Paperback thrillers

These new titles will have you gripped from start to finish

The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin

(Canongate, £8.99)

When pioneering Scots crime novelist McIlvanney died in 2015, he left an unfinished prequel to his magnificent books featuring Glasgow cop Jack Laidlaw. It has now been completed by Ian Rankin. It’s 1972 and Laidlaw, though still a detective constable, is investigating the murder of a gang boss’s lawyer. Rankin has pulled off this ghost writer act with aplomb, capturing McIlvanney’s poetic prose and Laidlaw’s distinctive quizzical character.

Jake Kerridge

Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

(Sphere, £8.99)

Hostage is the perfect beach read – as long as you don’t need to travel by plane to get home. Numerous celebrities are on board the inaugural flight of a new non-stop London to Sydney route. What follows is a hostage dramacum-hijack thriller, transforming everybody’s worst nightmare into unputdownable entertainment.

Jake Kerridge

Billy Summers by Stephen King (Hodder, £8.99)

Billy Summers is an assassin who lives in a binary world with good guys and bad guys – and bad guys should get what’s coming to them. He agrees to do one last hit that has such a big pay day, it will change his life forever. And it does – but not how he expects. This gripping novel starts slowly but, once King starts building the tension, you won’t be able to turn the pages fast enough. Mernie Gilmore

The Heights by Louise Candlish (Simon & Schuster, £14.99)

Ellen spots a man on the balcony of a high-rise – and is shocked to the core. It’s Kieran – who was killed two years ago. And it was Ellen who made sure he was dead, the man she blamed for her son’s death. Her discovery reignites her old obsession for justice. This dark tale is stylish and sinister, with a punch to the ending. Anne Cater