CRIME AND THRILLERS

GEOFFREY WANSELL TALL BONES by Anna Bailey

(Doubleday £12.99, 352 pp) THE British-born Bailey’s claustrophobic story of a young girl’s guilt and regret about losing a friend is set in a small town on the edge of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. Both menacing and haunting, it is a memorable debut.

SIXTEEN HORSES by Greg Buchanan

(Mantle £16.99, 464 pp) SET IN a fictional English seaside town, this compelling novel opens with local detective Alec Nichols stumbling upon the heads of 16 horses buried in a field. How did they get there and why? The corkscrew twists leave you begging for more.

GIRL A by Abigail Dean

(HarperCollins £14.99, 336 pp) ALMOST too painful to read at times, this marvellously assured debut charts the life of a family terrorised by their overbearing, religious fanatic father, as told by the first child to escape — known to the media as Girl A. It is heartstoppingly good.

MIRRORLAND by Carole Johnstone

(Borough £12.99, 416 pp) IDENTICAL twins lie at the heart of this creepy Gothic tale set in a house on the edge of Edinburgh, where the sisters created a secret world in the basement when they were young, called Mirrorland. Now it comes back to haunt them.

THE SANATORIUM by Sarah Pearse (Bantam £12.99, 400 pp)

WHEN Devon-based police detective DS Elin Warner attends her brother’s engagement party at a former Swiss sanatorium — now an ultra-chic hotel — a snow-storm rages in and isolates the group, only for one to go missing. It sends shivers down the spine.

THE KILLING KIND by Jane Casey

(HarperCollins £12.99, 480 pp) CRIMINAL barrister Ingrid Lewis successfully defends a stalker only to find herself the victim of his predatory ways. But then he reveals he is only trying to protect her from someone aiming to kill her. Should she believe him?