R. J. Ellory is one of the most interesting crime novelists writing today. Though Britishborn and based, he sets his novels in the United States and seems to change his style of writing from book to book – always to excellent effect. Best known for A Quiet Belief in Angels (Orion. PB. $22.99) – soon to be made into a film – his latest novel is set in the 1960s. Its protoganists are Clarence Luckman and Elliott Danziger, orphaned half-brothers who have been raised in state institutions and have little familiarity with the outside world. Seized as hostages by Earl Sheridan, a convicted killer en route to death row, they are forced to go on the run with him through California and Texas, leaving an ever-growing tide of violence in their wake.

Award-winning journalist Anders Roslund and ex-criminal Borge Hellström are Sweden’s most acclaimed fiction duo, demonstrating a unique ability to combine inside knowledge of the brutal reality of criminal life with searing social criticism in complex, intelligent plots. Their last book Three Seconds (Quercus. PB. $22.99) was an international bestseller and this new title looks as if it will follow the same trajectory. Once again featuring Detective Ewert Grens, it starts with the arrest of a crooner named John Schwarz who has been involved in a violent altercation on a Baltic cruising ferry. When it becomes clear that Schwarz is in fact John Meyer Frey, an American who supposedly died on death row the previous year, Grens is faced with the most perplexing case of his career.

Winner of this year’s Crime Writer’s Association (CWA) Gold Dagger, this masterful crime novel set in Mississippi sizzles with deep Southern menace.

Amos, Mississippi, is a quiet town. Silas Jones is its sole law enforcement officer. The last excitement here was nearly twenty years ago, when a teenage girl disappeared on a date with Larry Ott, Silas one-time boyhood friend. The law couldn't prove Larry guilty, but the whole town has shunned him ever since.

Then the town's peace is shattered when someone tries to kill the reclusive Ott, another young woman goes missing, and the town's drug dealer is murdered. Woven through the tautly written murder story is the unspoken secret that hangs over the lives of two men – one black, one white.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a masterful crime novel, sizzling with deep Southern menace, and distinguished by brilliant plotting and unforgettable characters.

Foie gras. Red wine. Archaeological digs. White wine. Horses. Basset hounds. Geese. Romance. Recipes. Dead bodies. Welcome to the world of rural crime man, Bruno Courrèges, who deftly operates between Mayor, police and national levels of law enforcement in the French region of the Périgord, so trammelled during WWII. Basque separatists, long-lost memories and the deep ravines of loss and treachery that run through the local community are the background of The Crowded Grave. Without too much effort, Walker takes the reader into a well-crafted, charming crime story of international politics, personal loss and the legacy of fathers. Best enjoyed accompanied by something chilled, French and alcoholic.

In her 19th novel, the Baroness has masterfully recreated the world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, combining it with the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly crafted detective story. The year is 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been married for six years. There are now two handsome and healthy sons in the Pemberley nursery and Elizabeth’s happiness in her marriage is complete. But the family’s peace is threatened and old sins and misunderstandings are rekindled on the eve of the annual autumn ball, when Lydia Wickham, an uninvited guest, arrives and asserts that her husband has been murdered. James weaves a compelling story, combining a sensitive insight into the happy but threatened marriage of the Darcys and the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly crafted detective story.

In this new release approved by the Conan Doyle estate, bestselling novelist and Sherlock Holmes expert Anthony Horowitz brings the great detective and his sidekick Dr Watson to life again for a new generation of readers. Horowitz says: ‘I fell in love with the Sherlock Holmes stories when I was 16 and I’ve read them many times since. My aim is to produce a first-rate mystery for a modern audience while remaining absolutely true to the spirit of the original’.

Having now put Rebus behind him, Scotland’s favourite crime fiction writer has released a sequel to 2009’s The Complaints, and it’s a beezer of a book (Scottish vernacular for excellent). This time around, Malcolm Fox and his team from Internal Affairs have been sent to Fife to investigate whether fellow cops covered up for a corrupt colleague. But what should be a simple job is complicated when Fox uncovers links between the cover-up, a subsequent murder, Scottish radical politics of the mid-1980s and the senior echelons of today’s law enforcement. Fox is intent on getting at the truth and becomes obsessed with the case. But why is he doing this? Is it to avoid his relationship problems, or to prove that he’s still a ‘proper’ detective? You’ll have to read it to find out!

