Ready or not, here I come . . .
THRILLERS GEOFFREY WANSELL
FIERCE KINGDOM by Gin Phillips (Doubleday £12.99)
THIS enthralling debut centres on Joan and her fouryear-old son Lincoln, who is a handful at the best of times.
But these are far from the best of times: mother and son are trapped in a zoo when gunmen attack the park.
They hide, with considerable difficulty, as Lincoln finds it hard to understand why all the rules he is normally asked to follow have changed.
‘The rules are different today,’ Joan tells the curious little boy. ‘The rules are that we hide and do not let the man with the gun find us.’
He agrees, though not without one or two awkward questions as they encounter others hiding among the animal enclosures.
The result is a tense, atmospheric evocation of murderous hide-and-seek.
The story is as much about being a parent as it is an action thriller, which brings a satisfying extra dimension.
DEFECTORS by Joseph Kanon (Simon & Schuster £14.99)
KANON is acknowledged as one of the masters of the spy novel, and he demonstrates his serpentine skill again in this tour de force.
The year is 1961 and former CIA star agent Frank Weeks, who was revealed as a Communist spy in 1949 and has lived in Moscow ever since, has decided to write his memoirs. His defection shook the U.S. spy establishment to the core and cost his brother, Simon, his job at the State Department.
A Soviet agency has approached Simon, now a publisher, and asked him to not only publish his brother’s memoirs, but also help him complete them.
Simon agrees and arrives in Moscow to find his brother has a new scheme. A superb evocation of what being a defector means, Kanon brings the world of treachery and its consequences vividly to life.
OBSESSION by Amanda Robson (Avon £7.99)
ON THE surface, Rob and Carly are the perfect couple — comfortable home in the suburbs, he a doctor, she a practice nurse in his surgery — until one drunken evening she asks him which other woman he would choose if he had the opportunity.
Rob makes the mistake of picking a friend of theirs, Jenny, a woman Carly trained with who is married to a fireman called Craig.
From this tiny spark a wildfire of obsession breaks out, consuming Carly, who sets out to seduce Craig and destroy the fiercely religious Jenny, who she convinces herself is really having an affair with Rob.
To what lengths will Carly go in order to quench her jealousy? And who will pay the price? Can her marriage survive? Will Jenny?
One of the sexiest, most compelling debuts I’ve come across this year, it cries out to become a TV drama. But I recommend you read it first.