In this week's podcast we plumb the murky depths of crime fiction. The Guardian's thriller reviewer, John O'Connell, explains the genre's lofty origins, and Belinda Bauer, whose debut novel, Blacklands, started life as a family drama, explains why her accidental foray into the field has turned her into a crime convert. And Claire Armitstead talks to Sara Paretsky, one of the grandes dames of crime literature, about the latest outing of her feisty female detective, VI Warshawski, in her new novel, Hardball.
We also hear Ruth Fainlight, one of the writers who contributed to this week's Guardian Review feature on the poetry of ageing, reading her poem on the subject.
Reading list
Hardball by Sara Paretsky (Hodder & Stoughton)
Blacklands by Belinda Bauer (Corgi)
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith (Pan)
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (Penguin Classics)
Fatherland by Robert Harris (Arrow)
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers (New English Library)
