Writer as fan

What do crime authors love in others’ work?

PAULA HAWKINS AUTHOR OF THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

What makes a great thriller/crime novel?

Memorable and compelling characters. Plot twists and cliffhangers can feel manufactured, a great character never does.

What’s your favourite thriller of all time?

Barbara Vine’s A Dark-Adapted Eye, in which the mystery is not a murder but the puzzle presented by a dysfunctional family’s fraught relationships. Vine’s insights are applied not to criminal masterminds but to us – ordinary people.

What’s the best one you’ve read recently?

Danya Kukafka’s Notes on an Execution, which subverts traditional serial-killer narratives and asks questions about the way we talk (and write) about crime.

RICHARD OSMAN AUTHOR OF THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB

What makes a great thriller/crime novel?

Characters we care about facing impossible problems. We live in a world where, increasingly, problems seem to have no clear solutions. In crime novels, however impossible the problem, the author promises you there will be a solution.

Favourite thriller?

Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley.

Best recent read?

A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better by Benjamin Wood.

Is it a thriller? I really couldn’t say. That’s the joy of beautifully written crime fiction.

THE REV RICHARD COLES AUTHOR OF MURDER BEFORE EVENSONG

What makes a great thriller/crime novel?

A world that seems at peace with itself suddenly coming apart with violence. Then details we barely noticed come into focus and the tension that drives the action resolves, although nothing is ever quite the same again.

Favourite thriller?

Probably Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier’s unsparing and ingenious account of innocence, experience and the complexity of love.

Best recent read?

Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train.

VAL MCDERMID AUTHOR OF THE WIRE IN THE BLOOD SERIES

What makes a great thriller/crime novel?

If we’re not invested in the characters, we have no skin in the game. We need to believe in what they stand to lose, and the threats they face have to ratchet up. And at the end, a moment of resolution tinged with regret.

Favourite thriller?

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré. Ominous, tense, clever, confounding and heartbreaking.

Best recent read? Lying Beside You by Michael Robotham.

MARK BILLINGHAM AUTHOR OF THE TOM THORNE NOVELS

What makes a great thriller/crime novel?

Character is key. To create real suspense, you need to give readers characters that they can genuinely engage with.

Favourite thriller?

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. In Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter, Harris gives us two iconic characters to engage with, albeit in very different ways.

Best recent read?

Mick Herron’s Bad Actors is the latest in the wonderful Slough House series. With all the thriller jollies any fan of espionage fiction could want, it’s wickedly satirical and laugh-out-loud funny.

ANTHONY HOROWITZ AUTHOR OF THE ALEX RIDER SERIES AND A RECENT TRILOGY OF JAMES BOND NOVELS

What makes a great thriller/crime novel?

The book must refuse to let you go, demand you keep turning the page, keep you utterly immersed in the story.

Favourite thriller?

Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson is certainly one of them. A rediscovered classic from 1994, it’s tense and often brutal from start to finish – and brilliantly realised.

Best recent read?

I reread I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. It’s a superbly honed and cleverly constructed geo-political thriller. It set the world on fire at the time, but what happened to the sequel? That’s one of the greatest literary mysteries of all.