Move over Michael Connelly – R. J. Ellory is here and he’s staking a persuasive claim to your territory. The Anniversary Man is the best offering yet from this talented storyteller, comparable to Connelly’s masterful The Poet (Allen & Unwin. PB. $23.95). Twenty years ago, John Costello and his girlfriend were attacked by the ‘Hammer of God’ serial killer. John’s girlfriend died but he survived, albeit with massive psychological scarring. Working as a crime researcher with the New York City Herald, he and journalist Karen Langley are drawn into a murder investigation being run by lonely Homicide Detective, Ray Irving. They soon realise that a serial killer is on the loose, one who commits his crimes in the style and on the anniversaries of past crimes. A ripper of a read (so to speak).

Former college radical Jay Porter is not the lawyer he set out to be, but he’s long since made peace with the American Dream. Then one night he impulsively saves a woman from drowning in the bayou – and opens a Pandora’s box. Her secrets put Jay in danger, ensnaring him in a murder investigation that could cost him his practice, his family and even his life. But before he can get to the bottom of the tangled mystery that reaches into the upper echelons of Houston’s corporate power brokers, Jay must confront the demons of his past. Locke is a screenwriter best known for her work on The Wire, and in this, her first novel, she has delivered a taut crime novel-cum-political thriller with a strong and sympathetic African-American protagonist. Crime fiction for the Obama era.

Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. Two Millennium journalists about to expose the truth about the sex trafficking trade are murdered and Salander's prints are on the weapon. Her history of unpredictable and vengeful behaviour makes her an official danger to society - but no-one can find her.Mikael Blomkvist, editor-in-chief of Millennium, does not believe the police. Using all his magazine staff and resources to prove Salander's innocence, Blomkvist also uncovers her terrible past, spent in criminally corrupt institutions. Yet Salander is more avenging angel than helpless victim. She may be an expert at staying out of sight - but she has ways of tracking down her most elusive enemies.

This Swedish bestseller is a violent and bloody thriller, a sinister family saga, a mystery of massive financial fraud and an ambiguous and haunting love story all at once.

The garish cover of Queenpin resembles a trash-and-slash novel from the ’50s, but its story is reminiscent of Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and Jim Thompson at their very best. The third in Megan Abbot’s acclaimed series of noir novels (following Die a Little and The Song is You, both Simon & Schuster, $23, and preceding Bury Me Deep, Simon & Schuster, $30), Queenpin is narrated by its unnamed central character, a pretty young bookkeeper who is taken under the wing of Gloria Denton, a notorious and hardboiled moll who works as a mob courier. Before she knows it, our narrator is ushered into a glittering demimonde of late-night casinos, racetracks, betting parlours, inside heists, grifter lovers and big, big money. And in this morally ambiguous world, a girl has to do what a girl has to do…

Peter Temple’s recently released companion volume to 2007’s The Broken Shore (Text. PB. $23.95) is more than a cracking good crime read. Like its predecessor, it is an important work of Australian literary fiction – with evocative imagery, masterful characterisations and finely honed, distinctively Australian prose. Set in Melbourne during a hellish bushfire season, Truth is about Homicide Inspector, Stephen Villani. Villani lives for his job – and has sacrificed his family in the process. During an investigation into an unidentified young girl’s death, he must deal with corruption within the police force and government, and also with the mess he has made of his personal life. With these two books Temple has transcended genre and joined the ranks of Australia’s greatest writers – essential reading.

The fifth in Disher’s celebrated series of novels featuring Hal Challis and Ellen Destry. NB: December release.

It’s been eight years since the publication of The Cold Six Thousand (Arrow. PB. $24.95), the second instalment in Ellroy’s persuasively pessimistic ‘Underworld USA’ trilogy. This final volume is set in 1968. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King are dead and the Mob, Howard Hughes and J. Edgar Hoover are engaged in a murderous struggle for America’s soul. Ellroy introduces us to Wayne Tedrow Jr., assassin and dope cooker; Dwight Holly, Hoover’s enforcer and hellish conspirator in terrible crimes; and Don Crutchfield, a wheelman and private detective who stumbles upon an ungodly conspiracy from which he and the country may never recover. Described by one critic as ‘revisionist history that roars off the page’, this political noir will be eagerly embraced by Ellroy’s many fans.

Malcolm Fox works with the Complaints – the cops who investigate other cops. He’s just had a result, and should be feeling good about himself. But he’s a man with problems. Middle-aged, lonely and still craving a drink after years of sobriety, he worries about his increasingly frail father and his sister, who persists in an abusive relationship. Then he’s given a new task – to investigate Jamie Breck, a cop who may be a paedophile. As Fox takes on the job, he starts to have doubts about Breck’s guilt and then comes under suspicion of misconduct after the murder of his sister’s partner. Suspended from duty, he finds himself working with Breck to solve the murder and uncovers a deep seam of corruption within the local government, business community and police department. Classic Rankin.

Tony Hill is back, this time investigating a brutal and ruthless campaign of terror against a seemingly unconnected group of young people.

Corinna Chapman returns in her fifth adventure, as witty and wise as ever.

Lisbeth Salander is plotting her revenge - against the men who tried to kill her, and against the government institutions that nearly destroyed her life. But it is not going to be a straightforward campaign. After taking a bullet to the head, Salander is under close supervision in Intensive Care, and is set to face trial for three murders and one attempted murder on her eventual release. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist from Millennium Magazine, Salander must not only prove her innocence, but identify and denounce the corrupt politicians that have allowed the vulnerable to become victims of abuse and violence. Once a victim herself, Salander is ready to fight back.

Shanghai-based detective Zhong Fong finds himself investigating a blood-trafficking racket and a massive outbreak of AIDS in a sleepy rural province of China.

In the latest Reykjavík Murder Mystery, Erlendur Sveinsson embarks on an unofficial investigation into the apparent suicide of a university lecturer, Marìa. Soon, he finds himself unearthing facts about a tragedy in the dead woman’s past and is drawn into her obsession with life after death. At the same time, the taciturn detective reopens two of his ubiquitous missing persons cases – a young man who went missing 30 years ago and whose father is still hoping for some type of resolution, and a girl who went missing at the same time. Could their disappearances be related? And if he solves the cases and can tell the long-grieving father what happened to his son, will Erlendur himself attain some kind of resolution to the tragic event in his own childhood?

The latest instalment in Kerr’s fabulous Bernie Gunther novels swings from 1936 Berlin to 1950s Havana.

A real-life thriller that features deadpan FBI agents, crooked executives, idealistic lawyers and shady witnesses with an addiction to intrigue.

Rendell takes us back in time, not only to resolve aseries of crimes, but also to show Chief Inspector Wexford at the start of his career.

Harry Bosch’s latest case sees him embroiled with the triads in LA and Hong Kong.

The latest fast-paced thriller from Rimington, a former head of MI5, sees MI5 intelligence officer Liz Carlyle despatched to Northern Ireland.

In his latest novel, the creator of Dave Robicheaux introduces Sheriff Hackberry Holland, a former ACLU attorney and Korean War prisoner who has washed up in a broken-down border town in south Texas.

The latest novel by one of the most exciting Scandinavian crime-fiction authors writing today. NB: December release.

Rome, 1700. Former castrato soprano Atto Melani, a spy in the service of Louis XIV, launches a conspiracy to promote Louis’ ambition to inherit the Spanish throne.

Writers of the status of John le Carré and Sarah Waters have given rave reviews to this account of a real-life 1860s country-house whodunit.