Table of contents for Crime Scene UK 0004 in Crime Scene

This issue we’re celebrating the Hitchcock-style suspense of THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, both the grip-lit phenomenon and the blockbuster film arriving in the autumn. Read on to find out why it’s Emily Blunt’s toughest role so far, and discover how author Paula Hawkins created a global bestseller. Elsewhere in this issue we’ve hung out with BETTER CALL SAUL’s Bob Odenkirk, chatted to VAL McDERMID, experienced the Southern charm of LETHAL WEAPON star Clayne Crawford and joined the NEW BLOOD boys on set at the Docklands Light Railway. To continue the rail theme, this month the team and I have chosen our favourite crime novel to lose yourself in during a train journey – basically, the book you wouldn’t mind missing your stop for. I’ve gone for Poirot (more…

“She thought about murder from the age of eight” Jill Dawson has written novels about real-life figures, from the poet Rupert Brooke to 1920s murderess Edith Thompson. When it came to portraying a crime writer, Patricia Highsmith was top of the list. “You’re very quickly drawn into her novels – probably people are either fans or dislike her intensely, she’s that kind of a writer,” Dawson tells Crime Scene. “I was very much lost in the quite mesmeric style that she has.” Highsmith lived a troubled, alcoholic life up until her death in Switzerland, aged 74, in 1995. Born in Texas, she had a nomadic existence in various European countries. And Highsmith had curious habits, such as her fondness for travelling with pet snails in her bra. “She certainly is…

“I write about people, not about Scandinavia” I’m a great believer in the universality of the crime genre. I’m convinced that crime fiction’s tremendous popularity in many parts of the world, despite the great diversity and variation in the field, is because it deals in universal themes. Crime fiction is currently the genre that most acutely explores the great and eternal – one could even say biblical – issues: guilt, atonement, punishment, responsibility. Thus, it does not matter what country or region a writer such as myself comes from. “I’m aware that I’m part of the Nordic Noir tradition. Few crime writers in Scandinavia today can evade affinity with Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, who wrote their Martin Beck series between 1965 and 1975. That duo in many ways founded…

“The audiobook breathes pace into Stieg Larsson’s twisty tale” I tried to read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson and couldn’t get past the very long opening chapter. I turned to the audiobook and the narrator, Saul Reichlin, brought the tale of Lisbeth Salander to life, breathing pace into this twisty tale and, frankly, by the end of the trilogy, I was left bereft and at a loss to find another audiobook to match it. This type of captivation, where you find yourself sitting in your car waiting for a chapter to finish, is a fantastic experience and seldom have author and narrator bonded as in The Beauty Of Murder by A. K. Benedict. Narrator Nick Rawlinson draws the reader along the path of Stephen Killigan’s adventures…

“Any time books have a positive force it’s to be celebrated” With its premise of air crash survivors and conspiracies, Before The Fall could be a film or TV series. Why write it as a novel? As a work of fiction you get to go a lot deeper, and being able to tell a story both moving forwards and backwards was really interesting to me. A plane would go into the water, a man would rescue a boy, and then we would also go back to revisit the lives of people who didn’t survive and try to figure out why the plane went down in the first place. How does it compare to Fargo ? I think there is some shared idea with…

“Writing is a very difficult dream to nurture. Don’t worry what anybody says” What’s the very first crime fiction you ever remember reading? When I was a teenager, I remember reading Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe’s stories. I cut my teeth on Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, and the crime writers who fascinated me were Georges Simenon and the Maigret novels, Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series and, of course, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Agatha Christie. What’s your favourite crime novel ever and why? I’m very fond of Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. It’s the atmosphere, the writing, and the sense of place. Chandler wasn’t a great plotter, and in fact his books can get quite confusing towards the end. But it’s the style, the humour and the voice of Marlowe…

If you’re in need of further summer reading inspiration, six suspects have been unveiled as contenders for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Two debuts make the shortlist for the award. Former police officer Clare Mackintosh (above) is nominated for her bestseller I Let You Go, a novel about the aftermath of a hit-and-run that was one of the fastest selling thrillers of 2015. Her follow-up novel, I See You, is out on 28 July. Former TV documentary maker Renee Knight’s first novel, Disclaimer, is about a woman who realises the book she’s reading is a shocking portrayal of her secret past. This year’s other nominees include J.K. Rowling, writing as Robert Galbraith, for her third Cormoran Strike novel, Career Of Evil. The crime series is set…

SERIES 1 | EPISODE 2 After introducing the Savastano crime family, Gomorrah takes off in Episode 2 when Don Pietro’s protégé Ciro is tasked with making a man of Camorra clan heir Genny: cue some shooting practice on a human target. When Don Pietro is arrested with a large amount of cash, Ciro thinks he’s well placed to lead the crime enterprise with the untested Genny. SERIES 1 | EPISODE 4 While Genny adjusts to his new status and tries to impress a girl in front of his cronies, Don Pietro has to try and run things from inside jail – but a tough warden cracks down on the soft regime. So the mafia boss instigates a prison riot to regain control. In the event, he wins the battle but…

Flashpoint (2008 — 13) Over five seasons Toronto’s Strategic Response Unit diffused emergencies involving gangs, bombs and hostages using negotiation and high-tech gear. The terrific cast included Person Of Interest’s Enrico Colantoni, Continuum’s Hugh Dillon and former Power Ranger Amy Jo Johnson. Season 1 was released on DVD in the UK by ITV Studios. Motive (2013 — 16) Adopting Columbo’s modus operandi, this Vancouver-based procedural revealed the killer to viewers at the beginning of episodes and then let the investigators catch up. It lasted four seasons fronted by Kristin Lehman (The Killing) and Louis Ferreira (Breaking Bad, Bates Motel). Seasons 1 and 2 are available on DVD from Universal Pictures UK. Rookie Blue (2010 — 2015) More drama than procedural, this ran for six seasons as the Grey’s Anatomy of…

