Engram, by Keith Baker (Headline Feature, £5.99 in UK)

Keith Baker burst on the literary scene in 1996 with the wonderful Inheritance, an imaginative thriller set in Northern Ireland, 20 years after the Troubles have ended. That novel revealed Baker to be a writer with a strong gift for story-telling and a sharp eye for detail. He has continued in the same vein with his third novel, Engram, the frightening story of a young doctor who loses her memory after a car smash outside Belfast. As she struggles to discover what has happened to her, the tale takes us from Northern Ireland to Portland, Maine, and reveals a widening web of deceit and intrigue. In a genre where cliche often predominates, Baker shows that he can write strong, clean, fluid English. His plotting is intricate, his characters are real and his dialogue authentic. A joy to read for any thriller buff.