Thrillers

The best recent crime and thriller writing – review roundup

Terry Hayes’s gripping second novel was worth the 10-year wait, while Michael Caine’s first thriller has bags of energy and rises above cliche – plus a creepily compelling tale of reality TV and a cryptic cracker

Alison Flood

28, Nov, 2023 @9:00 AM

‘I lived in a state of terror’: Patricia Cornwell on childhood trauma, her new novel and the search for Bigfoot

As pathologist Kay Scarpetta makes her 28th appearance in print, her creator recalls what it’s really like to conduct a postmortem – and a very odd encounter in the Virginia woods

Emine Saner

20, Nov, 2023 @5:00 AM

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes; The First 48 Hours by Simon Kernick; The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou by Eleni Kyriacou; The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok; Gaslight by Femi Kayode

Laura Wilson

17, Nov, 2023 @12:00 PM

John le Carré’s son to write new George Smiley novel

Nicholas Cornwell will return his father’s best-loved spy to the page in a new novel set between The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Lucy Knight

10, Nov, 2023 @2:00 PM

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett; West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman; Mrs Sidhu’s Dead and Scone by Suk Pannu; Kennedy 35 by Charles Cumming; The North Light by Hideo Yokoyama

Laura Wilson

20, Oct, 2023 @11:00 AM

The Secret Life of John le Carré by Adam Sisman review – the constant philanderer

Three years after le Carré’s death, his official biographer reveals the adultery that was off limits during his lifetime. Does it further our appreciation of his work?

Anthony Cummins

15, Oct, 2023 @6:00 AM

The best recent crime and thriller writing – review roundup

JK Rowling, as Robert Galbraith, is back with a cult classic, while elsewhere past crimes make for gripping reads

Alison Flood

03, Oct, 2023 @8:00 AM

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford review – a ‘what if’ classic

The writer’s alternative history – a thriller set in a 1920s US with a huge and thriving Native American population – underlines the range and power of his imagination

Alex Preston

25, Sep, 2023 @9:00 AM

Author Mick Herron: ‘I’d have made an awful spy. I don’t have a smartphone or wifi’

As he publishes a new standalone novel, the spotlight-shunning author of the Slow Horses books talks about politics, time-travel and identity-swapping

Kate Kellaway

10, Sep, 2023 @10:00 AM