The Good Liar review - the grey pound dipped in acid

★★★★ THE GOOD LIAR McKellen and Mirren play dark conman games in an uncompromising thriller

McKellen and Mirren play dark conman games in an uncompromising thriller

Ian McKellen, his Mr Holmes director Bill Condon and Helen Mirren play clever, nasty games with conman clichés and presumptions about the elderly in this sometimes absurdly twisty thriller.

Michael Connelly: The Night Fire review - unputdownable

★★★★ MICHAEL CONNELLY: THE NIGHT FIRE Detective duo Ballard and Bosch investigate three LA murders

Return of detective duo Ballard and Bosch for an investigation into three LA murders

Ballard and Bosch sound like some dystopian upmarket commodity. They are, but deep in with the low life. They are Michael Connolly’s new duo of detectives, one in semi-disgrace, one retired. Throw in Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer, and you’ve got one of the most fascinating and satisfying series of crime novels out there. Throughout the 33 that Connelly has published since 1992, familiar characters turn up regularly.

John le Carré: Agent Running in the Field review - fake news, Brexit and Cold war echoes

★★★★ JOHN LE CARRÉ: AGENT RUNNING IN THE FIELD A sharply contemporary thriller from the master spy writer

Masterly spy writer's latest is a sharply contemporary thriller

That John le Carré! It turns out the agent isn’t so much running in the field as playing badminton. The master of the spy novel, of the foibles fantasies and sadnesses of our imperfect world – with the occasional excursion to excoriate Big Pharma and the like – has produced a magnificent slow burner.

The Capture, BBC One, series finale review - nimble drama alive with twists

★★★★ THE CAPTURE, BBC ONE, SERIES FINALE Nimble drama alive with twists

Ben Chanan's paranoid what-if surveillance thriller goes out on another question

What did we learn at the end of The Capture (BBC One)? A rice jar is a good place to hide USB sticks. It’s possible to withhold the opening credits for 11 whole minutes. A green coat works exceptionally well with light blue eyes and shoulder-length auburn hair. And Ben Chanan, who originated the script and directed it himself, is a television dramatist to watch, and watch again.

The Kitchen review – more gangsters' molls taking over the reins

★★★ THE KITCHEN More gangsters' molls taking over the reins

Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elizabeth Moss star in female-led crime thriller

Three women decide to take over their husbands’ criminal activities, proving more than a match for the men who dominate the underworld. If this outline of The Kitchen sounds familiar, it’s because it was just last year that Steve McQueen’s lauded crime thriller Widows had much the same premise.

Temple, Sky 1 review - down in the tube station at midnight

TEMPLE, SKY 1 Mark Strong leads powerful cast in fascinating medical thriller

Mark Strong leads powerful cast in fascinating medical thriller

At first, the opening episode of Sky 1’s enticing new drama Temple looked like it was going to be mostly concerned with a heist gone wrong. A gang of bandits were busily stealing an enormous mountain of money when they were inadvertently locked inside the building they were robbing by their half-witted getaway driver.

The Girl on the Train, Duke of York's Theatre review - boozy psycho-thriller rolls clunkily into town

★★ THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, DUKE OF YORK'S THEATRE Boozy pyscho-thriller rolls clunkily into town

Samantha Womack lurches valiantly through this scarcely credible crime drama

It may help if you love the book. It was a runaway bestseller, so fans must be legion, but a suspenseful story which depends on memories being obscured by prodigious boozing, and featuring a trio of women best described as "flaky", all defining themselves too much by their relationships with unreliable men, is not to everyone's taste.

Stranger Things 3, Netflix review - bigger, dumber, better

Netflix’s retro adventure plays to its strengths in latest season

It sometimes feels like an age between Stranger Things seasons. Blame Netflix. The binge-watching trend that it helped solidify means that most people consume all eight hours of content in a single weekend. It comes and goes in a flash. But don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s a disposable snack, the TV equivalent of those famous Eggo pancakes.