John Powers

Soho Press recently reissued the late British crime writer's final novel. Critic John Powers says Lewis' GBH is a pulp-fiction triumph worthy of Jim Thompson or James Ellroy.

My Struggle is about Karl Ove Knausgaard's wrangle with his father, with death, with his muse and so on. The 46-year-old Norwegian's pointedly unliterary book has become a literary sensation.

The show, based on Hilary Mantel's acclaimed novel, stars Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's chief minister. Critic John Powers says it's darkly lit, finely acted and thoroughly compelling.