1 THE MERMAIDS SINGING (1995) The first book in the Tony Hill series is a literary sucker punch: the killer’s torture scenes will knock you sideways. Extreme, but there’s also a psychological depth and an unconventional hero in criminal profiler Dr Tony Hill. 2 BLUE GENES (1996) McDermid showed a lighter touch with private eye Kate Brannigan. Blue Genes opens with a death notice in the newspaper for her music journalist boyfriend. In fact, it’s a cunning plan that sets the tone for a humorous novel that’s not afraid of big issues. 3 A PLACE OF EXECUTION (1999) McDermid won acclaim for this standalone. It’s 1963, and DI George Bennett is searching for a missing girl in Derbyshire. In the present day, a journalist is working with the retired detective…

Was Sir Kenneth Branagh personally responsible for the rise of Nordic Noir? Not exactly, but he played a major role in the Scandinavian crime boom when, in 2008, he introduced viewers to melancholy Swedish detective Kurt Wallander. While Henning Mankell’s majestic novels already had a devoted readership, Branagh put Ystad in southern Sweden on the map with his atmospheric English language adaptation and Bafta-winning performance. Eight years later, Branagh is back – along with the detective’s irritating ringtone – for the fourth and final series of the BBC drama. However, we now live in a world of Walter Presents and its online curation of foreign drama, as well as routine Saturday night subtitles on BBC4’s crime imports and a primetime hit for Channel 4 with the German-language Deutschland 83. Having…

Follow The Money certainly comes with strong Nordic Noir credentials: creator Jeppe Gjervig Gram co-wrote Borgen, executive producer Anders Toft Andersen worked on The Killing. Together they attempt to prove that the Danish boardroom can be just as promising a setting for crime drama as the dark streets of Copenhagen – and they almost succeed. Beautiful cinematography by the likes of Jonas Alarik, Niels Reedtz Johansen and Eric Kress certainly helps; the contrasting worlds of low-street criminality and bright, open-plan offices are clearly delineated. Admittedly, Per Fly – who directs the opening two episodes – is arguably too fond of on-screen darkness for his own good, but perhaps he was just told to ensure that Follow the Money actually looked like Nordic Noir? A solid, reliable cast – Thomas Bo…

The fact that the final season of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is its 15th is proof that this much admired show must have been doing something right. The cast in this extended five-disc farewell is as strong as ever, with a silver-haired Ted Danson (Cheers now a distant memory) radiating sombre authority as the dogged D.B. Russell, and Elisabeth Shue perfectly cast as the impulsive but intuitive Julie Finlay. The various intersecting plotlines here involve a terrified Finlay trapped inside a car that has been wired to explode (with the suspense maintained over two episodes), while Russell’s search for the enigmatic Gig Harbor Killer becomes very personal. And a shooting at a legalised marijuana store is to have dangerous and far-reaching consequences. Admittedly, all the clichés of police procedurals resurface…

Jed Mercurio’s drama about the AC-12 unit investigating police corruption stakes its claim for crime TV greatness with its third series. It grabs you by the throat from the opening scenes: an armed response unit tooling up with semi-automatic Glock pistols, followed by Sergeant Danny Waldron’s (Daniel Mays) cold-blooded execution of an unarmed suspect and his bullying of junior officers to back up his version of events. When he’s quizzed about the shooting, Danny is a coldly officious RoboCop who runs rings around the AC-12 officers. As DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) says, the easiest way to get away with murder is to be a police offer. It’s a chilling line, especially as DC Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) is about to go undercover amid the firearms. But your expectations are…

Given how successful the books were, and the fact that the programme’s writers (William Link and Richard Levinson) were also responsible for Columbo and Murder, She Wrote, it’s something of a mystery that Ellery Queen was not more popular. The show was cancelled in 1976 after just one series of 22 episodes, plus the pilot (all in this collection). The casting is excellent. Jim Hutton is likeable as crime writer and amateur detective Ellery Queen, and David Wayne believable as his police inspector father Richard. Regular characters include Sergeant Velie, from the novels, and two written for the show: greasily dapper radio sleuth Simon Brimmer (John Hillerman) and seedy but effective journalist Frank Flannigan (Ken Swofford). And there’s an impressive roster of guest stars, including Joan Collins, Ida Lupino and…

HEISENBERG FIGURE Take inspiration from the chemistry-teacher-turned-crime-kingpin on a daily basis with your own realistic action figure of Walter White, aka Heisenberg. Comes complete with sunglasses, pork-pie hat, pistol and five stacks of blood money. Admittedly, this is one for the uber-fan – especially with its £149.99 price tag. T-SHIRTS Take your pick from the chicken restaurant T-shirt, the garish yellow Better Call Saul (looks a bit tricky to iron, that one) or the grey University of American Samoa, a reference to that fine institution where Jimmy McGill passed his legal exams. SOUNDTRACK Get down to the sounds of Saul, or Jimmy, or Gene – or whatever he’s called these days. There’s a lounge music vibe to the soundtrack, including the likes of Henry Mancini and the Dave Brubeck Quartet.…

To say that Michel Bussi’s After The Crash made a considerable mark is to understate the case. The highly original premise had critics seeking out new adjectives to lavish praise on this narrative of the tragic aftermath of a plane crash. His new book, however, is a very different kettle of fish, involving a murder in the garden of the French impressionist Monet – and is fashioned on a more modest scale. Bussi takes us to Giverny, where tourists flock to see the gardens Monet painted, but reveals another side to this idyllic French village when Jérôme Morval, a man of great passions (for both art and women), is found murdered in the stream that runs through Monet’s gardens. Three different women are somehow involved in his death: the attractive…

