Eric Axl Sund, the name behind our darkly compelling Thriller of the Month for October The Crow Girl, is actually the pen name for authorial duo Jerker Eriksson and Håkan Axlander Sundquist. Here, the two authors debate the pros and cons of a writing partnership and recommend their choice of the best Scandinavian noir.

Our Thriller of the Month for June, The Dry, is a twisting, atmospheric drama, where a horrific murder in a dirt-blown, drought-ridden Australian town becomes the perfect crucible for seething underlying malice and long-buried secrets to come to light. Exclusively for Waterstones, author Jane Harper takes us behind the scenes for the places and experiences that influenced her novel.

‘Calcutta has always been a strange sort of place, a place of contrasts where the best and worst of humanity sit cheek by jowl.’

Our Thriller of the Month for May, Abir Mukherjee’s A Rising Man is a portrait of intrigue, corruption and betrayal that goes to the heart of the political establishment of early twentieth-century India. The novel's beating heart is Calcutta, described in one review as being ‘so convincingly evoked that readers will find sweat bursting from their foreheads’. Here, exclusively for Waterstones, Abir Mukherjee introduces the city that inspired him.

Described by The Sunday Times as ‘a novel so extraordinary that it reminded me of reading Stieg Larsson for the very first time’ French crime writer Michel Bussi’s first translated novel, After The Crash, was a publishing sensation. A gripping crime novel following the aftermath of a plane crash that left a sole survivor, it became a runaway Waterstones hit. Now reader’s looking to take another turn in the company of Bussi’s Normandy noir can sink their teeth into Black Water Lilies, where murder disrupts of tranquillity of Monet’s Giverny. As we anticipate what is sure to be another hit, we caught up with Bussi’s English publisher Kirsty Dunseath who told us about crafting a winning translation.

Together with John le Carré, Len Deighton stands as our greatest living thriller writer. A colourful background – including stints in the RAF as photographer and working as an illustrator in both London and New York – gradually led to his genre-defining debut The IPCRESS File in 1962, the ‘antidote to Bond’ that was later immortalised by the film of the same name starring Michael Caine. Well over two dozen superb novels followed, accompanied by a clutch of non-fiction titles including the acclaimed Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain.

Rob Mallows’ Deighton Dossier has long-served as the ultimate online Len Deighton resource. With the author’s 1978 slice of counter-factual history SS-GB now happily installed as our Thriller of the Month, we turned to Rob to unearth something of the novel’s background.

Our Thriller of The Month for August is Nicholas Searle’s assured debut The Good Liar. Searle grew up in Cornwall and studied languages at the Universities of Bath and Göttingen before becoming a civil servant for many years.  He has recently been named one of The Observer’s New Faces of Fiction 2016. Spanning nearly a century, his debut centres on expert con-man Roy who embroils naïve, wealthy widow Betty in an intricate ploy. In an exclusive article for Waterstones, Searle has selected his favourite fictional spies, as well as writing a comprehensive introduction to the espionage genre

Our Thriller of the Month The Luckiest Girl Alive has rocketed author Jessica Knoll to the front rank of thriller novelists, drawing deeply on her own – and sometimes challenging - life experience. With a film adaptation already under way, Martha Greengrass caught up with the author to discuss the debut’s origins

Winslow's complex epic The Cartel has been described as the ‘War and Peace of dope-war books’.

Joseph Knobbs, Crime Fiction Buyer for Waterstones, makes his case for an often-neglected masterpiece, The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley, the book he would like to see re-establish its place as one of the finest pieces of crime writing.

Julia Heaberlin, author of our Thriller of the Month Black-Eyed Susans, shares five of the books that have influenced her work as a thriller writer.

Black-Eyed Susans is a chilling psychological thriller and a tense and gripping whodunit, but it is also a masterfully crafted story, rich in pitch-perfect details, brilliantly realised characters and nuanced themes.

Renee Knight's compulsive debut is assured, masterfully plotted and near-impossible to put down.