CRIME & THRILLERS

GEOFFREY WANSELL

THE SEARCHER by Tana French (Viking £14.99)

A BURNT-OUT former Chicago cop in his late 40s retreats to an isolated house in southern Ireland to try to restore himself, only to be drawn into the hunt for a missing young man by his mysterious younger brother. Beautifully told and deeply moving.

SNOW by John Banville (Faber £14.99)

A FORMER Booker Prize-winner underlines his impressive ability as a crime writer with this dark tale of a murder in County Wexford. A Catholic priest is killed and castrated to the horror of the community, and a DI from Dublin is sent to investigate. Exquisite.

THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB by Richard Osman (Viking £14.99)

TV PRESENTER Osman reveals himself as a crime fiction star with this story of four elderly residents of a retirement village who like to solve cold cases of murder — then get two fresh ones on their doorstep. Elegant and witty, it is delightful.

BOX 88 by Charles Cumming (HarperCollins £14.99)

THE talented Cumming comes up with a spy for the 21st century in Lachlan Kite, recruited to the shadowy intelligence agency, Box 88, straight from boarding school. But Kite is no George Smiley; he’s in the thick of the action with a hint of Bond.

WRITTEN IN BLOOD by Chris Carter (S&S £16.99)

LA-BASED pickpocket Angela Wood steals the bag of a man sitting by her in a bar only to discover in it a diary detailing a string of murders. The serial killer wants his list back, while a detective attempts to save her. Superb.

AN INCONVENIENT WOMAN by Stephanie Buelens (Quercus £12.99)

ONE of the thrillers of the year, this story of a divorced woman who discovers that her ex-husband is about to marry again, to a woman with a teenage daughter — when her own daughter drowned af t er confessing her father had abused her — never loses its grip.