The volume of new spy thrillers on the market at the moment suggests that readers have a healthy appetite for these high-octane stories. With Spare Me The Truth there’s another addition to the intrigue-filled genre. With a story that moves around from London to India and back again, this is a multi-stranded conspiracy thriller featuring amnesia, international corruption, multiple murders and the hidden world of spies at its core. Readers of this first book in the Dan Forrester series will find themselves immersed in a pulsating story told from the point of view of three main protagonists. Around this cast, Carver has woven a plot that is as rich as it is intriguing. After a somewhat slow start, you’re drawn into the world of these characters and the pace soon…

We’ve reached book 23 in the Inspector Banks series and our hero’s had a promotion to Detective Superintendent. If you expect the new title to come with a desk job, think again – Banks is soon in charge of a case that taxes his powers to the very limit. While Banks is investigating a case of historical sexual abuse by a well-known TV personality, DI Annie Cabbot and DC Geraldine Masterson are called to a murder scene. The naked, badly beaten body of a young teenage girl is found in a quiet rural lane. Subsequent forensic examination reveals signs of multiple rape and toxicology shows ketamine in her bloodstream. Meanwhile, Banks meets with both the accused celebrity and one of his accusers – and he’s in no doubt as to…

Fourteen novels and one novella on, John Connolly’s supernaturally-tinged private investigator Charlie Parker – forever helping lost souls at the risk of his own – this time comes up against the Cut, an isolated and inbred community which, for generations, has used fear and occasional violence to keep the rest of the world at bay, and to protect and revenge its own whenever they stray out into the world. Connolly is prone to use somewhat ornate and poetic vocabulary, as well as the occasional authorial flourishes – “Let us leave Roger Ormsby for now, staring into the empty trunk…” being an all too early example. He also has a tendency to set aside an entire chapter to fill in the backstory of a character once they’ve been first introduced, pausing…

Although she was a contemporary of Golden Age detective authors, Patricia Highsmith was an outsider who had no interest in justice, didn’t much bother with detection and readily identified with her fictional murderers. Her disquieting novels and strange habits (she famously travelled with pet snails in her bra) provided plenty of material for biographers. Now she’s the subject of a suspenseful novel, which explores the American author’s spell living in Suffolk in the ’60s. The period detail is as well drawn as the fictional Highsmith, a boozy, self-reliant Texan who balances solitude with sexual adventure and appears preoccupied with the idea of murder; she certainly shakes up sleepy Suffolk. Beyond the biographical checklist, Dawson has fashioned an intoxicating, shadowy narrative – the crime writer could have a stalker, someone might…

Blood Sister is the first novel in Dreda Say Mitchell’s new trilogy, to be followed by Blood Mother and Blood Daughter in 2017. It opens with a fierce confrontation and then plunges you straight into the troubled lives of Jen and Tiffany Miller, sisters trying to break free from the Essex Lane Estate, in East London, better known locally as the Devil’s Estate. Crime is a way of life on the Devil’s Estate, and taxi drivers refuse to enter knowing they will be lucky to get out with all four wheels still intact on their car. Jen dreams of being a fashion designer, while Tiffany ducks and dives, doing little jobs for local dodgy geezers. Their mother, Babs, is barely holding on, relying on prescription drugs and booze to stop…

Can murder be justified? Is it ever right to take the law into your own hands? These are the questions at the centre of Tony Parsons’ latest novel, The Hanging Club. It’s DC Max Wolfe’s third case, but this time he’s taking centre stage – his boss needs time off and Wolfe becomes the senior investigating officer. Now it’s his job to track down the vigilantes who are snatching people from the street, hanging them in a secret location and putting the video on the internet. The victims have one thing in common: they have escaped justice in a court of law. The first man to be murdered is a gang member who abused vulnerable young people; the second is a drunk driver who killed a child; the third a…

Chris Ewan made his name with the Good Thief ’s Guide series of novels, which are now being adapted for television. Since its conclusion, he’s been writing standalones. Books like Safe House and Dark Tides, set on the Isle of Man, have gripped readers with a heady brew of suspense, secrets and spooky shadows. Long Time Lost also starts off on the Isle of Man but soon leaves its maudlin shores for an action-packed chase across Europe taking in the South of France, Hamburg, Prague and… Weston-super-Mare. When a big, rugged man called Miller appears, Kate Sutherland is suddenly scared out of her witness protection malaise. Somehow she’s been found. Luckily, Miller’s not her assassin but he offers his own brand of witness protection – because if he can find…

This is a hard book to read, dark, violent and sexual, yet underlying this brutality is a clever plot woven into prose that depicts 1930s Stockholm in a detailed manner. No one in this book is attractive, and protagonist Harry Kvist is far from a typical hero – he’s a has-been among a string of has-beens. Kvist is a washed-up, bisexual ex-boxer who collects debts for a meagre living. His homosexual preferences led to his undoing, and Holmen’s portrayal of Stockholm in the ’30s reminds us how oppressive legal systems once were and how difficult it was to be gay in these times. That is the core of this book: the dark, sometimes seedy and often brutal life of homosexual men in a period when the act was illegal. This…

The must-read Scandinavian crime novel right now has to be The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund (Harvill Secker). The authors are a Swedish duo and their story revolves around a series of child murders in Stockholm. With a dark atmosphere, great characters and psychological edge, in Nordic Noir tradition it delivers on social critique too. Remaining in the Nordic realm, Ragnar Jonasson’s third mystery, Blackout (Orenda Books), lands Icelandic detective Ari Thor Arason on the trail of a brutal killer. It is summer, the time of the midnight sun on the island’s northern coast, but Ari’s world descends into darkness when a volcano issues a huge ash cloud that blots out the sky and hinders his investigation. Next we land in balmy Calcutta right after World War I, where…

“Why do people wait until a series is unpopular before they make a film?” As Series 3 of Peaky Blinders concludes, the cast and creator have been discussing the future of the Brummie gangster drama. “I want to do the General Strike next, I want to go into 1926,” showrunner Steven Knight tells Crime Scene. “It was an interesting time – a lot of people believed the coming of communism was inevitable.” Knight says his ultimate ambition is to end 15 years on from Series 3, during the first air-raid siren of World War II. “I just like the idea of that siren going off,” says Knight. “I’m going to have to start doing bigger jumps [in time].” As well as planning Series 4, the TV and film scriptwriter says…

