Few writers can lay claim to having made a genre entirely their own, but the racing thriller remains unassailably Dick Francis' territory and Martin Jarvis is without question one of the most recognisable voices in audio books. Shattered, as smoothly crafted a piece of entertainment as anything he has produced, is a reminder that despite various pretenders to the throne, Francis retains his crown-even the kerfuffle regarding the authorship of his books (his wife apparently lent a hand at times) only increased his profile, with fans seemingly indifferent to this revelation. What is his secret? Primarily, of course, it's the author's finely honed narrative skills that immediately mark him out as a master entertainer-thrillers such as Rat Race, Smokescreen and Trial Run bristle with energy and momentum. The ace in the hole is that satisfying sense of insider knowledge in his plots, however implausible they are. Shattered once again conveys that the equestrian world is quite as dangerous as Colin Dexter's Groves of Academe: jockey Martin Stukely dies after a fall in a steeplechase at Cheltenham races, and his friend, artist Gerald Logan, finds that the dead man has a connection to a stolen videotape with mysterious (and highly valuable) contents. Logan is more familiar with the problems of glass-blowing than violence and extortion, but he is soon undergoing a crash course in survival techniques as some very malignant heavies target him. Jarvis' unintrusive style of reading allows the reader to become thoroughly engrossed in the plot and fully involved with the characters. He creates a very credible Logan and maintains Francis' break neck pace with aplomb.

Of all writers practising what might loosely be called crime fiction today, Christopher Brookmyre is the one who lends himself least easily to categorisation. There are those eccentric titles, for a start: such as the latest one: A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil. This unwieldy title (as often before) gives an indication of the sardonic quality of his writing, and in that, Brookmyre is reminiscent of his great American colleague, Carl Hiaasen. Like Hiaasen, too, Brookmyre favours eccentric and outrageous plots, but there is always a strong grounding in reality, which gives the humour a decidedly bitter edge. Internet contact between ex-school friends these days leads to some disturbing encounters, and Brookmyre's version of the scenario is typically murderous. Brookmyre is interested in whether or not the index to future of violent behaviour might be discerned in the school playground. DS Karen Gillespie is bemused by a cack-handed attempt at burning a pair of bodies; this takes place outside Glasgow (in fact, in the area in which she grew up). And in a nearby lodge, strange attempts have been made to clean up what appears to be the same crime, but (as a pathologist points out), everything here is handled as maladroitly as the murder. Two suspects appear, but when Karen discovers that they were at primary school together (along with one of the murder victims), things begin to look like a grisly version of Friends Reunited. Brookmyre readers will know exactly what to expect from this scenario, and they won't be disappointed. [+]

Stephanie Plum, Janet Evanovich's bounty hunter star of Seven Up, is good at her job partly because of her infinite resourcefulness and partly because her world is one in which everyone on all sides of the law knows at least one member of her extended family. In this, the seventh offering in the Stephanie Plum series, she is chasing an elderly mobster who used to go out with her grandmother. Eddie DeChooch, though, is no less formidable for being old and he constantly eludes Stephanie, the police who want to question him about the corpse Stephanie found in his garage and Joyce, her arch-rival in the bail bond enforcement business. Stephanie's crowded social life gets ever more intense with her family pressing her to name a date for her wedding to Joe, her unreliable cop fiancé, her drastically attractive colleague Ranger, asking her for a night of bliss, her horribly perfect sister Valerie back from California with a down on men and the idiot stoners Moonman and Doug wandering around in super-hero costumes. Evanovich constantly ups the comic ante; DeChooch and his sidekicks manage to be menacingly obnoxious while remaining credibly characters in a farce. The social observation of families is as acute as ever while never passing up the chance for snappy one-liners. Above all, Stephanie herself remains a delightful tone of voice-a heroine considerably braver than she ever lets herself notice and rather smarter an investigator than she or anyone else gives her credit for being. -Roz Kaveney.

Andy McNab's thrillers have been enormously successful, and Dark Winter will no doubt allow his publishers to add more noughts to his already impressive sales figures. McNab's secret is reliability. He always delivers the kind of high-octane thrills his readers expect and seems immune to the hit-or-miss syndrome that afflicts so many thriller writers. Dark Winter has the tough (and battered) Nick Stone back in business, still parleying the skills he learnt in the SAS into his new role as a Special Intelligence Service operative. Al-Qaeda are concentrating their forces in south-east Asia (McNab is as topical as ever), and Nick is sent by the CIA to deal with one of Osama bin Laden's most dangerous biochemists. But Nick is given a female partner, and the mission takes unexpected turns. Back in the US, and struggling with the problems of being guardian to an orphaned girl, Nick finds a whole nest of terrorists plotting atrocities in both the US and the UK, and his involvement becomes (against his will) very personal indeed. As always, the mixture here is incandescent, punctuating steadily accelerating narrative trajectory with stunningly orchestrated bursts of action at frequent intervals. McNab's characterisation of anyone other than the resourceful Nick is serviceable rather than detailed, but this is a strategy to ensure that the principal ingredient here-bone-crunching action-is always foregrounded. It may be a while since McNab was an SAS man himself, but the tradecraft is always coolly plausible, and McNab fans can count on getting their money's worth. [+]