ON MY BEDSIDE TABLE Anthony Horowitz

After writing updated James Bond and Sherlock Holmes novels, Anthony Horowitz has moved into thrillers with the tense, exciting THE WORD IS MURDER. ◆ I’m currently revisiting the golden age of detective drama with MURDER MUST ADVERTISE. I’d forgotten how witty and waspish DOROTHY L SAYERS could be. It’s a story of death and blackmail, set in a London advertising agency and, as Sayers worked in advertising herself, her knowledge shines through. ◆ I’m about to read THE TOKYO ZODIAC MURDERS, which was recommended to me as a classic ‘locked room’ murder mystery. SOJI SHIMADA’S book is macabre, with a series of quite gruesome deaths and body parts scattered over Japan – somehow with an occult connection. Shimada is apparently known as the God of Mystery. We’ll see! ◆ The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher was KATE SUMMERSCALE’S extraordinary, true story of a child murder that gripped England in 1860. Her new book, THE WICKED BOY, takes a similarly forensic approach to another murder, this time committed by a 13-year-old child. Is the boy mad or evil? ◆ AMANDA CRAIG is a social commentator and author with a sharp, satirical eye. Her new novel, THE LIE OF THE LAND, is a tale of a divorcing couple who relocate to the Devonshire countryside. ◆ THE CAINE MUTINY is an epic story of a minesweeper during the Second World War and it deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize for HERMAN WOUK. I’ve read it many times and will do so again as I’m turning it into a TV series, hopefully giving it the treatment it deserves.