From sunny novels that revel in the picturesque to stark reports from one of the poorest regions in northern Europe, this county’s literature deserves more than a visit
April 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 books about museums
Whether it is Orhan Pamuk’s love-struck Museum of Innocence, Donna Tartt’s bombing in a New York gallery, or the case of a curator who turned to crime, museums are home to fascinating stories
December 2020
Top 10s
Top 10 Christmas crime stories
From Dashiell Hammett to Agatha Christie and PD James, the festive season has inspired some of fiction’s finest criminal minds
August 2020
Reading group
A clumsy, cringey crescendo: why A Taste for Death is hard to swallow
Reading group
'I prefer a more domestic murder': the thrilling nastiness of PD James
Reading group
Reading group: A Taste for Death by PD James is our book for August
Reading group
Reading group: which PD James novel should we read this month?
August 2019
Brief letters
Testing conversation for the uninitiated
Brief letters: Cricket | Europe | School holidays | PD James | Extending life
May 2019
Brief letters
When Cheam fell for Lady Chatterley
Brief letters: PD James | Lady Chatterley’s Lover | Lowry cricket painting | Trump’s trade war
October 2017
Short story round-up: mystery, murder and virtuoso ventriloquism
A Spot of Folly by Ruth Rendell and Sleep No More by PD James reviews – terrific stories
August 2017
Top 10s
Top 10 twists in fiction
Court dramas, classic mysteries and bloody crimes ... from Du Maurier to Lehane, Sophie Hannah chooses her favourite twists in novels (or does she?)
September 2016
Val McDermid on PD James: ‘She faced the darkness head on’
McDermid explains how PD James subverted the cosiness of golden-age crime fiction
July 2015
Children's books
Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James – review
popcornapple: ‘I think that the plot was exciting and gripping, making you want to find out what would happen next’
May 2015
Ruth Rendell and PD James: giants of detective fiction
Rendell and her great friend James, who died last November, brought the genre critical respect, and they not only wrote about the law – they changed it, too
January 2015
Ruth Rendell in hospital after serious stroke
Publisher announces that much-acclaimed crime writer of the Inspector Wexford novels and many others is in ‘a critical but stable condition’