My love of the vengeful female comes from my first watching of Stephen King’s Carrie when I was 13. How could I fail to be mesmerised, terrified and dumbstruck by Carrie White’s revenge on her psychotically-religious mother, and the entire school who had ridiculed her sad, oppressed life? Go, Carrie, with your pig’s blood and impressive telekinetic knife throwing skills. You were way cooler than all those generic, simpering pretty girls. And that bloke you fancied had truly awful hair. Since then, I’ve been completely fascinated (possibly obsessed) by the wronged female who seeks revenge for the awful things that have befallen her. Who decides if she’s justified in her actions? ‘Ha!’, you think. She’s just some crazy lady with hormone issues. Or maybe, just maybe, somebody pushed her too…

“It’s been a complete joy to work on books in my day job and write books in the evening” Within minutes of meeting Joseph Knobbs, it’s obvious that he’s passionate about crime fiction: he’s soon raving about lost classics and hardboiled favourites. As crime fiction buyer for Waterstones, he has the power to make a novel a bestseller: it’s up to him which new titles the chain will go big on. “I have a reputation in the company as a crime expert – or a geek,” he tells Crime Scene. “It’s the dream job.” After graduating with an English degree in Manchester, he started out as a bookseller in the city. “It was a blast, Waterstones has been one of the most positive things in my life,” says Knobbs, who…

“I can walk on any terrain in stiletto heels now,” laughs Ashley Jensen. “Grass, cobbles, gravel… I’ve scaled walls! I’ve opened doors with my heels. I’ve smashed windows with my heels.” When Crime Scene catches up with her, she’s comfortably ensconced in a central London hotel room, no broken windows in sight. In her everyday life, Jensen’s not particularly keen on killer heels. But for playing amateur sleuth Agatha Raisin, they’re essential – even character-defining. “It’s a whole silhouette,” Jensen explains. “We created that stamp of identity that a lot of television detectives have. It was a big deal finding the look of her. Once I had the costume on, I was like, ‘yes, I know who I am now’.” That might be more than Raisin herself does. As you’ll…

EVA GOETHALS (Barbara Sarafian) The oldest sister of the clan. Single and infertile, as Jean-Claude is keen to remind her. VEERLE GOETHALS (Kristine van Pellicom) A married nurse with three children. Not exactly faithful to her husband. BIRGIT “BIBI” GOETHALS (Ruth Becquart) Married with two children. Wears an eyepatch due to a crossbow accident. REBEKKA “BEKKA” GOETHALS (Maaike Neuville) The youngest, Bekka is a masseuse and in a relationship with one of the investigators. GOEDELE “GOELE” GOETHALS-DELCORPS (Inge Paulussen) Jean-Claude’s long-suffering wife. Very much under her husband’s thumb.…

Mark Ruffalo – ‘A Cop, A Mountie And A Baby’ (Season 1) Ruffalo plays Vinnie Webber, a young father indebted to a money lender. He’s only spared a worse beating when he reveals that he’s planning to raise the money he owes by selling his baby. Carrie-Anne Moss – ‘Juliet Is Bleeding’ (Season 2) Moss (The Matrix) plays Irene Zuko – Ray Vecchio’s childhood sweetheart and sister of his nemesis, gangster Frankie Zuko – in this tragic climax to the second series of Due South. Leslie Nielsen – ‘Manhunt’, ‘All The Queen’s Horses’, ‘Call Of The Wild’ Nielsen brings his deadpan Police Squad! shtick as Buck Frobisher, who first encounters Fraser in Chicago. He can see the ghost of Fraser’s father, who was his best friend. Maria Bello – ‘One…

“THE POWER OF HAPPY VALLEY LIES IN SALLY WAINWRIGHT’S MEMORABLE CHARACTERS” It’s easy to think the two series that have cemented writer Sally Wainwright’s reputation couldn’t be more different. Where Last Tango In Halifax is largely joyful twinkliness, Happy Valley is gritty and tough, its tone set by Jake Bugg’s gnarly ‘Trouble Town’ theme – to the extent indeed that it’s difficult to imagine anywhere less happy than Sergeant Catherine Cawood’s Yorkshire patch. But look closer and the differences aren’t as great as they might first appear. This isn’t just down to similar settings and the presence of Sarah Lancashire, it’s because both shows are, in key respects, about extended families. In Last Tango, that’s largely a positive. For all that the marriage of Alan and Celia causes problems for…

“BLUE EYES SUCCEEDS AS A COMPLEX AND ENGROSSING THRILLER WITH A DRIVEN HEROINE” The sombre mystery of The Killing meets the political intrigue of Borgen in a Scandi-noir spin on House Of Cards that finds rich dramatic capital in the recent electoral gains that far-right parties have been achieving across Europe. Set in the run-up to a national election, this tense 10-parter could hardly be better timed, arriving as it does just as UK voters are making their own minds up about Britain’s relationship with the continent. Even without that context, though, Blue Eyes succeeds as a complex and engrossing thriller with a heroine every bit as driven as Sarah Lund or Birgitte Nyborg. Say hello to Elin Hammar (Louise Peterhoff ), a disgraced ex-employee of the Swedish justice secretary…

“EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS IN THE NOVEL HAS BEEN FAULTLESSLY RECREATED ON SCREEN” Surprisingly, given the gripping plots and potent characters he furnishes, this is the first time in 25 years that one of John le Carré’s novels has been adapted for TV, and the wait was almost worth it. The Night Manager, originally published in 1993, has been skilfully updated, shorn of a few plot diversions, and subjected to one wholly unexpected casting decision. And, as le Carré himself generously concedes (in an afterword appended to the new paperback reissue), everything that matters in the novel – storyline, character, prevailing mood, underlying themes – has been faultlessly recreated on screen. Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston), disaffected ex-army wanderer, is night manager of a smart Cairo hotel. His actions indirectly lead to…

