CRIME AND THRILLERS

GEOFFREY WANSELL & CHRISTENA APPLEYARD

THE TATTOO THIEF by Alison Belsham (Trapeze £13.99, 384 pp)

THIS is one of the creepiest debut crime novels I have read this year.

A serial killer who slices tattoos from their victims’ skin — while they are alive — is stalking the bohemian streets of Brighton.

The first body is discovered by a female tattoo artist who was married to another tattooist for 15 years.

newly promoted DI Francis Sullivan’s fellow officers are willing him to fail, as they are all convinced he is overpromoted. Gradually, Sullivan realises that the murderer is trying to become the finest collector and preserver of tattooed skin on the planet. But why? GW

IN BLOOM by C.J. Skuse (HQ £7.99, 384 pp)

Although this is brimming with bad language and driven by the outrageously politically incorrect insights of a young pregnant serial killer, it succeeds in being one of the funniest and best written thrillers published this year.

Our bonkers heroine frames her former lover for a string of murders she has committed. Her unborn baby, who she refers to as ‘Heil Foetus’, has her own bossy voice.

The book is punctuated with the murderer’s imaginary kill lists — which include everyone from the people who hold up supermarket queues to dawdling groups of tourists who clog up pavements. CA

IN THE DARK by Cara Hunter (Penguin £7.99, 448 pp)

Alfred HITCHCOCK would have made a great movie out of this scary story, focusing on the accidental discovery of a young woman and a small boy in a locked basement in Oxford.

The woman cannot speak and the child is traumatised. The elderly and eccentric academic who owns the house insists he did not know they were there and claims that he had nothing to do with their abduction.

DI Adam Fawley is not convinced, but has to gain the woman’s trust before he can learn her version of events. Was she raped? Is it her child? like the opening of a delicate flower, the truth emerges, with twist following twist. GW

OUR HOUSE by Louise Candlish (S&S £12.99, 448 pp)

THIS is both a mischievous take on the property obsessed london middle classes and a good thriller. Candlish asks: Do some women care more about their house than their husband? Rather than lose her house, Fiona lawson opts for the trendy bird’s nest solution, whereby she and husband Bram take it in turns to spend half the week with their children in the house.

Suddenly, Bram disappears — and he has also sold the house. A gripping take on modern marriage. CA