The mean streets of 1960s Soho: Bent, by Joe Thomas, and other crime fiction reviewed
Brian De Palma brings his film director’s eye to Are Snakes Necessary? (Hard Case, £16.99), written in collaboration with the…
Hitler’s affair with his niece — and a failed attempt on his life— make for a sizzling thriller
The journalist Deepa Anappara turns to crime with her debut novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (Chatto & Windus,…
Crime fiction: a sole survivor is haunted by a family tragedy on a remote Scottish island
James Sallis has a modus operandi: never to waste a word. Sarah Jane (No Exit Press, £8.99) follows this stricture…
Crazy nannies and missing children: the latest crime fiction reviewed
Madeline Stevens’s debut thriller, Devotion (Faber, £12.99), might more appropriately have been titled ‘Desire’. It’s a riff on that old…
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The dark side of Whitby: Kate Atkinson’s Big Sky and other crime novels reviewed
Andrew Martin continues his quest to create uniquely interesting crime novels in The Winker (Corsair, £16.99). Lee Jones is a…
Murder at Margate — and other crimes of passion
Mr Todd is a lonely man, out of work, nursing a thousand grudges while he ekes out a living with…
Brexit can be surprisingly thrilling, as Alan Judd’s latest spy novel demonstrates
The long gestation period of Brexit has allowed authors to plan and write and publish novels in time for the…
Investigative journalists: new crime fiction reviewed
Despite being well-travelled as the BBC’s world affairs editor, John Simpson doesn’t roam far from home in his spy thriller,…
Shades of Lord Lucan: A Double Life, by Flynn Berry, reviewed
A young girl finds the body of her nanny, brutally murdered, and the barely moving form of her mother, a…
Deeply mysterious: the latest thrillers reviewed
Maggie is sitting alone in the park when she’s approached by Harvey, who introduces himself as a recruiter for MI5.…
Foreign bodies galore: the best new crime fiction
Ghosts of the Past by Marco Vichi (Hodder, £18.99) is unashamedly nostalgic in tone. The title could not be more…
Is it acceptable to spin an entertaining fantasy from real-life crime?
How can you defend a man you hate? John Fairfax, in his Blind Defence (Little Brown, £16.99), explores this dilemma.…
The Maigret novels are perfect for the train. Just don’t let their cynicism blight your view of your fellow passengers
Donald E. Westlake wrote crime books that were funny, light and intricate. Help I Am Being Held Prisoner (Hard Case…
Midwinter murders: the best Christmas thrillers
It’s difficult to keep a crime series going after 11 books but Boris Akunin manages it well in All the…
Recent crime fiction
Gabriel Tallent’s My Absolute Darling (4th Estate, £12.99) has the word masterpiece emblazoned on the cover, alongside quotes from several…
A Tokyo police procedural with a brilliant twist
The plot of Hideo Yokoyama’s Six Four begins in 1989, with the murder of Shoko, a seven-year-old girl. Fourteen years…
Riots and gang warfare provide the spark for the best latest thrillers
All it takes is a spark. In her compelling new thriller, Ten Days (Canongate, £14.99), Gillian Slovo tracks the progress…
Liars, stalkers and snipers populate in the latest crime novels
We fully expect con artists to be caught in a sting themselves, but even with that thought constantly in mind…
Sins of the past haunt the latest crime fiction
It’s often the case that present-day crimes have their roots in the past. Ian Rankin’s Even Dogs in the Wild…
When escape to the sun — or even to Devon — goes horribly wrong
A character in Sophie Hannah’s A Game for All the Family (Hodder, £14.99, pp. 432) presents a theory: ‘Mysteries are…
From conspiracy to childhood secrets: a choice of recent crime fiction
The act of reading always involves identification: with the story, the characters, the author’s intentions. Renée Knight takes this concept…
Murder in a black Texas Arcadia
Mystery fans and writers are always looking for new locations in which murder can take place. Attica Locke has an…
The best new crime novels (and a rule for enjoying them)
I have a rule: to ignore the prologue of a crime novel, especially if it’s printed in italics and written…
