Stalking Fiona, by Nigel Williams (Granta, £5.99 in UK)

You can, it seems, persuade a publisher to commit just about anything to print nowadays, provided it features a hard disc or the Internet somewhere in the plot. This nasty little thriller, set in an accountancy office, is based around the computer confession of a rapist and serial killer who has also tried his hand at major fraud: the plot is ludicrous, the denouement obvious and the misogyny of the whole exercise absolutely intolerable.