Icarus 17 by Charles Cumming (Hemlock £20, 480pp)

This fourth story about the ultra-secret espionage unit Box 88, headed by Lachlan ‘Lockie’ Kite, underlines just what a magnificent writer of spy fiction Cumming has become.

Here, Kite is asked by an old flame from university, Martha Raine, to help track down her son Max who has disappeared in Greece alongside his girlfriend Yasmine.

Both have dropped off the grid completely and it seems there are dark forces determined to capture and interrogate Yasmine for a secret she knows that could destabilise the Middle East for decades.

So begins a deadly chase, with a team of Israeli agents despatched to kill her. This is Cumming at his best – a genuinely thrilling, superbly tortuous plot, packed with memorable characters and real tension.

Hide and Seek by Chris Carter (Simon & Schuster £20, 528pp)

Rich housewife Sam Stewart has suffered abuse at the hands of her investment banker husband Nelson for years, but she has finally summed up the courage to take him to court, where he is convicted and sentenced to 13 years. But before he is taken away he shouts to her: ‘I will be coming for you. No matter how long it takes’.

Terrified that he has the financial resources and the criminal connections to do so, Sam adopts a whole new identity as Mary Smith and starts to move around the United States, starting in Nashville.

But at every turn she seems to be followed, in spite of precautions. This game of cat and mouse escalates as Carter’s story roars along like an express train, never pausing for breath and leaving the reader gasping. Can the inventive heroine ever truly escape?

One of Us is Guilty by Steve Cavanagh (Headline £16.99, 432pp)

Conman turned defence lawyer Eddie Flynn is now every bit as good and firmly established as Michael Connelly’s Lincoln Lawyer.

Smart, dedicated and not afraid to bend the law, this, his tenth and best case, is haunting. Patrick Vanderpool is the son of billionaire media mogul Julian, who has vast ambitions for his son – Governor of New York and then President.

Patrick’s wife Vanessa realises that one of her husband’s political assistants, Mary Green, has been having an affair with him when her headless body is discovered in her apartment.

Did Vanessa kill her out of jealousy, or did Patrick fear she would threaten his political future? Enter Eddie Flynn, hired to defend Vanessa, but does he believe she’s innocent? Corkscrew twists abound with Flynn at the heart: utterly unmissable.