The spies inside your head... GEOFFREY WANSELL

THRILLERS

THE GRID by Nick Cook (Bantam Press £16.99, 416 pp)

THIS striking debut from a respected defence analyst depends on a terrifying premise: what if the Russian or U.S. intelligence agencies could affect the way we think?

Sounds unlikely, but Cook provides convincing evidence that it’s possible. U.S. President Thompson has been suffering recurring nightmares for months, all ending in his assassination.

His personal physician, Dr Cain, a military psychiatrist, is concerned as the dreams escalate. Then Cain is called to a church tower where he talks down a suicidal ex-Marine, only for the soldier to reveal a sophisticated plot against the President moments before a sniper kills him.

This stylish, riveting thriller explodes into a world of ‘psychic spies’ and dark plots to undermine the world.

SEVEN DAYS by Alex Lake (HarperCollins £7.99, 432 pp)

HERE is an all-too-real, utterly horrifying story, torn from headlines around the world.

Fifteen- year- old Maggie Cooper is abducted and kept prisoner in a locked basement for 12 years. She is forced to have sex with her captor, and gives birth to three sons, Seb, Leo and Max.

On the third birthdays of the first two, her captor takes the boys away — never to allow them to return. Now it’s just seven days until Max’s third birthday, and Maggie is terrified that she’ll lose him, too.

What can she do to stop it? Told partly in flashback to 2006 when she was first abducted, and also as an ‘against the clock’ drama of her desperate attempt not to be separated from her son, this is creepy storytelling of the highest order: spine- chilling and difficult to put down.

THE EX-GIRLFRIEND by Nicola Moriarty (Penguin £7.99, 400 pp )

GEORGIA is an attractive nurse in Sydney, looking for a man. She goes on a Tinder date, where the man does not show up, but another man, Luke, approaches her in the bar.

He is affectionate and protective, everything Georgia wants. The only problem is his ex-girlfriend, Cadence, with whom he still lives even though they have broken up.

Cadence begins to stalk her new rival, sending her threatening messages and following her in the street.

Georgia takes Luke to meet her family at a wedding in Melbourne, but still Cadence is the menacing shadow in the background — apparently determined to destroy her rival.

The threats increase and Georgia’s life begins to unravel. This is a very modern love story with an eerily prescient twist.