I am sorry to see that your roundup of the year’s best thrillers (Review, 5 December) makes no mention of Adrian McKinty, whose intelligent, razor sharp thrillers star a deeply flawed Royal Ulster Constabulary inspector, Sean Duffy. Taut, lean prose and dialogue up there with Elmore Leonard. McKinty has not had the attention he deserves. Gun Street Girl is his latest. If you pick it up, I guarantee you won’t put it down.
Chris Mullin
Northumberland
• I learned to code in the 1960s, but then we were given problems we could solve, not ones we couldn’t (Should kids learn to code?, 3 December). It is all very different now, and I’m sure I couldn’t cope. It is probably still true to say that a programmer (we didn’t call ourselves coders) is someone who, if you ask them to pass the sugar, will ask you if you want the bowl as well.
Jeanne Warren
Oxford
• Sorry, Cleo (Letters, 4 December)! The first black actor to appear at the National Theatre was Pearl Prescod, who played Tituba in Laurence Olivier’s production of The Crucible in January 1965.
Richard Mangan
London
• This is terrible news (Push for special powers to close Denmark bridge, 4 December)! What am I going to do now at 9pm on a Saturday night?
David Gerrard
Hove, East Sussex
• Surely the next reprint of Lynne Reid Banks’s wonderful children’s classic will be The Native American in the Closet (Letters, 5 December).
Lynne Scrimshaw
London
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
