CRIME

RESURRECTION BAY by Emma Viskic (Pushkin Vertigo £12.99) This striking debut, which arrives with a considerable critical reputation, more than lives up to its hype and introduces an intriguing new detective — Caleb Zelic, who happens to be profoundly deaf.

he makes up for his lack of hearing with exceptional intuition and powers of observation.

The story opens with the murder of one of his childhood friends, Gary, a policeman in Melbourne.

Zelic and his female partner Frankie, a former cop, run a company that investigates fraud, but they decide to look into the death nevertheless. in doing so they find themselves the target of the killer, who may also be threatening Zelic’s ex-wife Kat, whom he still loves. The search takes the pair back to Zelic’s home town of resurrection Bay.

Fierce, fast-moving, violent and yet written with a delightful sprinkling of irony, it is as exciting a debut as fellow Australian Jane harper’s The Dry, and i can think of no higher praise. A SUMMER REVENGE by Tom Callaghan (Quercus £18.99) A THIRD outing for inspector Akyl Borubaev of the Bishkek Murder squad, in which he’s offered his old job back by the Kyrgyzstan Ministry of state security if he finds the politician’s mistress, a former prostitute, who has disappeared to Dubai with a memory stick she believes is worth $10 million.

in pursuit, Borubaev finds that there is almost no one whom he can trust. Deceit lurks round every corner, and a double-cross is always waiting for the unsuspecting foreigner — who, at one point, finds himself handcuffed to the bedpost of the very woman he has come to find, after being given a date rape drug.

Borubaev has developed into a deeply satisfying protagonist, capable of humanity amid the violence. Callaghan has a sharp eye for both places and quirky characters, and this underlines just how good he has become. This is the eighth in the best-selling series about the eccentric Monkeewrench team of investigators led by Grace MacBride, which has created a highly sophisticated computer programme to help track down criminals. Originally written by a mother-and-daughter team P. J. and Traci lambrecht respectively, this is the first to be completed by the daughter alone after her mother died.

There is no sign of any diminution of the spirit or style of their creation, however.

The team is called in to help after the disappearance of a girl whose car is found abandoned on a country road. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, two homicide detectives have a serial killer on their hands who leaves playing cards as his signature.

Eventually the two stories coalesce as the computer specialists use their software to help solve both cases. snappy dialogue and supercharged storytelling, with thrills and spills aplenty.