tourists: how Angels and Demons flouted Vatican ban
Cameramen posing as tourists shot more than 250,000 photographs and hours of video, used by producers of Da Vinci Code prequel to get around ban on filming in Rome's churches
Angelina Jolie makes the cut for Kay Scarpetta films
The crusty coroner protagonist of 16 bestselling crime novels by Patricia Cornwell is being developed as a possible franchise vehicle for Angelina Jolie
Angels and Demons follow-up film in the works
Studio plans film of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol even before Angels and Demons adaptation is released
French resistance: Costa Gavras
Costa Gavras: 'My mother used to say stay away from politics, because my father went to prison. But we can't not be involved. By not taking a position, you take a position'
Catholic League targets Da Vinci Code prequel
Having campaigned against the original Dan Brown adaptation, The Catholic League will repeat their efforts for its prequel, Angels and Demons
Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington set for Cronenberg spy thriller
Cruise and Washington are to play rival spies in David Cronenberg's adaptation of the Robert Ludlum thriller The Matarese Circle
My part in Ruth Rendell’s latest thriller
Jon Henley comes face to face with himself while reading a novel by the Queen of Crime
A life in writing: Dennis Lehane
'I've always been fascinated with loss of innocence or corruption of the soul at a young age'
The Spirit
Frank Miller's adaptation of the antique comic strip by Will Eisner is brash, noisy and so alarmingly ill-paced that it should with a software package that allows viewers to recut it as they see fit
The Reader
Kate Winslet is good as a former Auschwitz guard, but she can't save Stephen Daldry's shallow adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's novel. By Peter Bradshaw
How Michael Crichton struck fear into the bestseller list
Adrian Wootton: Michael Crichton wasn't really interested in characters, but his innate talent for storytelling enabled him to breathe new life into the science fiction thriller