In this week's programme we track down some of the hottest American crime writers, and investigate the tradition that has created them. Gillian Flynn – a rising star of the psychological thriller – talks to Alison Flood about her new novel, Gone Girl, and the challenges facing a new, global generation of largely female writers who are "taking murder out of the alley and into the bedroom".
Michael Koryta explains why he has moved from fantasy to thriller in his latest novel, The Prophet, which introduces a new form of investigator: the bail bondsman. And academic Peter Messent, author of a new Crime Fiction Handbook, explains how the bail bondsman fits into a lineage of detectives that stretches back via Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe to Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.
Finally, we talk to the man who has been dubbed "the father of the modern police novel", Joseph Wambaugh. His latest novel, Harbour Nocturne, returns to Hollywood station to hang out with his familiar crew of surfer cops and Tinseltown weirdos.
Reading list
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Weidenfeld)
The Prophet by Michael Koryta (Hodder)
The Crime Fiction Handbook by Peter Messent (Wiley-Blackwell)
Harbour Nocturne by Joseph Wambaugh (Head of Zeus)