“AS SHOCK DEATHS AND EVIL CHEMISTS THICKEN THE AIR, GREAT CASTING PRESERVES CLARITY” America’s Diane Kruger-starring twist on The Bridge lasted just two seasons, but you hope a happier fate awaits this Anglo-Franco variant. Ben Richards’ The Tunnel is a largely exemplary remake-as-reinvention: after Series 1’s Scando-xerox, the show’s head writer confidently forges fresh routes second time round without losing sight of the main event. Picking up a year on from Series 1’s tragic climax, Sabotage doesn’t muck about. The opening episode involves airplane passengers shored up on a beach, a hairy kidnap in the Channel Tunnel, horrifying gang-rape and a chilling act of remote-control airborne terrorism. And Clémence Poésy’s newly promoted Commander Elise Wassermann doesn’t candy-coat her disinterest in babies. Yet even with escalation thrust upfront, the nuanced…

“GRIPS WITH POTENT ACTING, A VIVID PLOT AND ATMOSPHERICALLY UNFAMILIAR TOPOGRAPHY” With the ever-increasing popularity of Nordic noir, it was only a matter of time before Iceland got in on the act. What might not have been predicted was quite what a runaway smash-hit the 10-part series Trapped would prove to be. Well over a million UK viewers tuned in, gripped by the potent acting, the vivid plot and the atmospherically unfamiliar topography. Trapped is set in the little fishing port of Seyðisfjörður in Iceland’s East Fjords, at the very opposite end of the island from Reykjavík – and that remoteness is key to the action. The plot kicks off when a mutilated human torso headless, limbless and covered in stab wounds – is caught in a trawler’s net. Did…

“A PERFECT STORM OF TELEKINESIS AND TERROR” Although he sometimes dabbled in the genre, Stephen King really became a crime writer in 2014 with Mr Mercedes – a nasty, supremely readable thriller about an ex-cop pursuing the psychopath who mowed down a crowd of people in a grey Mercedes SL500. King’s now completed a trilogy featuring his retired Midwestern detective Bill Hodges. In this third book, Hodges has become gaunt and sick; perhaps that title hints he won’t be coming back. Several years after the slaughter, the ailing Hodges is still obsessed with Mr Mercedes. While a blow to the head has consigned the killer, Brady Hartsfield, to a brain injury clinic, Hodges suspects him of malingering in order to escape justice. The sly Hartsfield has partially recovered but something’s…

“A GRIPPING STORY WITH BELIEVABLE CHARACTERS” After recovering addict Heather Finlay is found dead, DI Nicola Tanner quickly decides that her killer is most likely to be a member of the small counselling support group she used to attend: a supposedly “safe place” in which she and four others – a disparate group “that nobody could have mistaken… for a group of close friends. Even work colleagues would be a stretch” – were encouraged by therapist Tony De Silva to share their deepest secrets, fears and shame. Tanner’s investigation is hampered, however, by not just the strict confidentiality binding the group and therapist together, but also the tendency towards denial and deception that can characterise those dealing with addiction. An interesting aspect of Mark Billingham’s latest novel is that it…

“HILARY’S IMAGERY IS SO EVOCATIVE YOU CAN ALMOST TASTE IT” Sarah Hilary’s third DI Marnie Rome thriller couldn’t have been set anywhere other than London. Partly that’s because it would be weird to uproot her star detective after two books set in her hometown, but mostly it’s because this is a story that relies heavily on its setting. Though it might sound like a cliché, London really is a character in this book. It’s not a London of hardened gangsters and bent cops, though. No, this is a far more believable – though still dangerous version of the city. It’s a London where rich and poor brush shoulders in the streets without making eye contact; where troubled teenagers can disappear all too easily. It’s a city with secrets, where pain…

“ANDREW TAYLOR’S VIVID PROSE MAKES FOR A SENSORY EXPERIENCE” Where some historical crime writers like to show off their learning, so that it feels like you’re in a school lesson rather than reading a novel, Andrew Taylor’s prose makes for a sensory experience. Within a few pages of The Ashes Of London, which depicts the Great Fire of 1666, you can imagine what it was like for a 17th century Londoner watching their city in flames. The sound of the blaze that “roared its rage” is evoked as much as the heat and fiery glow, which makes the nighttime capital as “bright as midday”. St Paul’s, gutted by the fire, is a focal point for the novel. Taylor describes rats on fire fleeing the cathedral and being doused in a…

“JUSTIFIES ITS LENGTH WITH STORYTELLING RIGOUR THAT DOESN’T FALTER” Peter James has achieved heavyweight status in the world of the British crime thriller. His series of police procedurals featuring tenacious Brighton copper Roy Grace (current tally: 12) routinely storm the bestseller charts. He perhaps risked the loyalty of his growing legion of fans with a high-concept standalone novel, Perfect People (with Grace absent), but that turned out to be one of his most accomplished books. However, Grace fans will be pleased to hear he’s back in Love You Dead. The new book suggests that James is relaxing and enjoying himself, confident of his readers’ undivided attention. It’s a weighty read at over 400 pages, but justifies its considerable length with a storytelling rigour that doesn’t falter. As an unappealing and…

“SALLIS IS ADEPT AT PORTRAYING THE WAY THE YEARS TRAP PEOPLE” The only thing better than discovering a great new writer is unearthing a great old one. American author James Sallis has been publishing crime fiction, poetry and criticism since the late 1960s, and is probably best known for his Lew Griffin books (beginning with 1992’s The Long-Legged Fly) or Drive, the basis for Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 adaptation – not admittedly, a film that screams “source novel”. Just seven lines into his latest, a small-town noir of quiet distinction, Sallis describes the smell of bodies found rotting in a hidden grave as “mushroomy, dark. Cellarlike”. Immediately, you feel, these are safe hands. Dr Lamar Hale represents another pair. He’s the paternal physician watching over Willnot, a backwater of “squirrel…

