Murder
It’s time to get real about gang violence in London
Hey, Londoners — been stabbed or shot yet this week? Just thought I’d check as the place seems to resemble,…
The murderer who got away – and the woman who died in pursuit
This true-crime narrative ought, by rights, to be broken backed, in two tragic ways. One is that the serial attacker…
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…
How Lucky Lucan begged me for money shortly before mistakenly murdering the nanny
A Moment in Time reminded me of the sort of British expatriate women I used to meet in the south…
Crime and puzzlement in Tony White’s Oulipo-inspired novel
Tony White’s latest novel begins for all the world like a police procedural, following the delightfully named sleuth Rex King…
The murder of a harmless Hampstead eccentric remains shrouded in mystery
‘True crime’ is a genre that claims superiority over imagination, speculation and fantasy. It makes a virtue of boredom and…
Candid camera?
Channel 4’s Catching a Killer offered the rare TV spectacle these days of a middle-aged white male copper leading a…
There’s no escape
Patricia Highsmith was an accretion of oddities — a woman who doted on her pet snails and carried a selection…
The mother of all crimes
During the heatwave in the summer of 1895, the Gentlemen v. Players match at Lords Cricket Ground on 8 July…
Two gone girls
The plot of Hideo Yokoyama’s Six Four begins in 1989, with the murder of Shoko, a seven-year-old girl. Fourteen years…
Recent crime fiction
All it takes is a spark. In her compelling new thriller, Ten Days (Canongate, £14.99), Gillian Slovo tracks the progress…
Graphic, bleak and misogynistic
If you could travel back in time, would you kill Hitler’s mother, seek out your old house and play ball…
Diced heart and a full-bodied red
Valerio Varesi, the Turin-born crime writer, displays a typically Italian interest (I would say) in conspiracy theory. The Italian term…
Who killed murder?
The mystery of violent crime’s dramatic decline
No hiding place
Technology has made murderers much easier to catch
The gangs of north London
Brutal, needless stabbings on our city streets will never cease until drugs are legalised
The making of a legend
For one week in July 2010, the aspiring spree killer Raoul Moat was the only news. ‘Aspiring’ because he didn’t…
An inconvenient truth
On the face of it, the Netflix documentary serial Making a Murderer should only take up ten hours of your…
Compliance order
Never a man tortured by self-doubt, Derren Brown introduced his latest special Pushed to the Edge (Channel 4, Tuesday) as…
Barometer
In with the new How the new year is being celebrated around the world. From 1 January… BRITAIN: Annual Investment…
A step too far
Captain Robert Nairac was a Grenadier Guards officer serving in Northern Ireland when on 14 May 1977 he was abducted…
Murder, he wrote
The allure of Carlo Gesualdo, eighth Count of Conza and third Prince of Venosa, has been felt by music-lovers from…
Could I have prevented a Kray murder?
Could I have prevented a Kray murder?
Marvellous, murderous city
When Stefan Zweig first arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1936, he was overwhelmed not only by the city’s magnificent…
Foaming with much blood
According to Francis Bacon, the House of York was ‘a race often dipped in its own blood’. That being so,…
