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The first mystery to be confronted on picking up Holmes, Margaret and Poe (Century £20) by James Patterson and Brian Sitts is: why not “Holmes, Marple and Dupin”? A modern riff on the famous sleuths created by Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Edgar Allan Poe, in the US the book’s title is Holmes, Marple and Poe. Are rights issues to blame? Or perhaps it was felt that Poe’s sleuth Auguste Dupin — the progenitor of all the detectives that followed him — is known only to cognoscenti these days. This surely underestimates the intelligence of readers.

Book cover of ‘Holmes, Margaret and Poe’

But does the duo of the bestselling Patterson and the latest of his army of collaborators pull off the postmodern trick? The book’s scenario is that a sleuthing trio with the names of these famous predecessors comprise a new agency in New York, who are involved in three cases: an unsolved murder, the disappearance of an attorney and a serious art theft.

Although the three private investigators have memorable characteristics (Holmes has an enhanced olfactory capability; Poe has the same addictive nature as the celebrated writer; Margaret Marple, though, is considerably more seductive than her English namesake), their actual identities are kept from us. An NYPD policewoman, however, is watching them closely. All of this is delivered in lightweight, entertaining fashion in the brief chapters that are Patterson’s speciality.

Book cover of ‘To The Dogs’

Scottish novelist Louise Welsh has long been interested in the universality of human experience, unconcerned with the parochialism that both the Scots and the English regularly display. She made a significant impression with her first novel, The Cutting Room (2002). And The Bullet Trick, which followed in 2006, evoked the down-at-heel, sensuous delights of Glasgow gin joints and seedy Soho nightclubs.

To the Dogs (Canongate £16.99) sees Welsh in assertive form, her subject contemporary academia in thrall to wealthy students from overseas. Jim Brennan is a university high-flyer enjoying an apparently perfect life despite his insalubrious upbringing. But when his son is imprisoned on drug charges, Jim is confronted by deeply unpleasant individuals from his own past. Welsh exhibits her usual unassailable command of a gritty Glaswegian setting and a fatalistic perception of how quickly ordered lives can spin into chaos. 

Book cover of ‘The Guests’

There’s prime Nordic noir from Agnes Ravatn, whose The Guests (Orenda £9.99, translated by Rosie Hedger) boasts a satisfying vein of psychological intensity. Lawyer Karin and her husband Kai manage to obtain the use of a splendid holiday cottage in Oslofjord. But it turns out that the property belongs to a childhood enemy of Karin, the actress Iris Vilden; disturbing consequences are in store. The beleaguered Karin is a strongly drawn character, and this is an economically written study of burgeoning paranoia.

Book cover of ‘Point Zero’

Do you aspire to be a connoisseur of the best international crime fiction? If so, Seichō Matsumoto’s Point Zero (Bitter Lemon, £9.99, translated by Louise Heal Kawai) should be on your bedside table. Matsumoto is highly regarded, but this remarkable novel is appearing in English some 60-odd years after its Japanese publication. The book was groundbreaking in its use of a female investigator, Teiko Uhara, who travels to a remote coastal city to track down her missing husband. Congruent with the mystery narrative is a nuanced examination of the contrast between traditional and modern Japan, along with the legacy of the country’s military defeat during the second world war. Become acquainted with a crime master.

Book cover of ‘Owning Up’

In George Pelecanos’s Owning Up (Orion £22), we are given a portmanteau collection of crime narratives, starting with a family attempting to rebuild their lives after police intrusion. If not every tale is vintage Pelecanos, the book is still essential reading for both aficionados and newcomers.

Children’s author Oskar Jensen (British with Scandinavian heritage) provides a highly diverting debut adult novel with Helle & Death (Viper £16.99), a witty repurposing of the Golden Age country house whodunnit for the modern age, with Danish art historian Torben Helle cracking the mystery of a violent death in a snowbound Northumbrian mansion.

Book cover of ‘Hotel Arcadia’

In Sunny Singh’s Hotel Arcadia (Magpie £9.99), the eponymous guesthouse is anything but Arcadian. Sam is a war photographer relaxing after a harrowing assignment when the hotel is suddenly besieged by violent terrorists. The hotel manager, the sympathetic Abhi, tries to persuade Sam to keep a low profile, but fails. Reminiscent of Graham Greene, the careful accretion of character detail enhances a very persuasive novel.

My final recommendation is for two crime series that are now de rigueur. First, Simon Mason’s Oxford-set DI Wilkins sequence, the latest of which, Lost and Never Found (Riverrun £16.99), is perhaps the most accomplished yet (the book’s title is how a missing celebrity has described herself). And Tim Sullivan’s cannily plotted The Teacher (Head of Zeus £20) ensures that socially inept DS George Cross is as beguiling a figure as ever. 

Barry Forshaw is the author of ‘Euro Noir’

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