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Raven Books, £12.99 (ebook £10.99).

LYNNE TRUSS wrote the best-selling punctuation guide Eats, Shoots and Leaves and is a prolific writer of fiction, non-fiction, screenplays, newspaper columns and radio dramas.

A Shot In The Dark is based on Truss’ Radio 4 comedy thriller, The Casebook Of Inspector Steine. Super-keen new boy Constable Twitten is sent to keep an eye on AS Crystal, a vitriolic theatre critic and Twitten ends up with a murder on his hands.

Steine’s deputy, the long-suffering Sergeant Brunswick, is soon pounding the streets of Brighton looking for suspects among the cast of colourful characters. Inspector Steine is a bit blinkered and not as clever as he thinks, while Mrs Groynes, the police station charlady who keeps everyone supplied with tea and cakes, is much cleverer than she appears.

Set in 1950s Brighton, A Shot In The Dark is an intricately plotted murder mystery that’s darkly humorous and beautifully written.

MICHELLE SACKS found her story in the “almost impossibly idyllic” Swedish countryside. She drops Merry and Sam into picture-book ideal – pefect house, perfect marriage, new young son.

But shadows fill those clear depths. Why did they have to leave the US? Just what had Sam been up to with female students?

And, crucially, does Merry truly love her new baby?

Sacks then triangulates the emotional geometry when Frank arrives on holiday. She may be Merry’s oldest girlfriend but their friendship rests on rotten pillars.

Short, sparse chapters are devoted to each character, and the overlapping voices create a domestic thriller in which dreams unravel into nightmares. The staccato prose takes a while to settle, but once it does, the narrative impetus never slackens and events tumble towards a tragic resolution.