CRIMEFILE: Vincent Banvillereviews The Race, Obsession, Dead Men, The Night's Foul Work, Last Rituals, Killer Heatand Nothing To Fear
RICHARD NORTH PATTERSON'S The Race is not a conventional thriller, although it belts along at a furious pace. The race of the title is that for the Republican Party nomination for the presidency of the US. The chief protagonist is Senator Corey Grace, a decorated Gulf War pilot, who is one of the main runners. However, he has an amount of baggage to discard - the mistake that resulted in his navigator being killed, the suicide of his younger brother, and his relationship with an African-American film star named Lexie Hart - before he can become a legitimate challenger.
The two other people in the race are the favourite of the party establishment, Rob Marotta, and a charismatic leader of the Christian right, the Rev Bob Christy. Marotta has a rather satanic campaign manager called Magnus Price behind him, and this man stoops to all kinds of dirty work to get his man elected. This is one of the more interesting aspects of the book, for it perhaps gives some disclosure to what goes on in the real-life campaigns that are going on at the moment. The book is most entertaining and keeps one on the edge of the seat to the final startling revelation.
JONATHAN KELLERMAN'S Obsession is a more traditional thriller. The main man here is psychologist Alex Deleware, with whom regular readers of Kellerman will be familiar. Helped as usual by gay cop Milo Sturgis, he is here investigating the deathbed confession of a woman called Patty Bigelow, who told her adopted daughter, with her last breath, that a "terrible thing" had occurred some time before. The girl, whom Deleware had counselled when she was a child, has now come to him seeking help.
When he starts looking into things, a hotbed of conspiracy begins to unravel, and the danger to the girl, Tanya, becomes real. Violent deaths occur, some high-class socialites become involved, and a murderous criminal begins to emerge.
Kellerman is an old hand at this type of thing, and he brings his readers along to a bloody climax in which Sturgis almost gets killed. One to savour.
STEPHEN LEATHER, with his Dead Men, is another pro at the edge-of-the-seat thriller genre. His protagonist is Dan "Spider" Shepherd, who is working for the British Serious Organised Crime Agency. He is sent to Belfast as an undercover agent to find out who is killing off pardoned IRA assassins. Five such killers gunned down Robbie Carter, an RUC officer, in front of his wife and child.
Released under the Good Friday Agreement, they are being shot one by one, and the gun used is the dead Carter's revolver. Shepherd gets close to Carter's wife, and manages to meet a number of the policemen who were the dead cop's associates. Another plot line has a wealthy Saudi businessman seeking revenge on Shepherd's boss for the deaths of his two sons. He sends a Palestinian hitman to kill Shepherd, in the hope that it will cause his boss to emerge. So our hero has more than enough on his plate. Leather, as usual, writes a great story, and Dead Men is another page-turner.
FRED VARGAS is the pen-name of French historian and archaeologist Frédérique Audouin-Rouzeau, and she is a best-selling author in her own country. Now, in their English translations, her books are beginning to make a name for her in the English-speaking world. Her detective, the quirky Commissaire Adamsberg, is investigating the deaths of two small-time criminals who were found with their throats cut. A grave has also been disturbed in a cemetery, which could be the work of a serial-killer nurse who has recently escaped from prison. The book progresses at a leisurely pace but it holds the interest.
ALSO IN TRANSLATION, this time from the Icelandic, is Last Rituals, by Yrsa Sigurdardottir. A young man is brutally murdered, his eyes gouged out and a strange symbol carved on his body. A suspect is arrested, but the boy's mother is unconvinced that he is responsible. So she hires attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir to uncover the evidence missed by the police. The victim had been studying the world of witchcraft and torture in Icelandic history, and Thora has to tread that world in order to find the true explanation for the boy's death. The exotic locale helps to make this novel a most interesting read and the conclusion is admirably laid out.
LINDA FAIRSTEIN'S Killer Heat once again has District Attorney Alexandra Cooper at its centre, so readers might know what to expect: great storytelling and a book high on suspense. The corpse of a part-time prostitute is found on an island at the tip of Manhattan called Ghost Island. Her client list is missing, but it was clearly worth killing for. Soon two other girls are missing, and Alex, with the help of her detective friends, Mile Chapman and Mercer Wallace, is deep into the investigation. The chase leads her to a climax in which she barely escapes with her life, but regular readers will be glad to know that she lives on to fight another day.
KAREN ROSE'S Nothing to Fear is an old-fashioned type of mystery-thriller, where the characters are fairly stereotyped and the story is all. I'm giving nothing away by saying the vicious murderer is one Sue Conroy, who is out of control and out for revenge on those who helped put her in prison for 10 years. What you read is what you get here - the killings are grisly and you'll feel it's about time when Sue - not an apt name for a mad killer surely? - gets her comeuppance.
• Vincent Banville is a writer and critic
The Race By Richard North Patterson Macmillan, £16.99
Obsession By Jonathan Kellerman Michael Joseph, £14.99
Dead Men By Stephen Leather Hodder & Stoughton, £19.99
This Night's Foul Work By Fred Vargas, translated from the French by Sian Reynolds Harvill Secker, £12.99
Last Rituals By Yrsa Sigurdardottir, translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder Hodder & Stoughton, £11.99
Killer Heat By Linda Fairstein Little Brown, £12.99
Nothing to Fear By Karen Rose Headline, £12.99