CRIME AND THRILLERS

GEOFFREY WANSELL BILLY SUMMERS by Stephen King (Hodder £20)

AN IRAQ war veteran who became a hit man after he left the service, takes one last job to ensure his financial security, but finds that he is changed dramatically by this last experience. A poignant exploration of what it means to kill, this is a thriller that tugs at the heart-strings.

MERCY by David Baldacci

(Macmillan £20) IN HER second outing, FBI agent Atlee Pine finally finds out what happened to her sister Mercy, who was abducted when the girls were just six years old — destroying their family. But the discovery is immensely painful, and brings Pine even more anguish. This is Baldacci at his brilliant best.

SILVERVIEW by John le Carre (Viking £20)

THE 26th and final outing for the master of the British espionage novel does not disappoint. Two former spies, Edward and his wife Deborah, are hiding in a small seaside town when their lives are turned upside down. It is a superb example of Le Carre’s enduring and exquisite genius.

APRIL IN SPAIN by John Banville (Faber £14.99)

THIS successor to Booker Prize-winner Banville’s first literary crime novel, Snow, again features his gentlemanly Irish detective St John Strafford, but is set in Spain this time. It is an elegant story that never loses its serpentine grip on the way to a superb finale.

THE DARK HOURS by Michael Connelly

(Orion £20) ONE of the world’s greatest crime writers is back with a case featuring two of his finest detectives — Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard.

A man dies on New Year’s Eve, while Ballard searches for serial rapists called The Midnight Men, and she recruits Bosch — vintage Connelly.

THE MURDER BOX by Olivia Kiernan

(Riverrun £14.99) KIERNAN’S exceptional talent for the unexpected is displayed in this fourth story featuring DCS Frankie Sheehan in Dublin. A glossy box arrives at her office which turns out to be a joke played out with a missing girl.