The bestselling husband-and-wife crime-writing duo – Sean French and Nicci Gerrard – choose their favourite books. Their latest thriller, “The Last Days of Kira Mullan” (Simon & Schuster, £18.99), is out this week
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë, 1847
This Victorian classic about an unloved orphan growing into a woman who is free, equal and passionately loved is a gothic romance, an erotic masterpiece, a work to read when you’re young, old, and all the ages in between.
Lolly Willowes
Sylvia Townsend Warner, 1926
Miss Willowes is a young spinster living with her stiflingly respectable London family when she decides to move to the countryside and discover her destiny. Which is to become a witch. Townsend Warner’s debut novel is like a joyously funny and sexy hand grenade.
The Silver Chair
C.S. Lewis, 1953
The most underrated of the Narnia books, in which Eustace and Jill find themselves in Narnia on a quest for a lost prince. In some ways this is a thriller for children, brilliantly plotted, with great twists and moments of genuine terror.
The Unwomanly Face of War
Svetlana Alexievich, 1985
In WWII, Soviet women could be soldiers and pilots as well as nurses. In the 1970s, Alexievich interviewed them. The resulting tapestry of voices – old women recalling their teenage years – is overwhelming, a work of art and one of the great acts of remembrance.
Presumed Innocent
Scott Turow, 1987
A lawyer is charged with murdering a fellow lawyer with whom he was having a secret affair. The legal process is evoked with pungent authority; the plot is genuinely startling. This couldn’t be more different from our own work, but Turow’s debut is a key inspiration.
Skippy Dies
Paul Murray, 2010
A story of coming of age, sex, death, betrayal and the meaning of the universe in an Irish private school. It’s hilarious, compelling, deeply sad. How on earth does Ireland keep producing these great writers?