The pleasures of reading are front and centre in this lovely book by the Pulitzer Prize– winning author and book critic, Michael Dirda. Taking us through Conan Doyle’s complete body of work, including a revelatory chapter on his memoir and political journalism, Dirda brilliantly reveals Conan Doyle’s approach to writing and the way he told his stories. But the book is most delightful when he focuses on his own relationship, beginning as a boy, with Conan Doyle’s stories. Dirda calls the book ‘a kind of reader’s memoir’ but On Conan Doyle: The Whole Art of Storytelling is not only that. It is an elegant study of writing and life, and isn’t just for Sherlock Holmes fans.

Ask any bookseller to recommend a great crime series, and they will almost inevitably cite Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther books. Starting with the Berlin Noir trilogy (March Violets, The Pale Criminal and A German Requiem), these eight books have followed the German police detective and sometime gumshoe from Berlin to Vienna, Munich, Paris, Cuba, Palestine, Buenos Aires and Havana. The latest instalment is set in Prague during WWII and is one of the best yet, melding impeccably researched historical background with a tightly constructed plot and a wonderful cast of characters, chief among whom is the morally compromised police detective himself. Bernie is one of the most complex and likeable protagonists to feature in crime fiction, and Kerr’s writing is simply sensational (think Hammett at his best). If you like character-driven historical crime with a hardboiled veneer, this series is for you.

The book that inspired last year’s Oscarwinning Best Foreign Film has finally been translated into English from its original Spanish, and we’re happy to say that it’s been well worth the wait. Set in Buenos Aires during the ‘Dirty War’ of the 1970s, this thoughtful literary thriller is narrated by Benjamín Miguel Chaparro, a former deputy clerk with the Argentine judiciary who, determined to put to rest his obsession with the decades-old brutal murder of a beautiful young woman, sets out to write a book about it. As he reaches into the past and the lives of others who became entangled in the case he recalls the beginning of his own private drama – a long and unrequited love – and ponders the nature of justice itself. What does it really mean, and in whose hands does it belong?

Harris’ latest blockbuster is a taut thriller set in the high-tech, high-stakes world of international finance.

Dr Max Hoffman is a legend. A physicist once employed on the Large Hadron Collider, he now uses a revolutionary and highly secret system of computer algorithms to trade on the world’s financial markets. None of his rivals is sure how he does it, but somehow Hoffman’s hedge fund – built around the standard measure of market volatility: the VIX or “Fear Index” – generates astonishing returns for his investors. Late one night, in his house beside Lake Geneva, an intruder disturbs Hoffman and his wife while they are asleep. This terrifying moment is the start of Robert Harris’s new novel – a story just as compelling and timely as his most recent contemporary thriller, The Ghost. Over the next 48 hours, as the markets edge towards another great crash, Hoffman’s world disintegrates. But who is trying to destroy him?

Life is so unfair, and it sends many things to try Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, author of Portuguese Irregular Verbs and pillar of the Institute of Romance Philology in the proud Bavarian city of Regensburg. There is the undeserved rise of his rival (and owner of a one-legged dachshund), Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer; the interminable ramblings of the librarian, Herr Huber; and the condescension of his colleagues with regard to his unmarried state. But when his friend Ophelia Prinzel takes it upon herself to match-make, and duly produces a cheerful heiress with her own Schloss, it appears that the professor's true worth is about to be recognised.

Disher was recently profiled in The Atlantic as one of Australia’s two best crime writers (with Peter Temple), and his latest Peninsula murder mystery featuring Hal Challis and Ellen Destry lives up to this reputation.

Hal Challis is in trouble at home and abroad: carpeted by the boss for speaking out about police budget cuts; missing his lover, Ellen Destry, who is overseas on a study tour. But there's plenty to keep his mind off his problems. A rapist in a police uniform stalks Challis's Peninsula beat, there is a serial armed robber headed in his direction and a home invasion that's a little too close to home. Not to mention a very clever, very mysterious female cat burglar who may or may not be planning something on Challis's patch. Meanwhile, at the Waterloo Police Station, Challis finds his offsiders have their own issues. Scobie Sutton, still struggling with his wife's depression, seems to be headed for a career crisis; and something very interesting is going on between Constable Pam Murphy and Jeanne Schiff, the feisty young sergeant on secondment from the Sex Crimes Unit.