“THE PLEASURE HERE IS IN LEON’S FELINE INSIGHTS INTO ITALIAN SOCIETY AND MORES” Though born in New Jersey, Donna Leon has lived in Venice for the past 30 years, and her intimate knowledge of the city has borne fruit in no less than 25 novels featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, an inspector in the Venetian police force. After so many books centring on the same protagonist, you might expect a certain lassitude to creep in; but The Waters Of Eternal Youth is as poised, subtle and elegantly written as all its predecessors. Leon’s novels aren’t for those who like their crime fiction hard-bitten and full of violence. Brunetti, like his creator, is an essentially civilised person, not given to shouting, hitting people or waving guns around. And for a fictional police…

“A HYPER-ADRENALISED SHOT OF TENSION” Alfred Hitchcock often argued the case for the superiority of suspense over surprise. Suspense needs skilful sustaining; surprises can be just quick-fix pleasures. It’s a persuasive argument, but Hitch could also nail both: and so can celebrated French novelist Pierre Lemaitre, whose newly translated 2009 psycho-thriller is a hyper-adrenalised shot of tension and twists, spiked with troubled psychologies and clichés deftly dismantled. While the grounds of resemblance aren’t quite clichés, the toughest thing about reviewing Blood Wedding is its structural similarity to a movie-adapted 2012 bestseller. Giving its name might give away too much about Lemaitre’s study in clammy immersion, so suffice to say he exercises ideas he would later develop in his novels Alex and The Great Swindle: the former’s title character is echoed…

“HARRIS TWISTS RECURRENT THEMES INTO THEIR DARKEST POSSIBLE FORMS” It’s fair to say Joanne Harris has an eclectic CV. Her early major success with the award-winning magical realism romance Chocolat – turned into a film starring Johnny Depp – seemed to give her the freedom of the literary city, with cookbooks, mythological fantasy and historical fiction following swiftly after. Thankfully for us, Harris also forayed into crime fiction, with Different Class the third in a loose trilogy set in the fictional village of Malbry. Like previous instalments Gentlemen & Players and Blueeyedboy, Class involves St Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys, an establishment apparently containing more criminals per square foot than your local prison. Different Class sees Latin master Roy Straitley staring down the barrel of retirement, a prospect he welcomes…

“Men who kill must arguably be the ultimate alpha males, the best possible protectors” The most gripping scenes in the recent smash hit Happy Valley , for me, were those set in the high-security prison, when murdering rapist, Tommy Lee Royce, sat across the table from Frances, the woman with whom he’d formed an obsessive and unnatural bond. The two hadn’t met before Royce’s conviction, but were engaged to be married. They never touched, and yet the sexual tension between them was all but visible. We watched, fascinated and repelled, as Frances gazed at Tommy, refusing to see what was blindingly obvious to the rest of us – that the man she loved was a monster. It is a scene repeated, in real life, in hundreds of high…

1. HELTER SKELTER BY VINCENT BUGLIOSI AND CURT GENTRY A unique look at the dark glamour of Charles Manson’s influence on his ‘family’ and the murders they carried out. Written by Bugliosi, the prosecutor in the 1970 trial of Manson, it’s the bestselling true crime book of all time and a fascinating read. 2. THE PEOPLE V O.J. SIMPSON BY JEFFREY TOOBIN Even if the celebrity crime of the ’90s passed you by, it’s hard not to be enthralled by this case. Thanks to the 10-part TV adap of Toobin’s gripping book, all the prejudices, injustices and personalities have recently been laid bare on the small screen. 3. THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER BY KATE SUMMERSCALE Reading like a classic whodunit, The Murder At Road Hill House sees Scotland Yard’s…

“You meet horrible criminals and they’re nice and kind” THE REALITY After getting my degree, I practised law in a firm for one year and then I decided to try the public exam to become a magistrate. In Italy, we do the same exam to become a judge or prosecutor, and you choose after the exam – it’s completely different from your country. It’s a very tough national exam in Rome. I was only 27 years old and I was a judge, which is difficult for people to understand in common law countries. After four years I became a prosecutor in the south – an interesting place from a criminal point of view. I went to Foggia, a city in the northern part of Apulia. They had the most dangerous…

FATAL ATTRACTION (1987) ALEX FORREST (GLENN CLOSE) What starts as a perfectly reasonable one-night stand quickly turns into something deeply sinister. But was Alex really so bad? Was she completely unhinged? Or was she a successful book editor who chose to live life on her own terms, until she was tipped over the edge by a smugly arrogant lawyer who thought he could have his cake and eat it? Either way, no one has ever been able to look at a bubbling saucepan in quite the same way since. SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY (1991) LAURA BURNEY (JULIA ROBERTS) Not content with her husband’s OCD hand-towel hanging and strictly-aligned tins of beans, Laura goes to great lengths to fake her own death and disappear. It’s only a matter of time before…

DOG EAT DOG Legendary scribe Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) writes and directs the film of Eddie Bunker’s noir about ex-cons. Nicolas Cage and Willem Dafoe star in the film, selected to close the Cannes Film Festival. Release TBC JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK Tom Cruise returns as Reacher in a sequel to the 2012 film that did just enough global business to justify a follow-up. Never Go Back, based on Lee Child’s novel, has Reacher accused of a 16-year-old crime. Out 21 October A KIND OF MURDER Based on Patricia Highsmith’s cat-and-mouse thriller The Blunderer, this adaptation set in 1960s New York stars Patrick Wilson (Fargo) and Haley Bennett (also in The Girl On The Train). Release TBC MY COUSIN RACHEL Daphne du Maurier was the mistress of…

