Pair of thrilling pageturners

Good Friday by Lynda La Plante (Zaffre)

Lynda La Plante is the author of the best-selling Jane Tennison thrillers made into the great TV detective series Prime

Suspect, starring Helen Mirren.

La Plante is now excavating Tennison’s youth (also a TV series), and young Jane has just completed her CID course in 1976 when an IRA bombing campaign sweeps London. A novice, she must bring all her considerable mental capacity to bear on this massive threat, while struggling with open prejudice against women in the police force.

This book held particular resonance for me as I was living in London at this time, in the house of then-home secretary Roy Jenkins, and can vividly recall the fear of the bombing campaign – our house was on a special security watch list.

La Plante’s original Tennison books are the best in this series, but “young’”Jane is a good read.

Sunday Morning Coming Down by Nicci French (Michael Joseph/Penguin)

The latest in the Frieda Klein series, the writing duo of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French have pulled off another intriguing psychological mystery.

Klein is a psychotherapist not particularly loved by the police, but has a gift for solving crime.

Now crime comes to her.

The body of a man she had hired to help her is found beneath her own floorboards – and then those closest to her begin to be targeted.

She must move carefully but quickly.

A satisfying page-turner. Buy these books at loot.co.za by scanning the QR codes with your smartphone.