Thriller
Dangerously close to home
Mystery fans and writers are always looking for new locations in which murder can take place. Attica Locke has an…
Good old bad old days
Anthony Quinn’s fourth novel, set in London’s artistic and theatrical circles in 1936, is not the kind in which an…
How J-Lo can you go?
Stateside critics, who panned Jennifer Lopez’s new film The Boy Next Door on its US release last month, may be…
Great coat
A Most Violent Year is a riveting drama even though I can’t tell you what it’s about, or even what…
Slowly, slowly, catchy, catchy
Foxcatcher is a crime drama (of sorts) that has already been dubbed ‘Oscarcatcher!’ as it barely puts a foot wrong.…
Back in the mean streets
Aficionados of detective fiction have long known that the differences between the soft- and hard-boiled school are so profound that,…
Playing it for laughs
Gone Girl is David Fincher’s adaptation of the bestselling thriller by Gillian Flynn, a relentless page-turner which I’ve heard people…
Quiet, calm consideration…
Alan Judd’s spy novels occupy a class of their own in the murky world of espionage fiction, partly because they…
Doubly unexpected
Stephen King’s latest novel, Mr Mercedes, is dedicated to James M. Cain and described as ‘a riveting suspense thriller’ —…
Love and betrayal
The title of Charles Cumming’s seventh novel is both a nod to the comfortable polarities of Cold War and also…
Booked for murder
Like teenage children and their parents, authors and publishers have a symbiotic relationship characterised by well-justified irritation on both sides.…
The corpse in the cupboard
The single most terrifying moment of my adult life occurred at 8.55 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday 5 August…
Corpses and clichés
Isabel Allende is not an author one usually associates with the thrillers about serial killers. Ripper, however, lives up to…
Dutch comfort
Donna Tartt is an expert practitioner of what David Hare has called ‘the higher hokum’. She publishes a long novel…