“There are certain kinds of book where it is necessary to write very directly about different kinds of violence,” she tells Crime Scene. “There’s something dishonest about not dealing directly with what violence is and how it contaminates people.” While some authors toil away quietly, Val McDermid is a big personality who enjoys the sociable side of being a best-selling crime writer (11 million books sold). She’s won Celebrity Mastermind and guested on Desert Island Discs; an episode of quiz show Eggheads, with Mark Billingham and Christopher Brookmyre, airs later this year. As well as putting her literary wealth into sponsoring a stand at her beloved Raith Rovers, she’s a co-founder of the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival (and a former winner of its novel of the year). When…

Reiko has been called to a crime scene, where a body lies decomposing in the summer heat, wrapped in a blue tarpaulin... THE AUTHOR Tetsuya Honda is one of Japan’s bestselling authors with the ongoing crime series featuring Reiko Himekawa, a Homicide Detective with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. The Silent Dead (Japanese title: Strawberry Night), is the first of eight novels and story collections, and has sold over 1 million copies in Japan alone. The series is the basis for two TV mini-series and a major theatrical motion picture. Honda lives in Tokyo. METROPOLITAN POLICE. KEEP OUT. The familiar yellow tape blocked Reiko’s path. The uniformed officer on guard gave her a skeptical look as if to ask, Who’s this damn woman? Officer Yuda, one of her subordinates, hailed her…

There are moments in The People v O.J. Simpson, FX’s much lauded dramatisation of the so-called “trial of the century”, that are so jaw-dropping that it will have you scurrying towards Wikipedia to check whether they’re true or not. The trial of Orenthal James Simpson, American football legend and Naked Gun goon, had everything – wealth, murder, beauty, fame, race… Even when it was being broadcast it felt too perfectly scripted to be real. Now, 21 years on, it has been. Directed by Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story), it’s a suitably gossipy retelling of one of the 20th Century’s most sensational murder cases. Murphy paints a rich and vivid picture of not just the events of the trial, but of the dizzying media hoopla around it. He’s blessed with…

Was there ever a more American crime drama than CSI? American, that is, in the way it valued optimism, things going right even when dealing with all that’s wrong in the world – how could the bad guys not be apprehended with so much forensics know-how ranged against them? For all that its lead character, psychologist Avery Ryan (Patricia Arquette), has a tragic backstory involving patient records being stolen, the latest CSI spin-off is similarly upbeat. But there’s a twist too: Ryan heads a team investigating illegal things being done with the help of internet technologies, kicking off with a baby-snatching ring. It’s a reasonable enough premise, but you may soon find yourself missing the gnarly side to the original CSI, the storylines that involved pinning down the age of…

“Go big,” condemned man Rudy (Dennis Haysbert) tells his lawyer Maya (Sophie Okonedo) in Peter Moffat’s latest legal entanglement. The Silk writer does just that with an issues-packing drama that’s both far-reaching and over-reaching. Like the similarly torn-from-the -headlines London Spy, the six-parter grabs you until plausibility issues dent our trust. Domestic deep-cover cop Nick (Adrian Lester) has similar issues earning his wife Maya’s trust after she discovers his deception. Toggling between the US and London, past and present, Moffat wraps meaty themes – racial injustice, capital punishment, police brutality, journalistic integrity, family faith – around Nick’s core fib. Thrillingly, the cast performs it to the hilt: Lester treads a fine line between pretence and raw feeling, Okonedo is a powder keg of no-nonsense passion and vulnerability. Like the undercover…

Echoing the first series of this Breaking Bad spin-off, Season 2 begins with a black-and-white clip of Bob Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman – now under the alias Gene – eking out a miserable living in Omaha. But this teaser aside, Better Call Saul remains all about his early days as Jimmy McGill. As with Series 1, creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould show admirable restraint; there’s no rush to get to Saul – Jimmy is interesting enough. A satisfying slow-burn, Series 2 is dominated by Jimmy’s feelings for fellow lawyer Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) and his relations with Machiavellian older brother Chuck (Michael McKean). Those expecting Walt or Jesse cameos will be disappointed, but Breaking Bad forever hovers in the periphery, via Saul’s ‘fixer’ Mike (Jonathan Banks, brilliant), whose tension-filled S2…

One-take cinema has served chatterbox indie romances (Before Sunset) and arthouse run-arounds (Russian Ark) well, but Sebastian Schipper’s VICTORIA (out now) reminds us that real-time film can work for thrillers too. Character motivation is muddy but tone and performances sustain well as Laia Costa’s titular clubber falls in with local Berlin lads, flirts with their leader (Frederick Lau) and joins a scary heist, complete with fallout. Imagine Before Sunrise with a body count. Victoria’s moral slide – babies are kidnapped; quite a plummet – doesn’t always convince but momentum and likeable leads drag you along. As a nine-year-old necks a disco biscuit, kids also run into bother in HARD TIDE (out now). This Margate-set drama has heart and hard men, led by Nathanael Wiseman as a drug dealer whose crime…

They say there are no secrets in a small town, but the fictional Banktoun near Edinburgh has its fair share – with no one harbouring a darker past than barmaid Marie, who has escaped a childhood full of jaw-dropping horror that will make even the most hardened crime fans flinch. Marie is dating Davie, a local policeman, whose normally mundane duties become more challenging as the town is flooded by legal highs. As a craze for the chemically manufactured drugs jeopardises the safety of the local teenagers, Marie becomes menaced by a figure from the past she’s been running from. In a shattering conclusion, the investigations converge with deadly consequences. Creepy doesn’t even come close to describing the intense sense of menace that pervades every page, contrasting with the workaday…

