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Stranger by Karen Perry (Michael Joseph)

“It’s like we are going to the airport to collect a parasite.” There’s an element of the ‘cuckoo in the nest’ in the latest thriller from the best-selling literary double act that is Karen Perry (the pen name of Paul Perry and Karen Gillece). A Dublin family welcome a French foreign exchange student (those were the days!) to their home with the mother Abi glad that her younger daughter Beth finally will have a contemporary to hang out with. But when Beth’s behaviour becomes dark and disturbing, Abi wonders just how much she truly knows about the new arrival.

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead (Doubleday)

Maggie Shipstead’s historical fiction about the epic life and exploits of “a lady pilot” in the 20th century has been glowingly reviewed on both sides of the Atlantic with The Washington Post listing it as their top read for the summer and the Mirror Book Club calling it a tour de force. The fictional Marian Graves, inspired by the pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, rescued from a sinking ship as a baby, has lived a life of wild adventure, whether in the company of daredevil pilots or flying Spitfires during WWII. Now, in 1950, she embarks on her greatest adventure yet, a circumnavigation of the globe - the Great Circle.

Murder at Roaringwater by Nick Foster (Mirror Books)

The murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in West Cork in December 1996 continues to generate much interest and industry on page and screen (Jim Sheridan’s documentary series is coming soon to Sky TV with a Netflix doc also imminent). Nick Foster, journalist and former diplomat, weighs in with a book that promises the ‘inside story’. Foster, who was born in England and now lives in Brussels, comes with a certain distance and yet after six years of digging he too ends up on the rocks of conjecture and speculation, ending his account with a melodramatic call to the chief suspect.