A modern-day Bogie and Bacall return for a politics-packed online mystery; what David Attenborough really teaches us; a magic realism epic that’s not for the faint-hearted; and the detective drama that beats Morse

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

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

From Dashiell Hammett to Agatha Christie and PD James, the festive season has inspired some of fiction’s finest criminal minds

Court dramas, classic mysteries and bloody crimes ... from Du Maurier to Lehane, Sophie Hannah chooses her favourite twists in novels (or does she?)

McDermid explains how PD James subverted the cosiness of golden-age crime fiction