Like Raymond Chandler’s heir apparent, Montana-based writer James Crumley never met a piss-up he couldn’t turn into hard-boiled poetry. Crumley’s celebrated 1978 novel, now reissued with Ian Rankin’s sharp introduction, opens with a sentence good enough to drive would-be noir-ists to drink: how to top that? Better clear tomorrow morning then, because Crumley doesn’t let up. Portraying a post-hippie America dissolute enough to make even bulldogs drink, Crumley’s prose is so woozily, boozily atmospheric you almost forget the plot: yet there is a plot, and a surprisingly involved, emotive one. When Vietnam vet-turned-PI Sughrue is hired to find perma-pickled writer Trahearne by the latter’s wife, he tracks the scribe to a bar, whose owner hires him to locate her ten-years-missing daughter. As Sughrue and Trahearne bond on the job, a…

Imagine Philip Marlowe upped and transplanted to contemporary Washington, with a mountain of stolen coke hidden in a secret safe rather than a bottle of bourbon in his desk drawer, and you’re close to Frank Marr, the winningly debauched private investigator hero of this gritty thriller. Former cop Marr left Washington Police’s narcotics division, taking with him an enormous drug habit. Concealing it while managing to function calls for a daily high-wire balancing act. Continuing to use his skills in his patchy career, Marr is reluctantly coerced into hunting for a missing teenager, having being hailed a hero after bringing a similarly captive girl home to her family. The milieu of corrupt cops, prostitutes and drug dealers will strike a chord with fans of The Wire, but there is a…

The Amy in question isn’t really an Amy at all. It’s the nom de plume of Margot Lewis, a classics teacher based in Cambridge and part time local newspaper agony aunt with – you guessed it – a deeply complicated personal life. After one of her former pupils is abducted, assumed to be a runaway after a row with her parents but actually imprisoned in a cellar by a violent weirdo, Margot starts getting letters claiming to be from a different girl who was snatched 20 years previously, and never found. What follows is a gripping puzzle, pieced together by a woman juggling divorce, lust and mental illness, but driven by compassion. Helen Callaghan is skilled at bringing personality to the fore. Clearly her teenage years still loom large in…

Can a house be cursed? The people of Chosen, New York, seem to think so, and looking at the evidence, they might just be right. The Hale farmhouse had seen its share of suffering before the Clares moved in, so when Catherine Clare is murdered in her bed, it’s easy for the locals to blame the house. But Elizabeth Brundage’s mesmerising thriller doesn’t make things as straightforward as all that. It’s a slippery, sprawling story that spans more than two decades and constantly shifts around in time, dancing forwards and backwards to show events first from one character’s perspective and then another’s. There’s no clear protagonist, either – there’s a whole town’s worth of them, each with his or her own problems, quirks and desires. The structure’s occasionally frustrating, but…

It took very little time for crime fiction aficionados to realise that William Shaw was the real deal – a writer of immense command, who took the genre, shook it apart and came up with something fresh, hard and incisive. His Breen & Tozer series bristles with a strong evocation of 1960s London, and has taken on some provocative issues (such as the effects of colonialism and the new era of permissiveness). The Birdwatcher is Shaw’s first standalone novel, and is strikingly different from previous books – though equally accomplished. The setting is a vividly evoked Kent coast, and his protagonist, police sergeant William South, has the best of reasons for not wanting to be part of a murder investigation in the area – he is, in fact, a killer…

Laura Lippman’s novels are routinely described as thoughtful, moving and sensitive – but don’t let that put you off. While Wilde Lake may spurn twists and trickery, it’s a quietly devastating portrayal of lingering guilt and family secrets that creates suspense by making you care about its central character. Widow and lone parent Luisa “Lu” Brant has just been elected as the first female State’s Attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a public office once held by her father. Petite and pretty, her height and sibling rivalry have made her competitive; she also measures herself against the moral authority of her dad, a sort of East Coast Atticus Finch. Lu’s narrative switches between the golden days of her ’70s childhood in Columbia, a planned community built on progressive values, to her…

While plenty of crime writers trade on their conspicuously gritty realism, Fred Vargas opens up a portal to a gloriously Gallic world of fantastical plots and eccentric characters. The eighth book in a series featuring Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, a daydreaming detective who regularly consults his two non-functioning wristwatches, is her most ambitious so far. Having introduced a Nordic-style storyline about a double murder during a fogbound pilgrimage to a magical rock in Iceland, she then switches her focus to the French Revolution. A secretive group re-enacting the National Assembly speeches of Robespierre may be unwittingly stirring up the Terror: members of the society are being killed and a guillotine sketched at the scene. Adamsberg has to find the link. Despite the note of whimsy that’s as distinctive as a ripe…

A semi-cosy, London-centric, Lovejoy- esque romp with a protagonist whose special deductive skills are for finding rare records, not solving crimes, The Vinyl Detective manages to score that sought-after double of being accessible entertainment as well as gripping crime fiction. Our hero is an unassuming record nerd, who drunkenly prints up business cards claiming he can find any rare record for a price. When foxy femme fatale Nevada knocks on his door, though, he’s drawn into a murder mystery stretching back to the golden age of jazz. A former script editor for Doctor Who, Cartmel’s novel feels like TV – visual, pacy and peppered with cliffhangers and slow reveals. Our hero also has something of Jonathan Creek about him with his easy-to-underestimate scruffiness. And if the music references remind you…

“FIVE NOVELS IN, BINGHAM HAS HIS PROTAGONIST’S VOICE DOWN PAT” Even in an era when every fictional detective has to have a shtick, something that sets him or her apart from all the other maverick cops competing for our attention, Fiona Griffiths is a singular creation. A former Cambridge philosophy student and the daughter of a criminal, she suffers from Cotard’s syndrome, a dissociative condition that leaves her sometimes thinking she’s dead, especially when under stress. Yes, this does sound tricksy, and it says much for the quality of Harry Bingham’s prose that, rather than coming across like a character running to escape an author trying too hard, Griffiths jumps from the page, alive and vibrant (ironically enough). It helps that, five novels in, Bingham has his protagonist’s voice down…