Crime in brief: Too Close to Home by Linwood BarclayThe Bodies Left Behind by Jeffery DeaverThe Goliath Bone by Mickey SpillaneBurial by Neil Cross

Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay (Orion £14.99)

Derek Cutter, 17 years old and horny as a toad, has a plan. The family next door is going away; he has access to their house and intends to invite his girlfriend round. Bad idea: he's hiding in the house when some bad men turn up and massacre the family. Definitely a passion killer. But perhaps the assassins got the wrong house and murdered the wrong family. Why pick on an innocent suburban household in the first place? Read this terrific thriller and find out.

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The Bodies Left Behind by Jeffery Deaver (Hodder £17.99)

Jeffery Deaver returns with a new novel that confirms his status as one of the finest crime writers in the world. A small-town police department in rural Wisconsin receives a 911 call that is cut short. A female police officer sent to investigate discovers a murder scene, then crashes her car and must cross the wilderness to safety, pursued by the killers. This one grabs the reader by the throat from the beginning. Superb.

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The Goliath Bone by Mickey Spillane (Quercus £17.99)

Before his death in 2006, Mickey Spillane asked his friend Max Allan Collins (another successful crime writer) to finish the final Mike Hammer novel, and here it is. PI Hammer is involved in a robbery on the New York subway and saves the lives of a pair of amateur archaeologists who've discovered what they think is Goliath's femur in Israel. Preposterous, yes; ridiculous, maybe; but hard-boiled as hell and a fitting epitaph to one of the masters of the craft.

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Burial by Neil Cross (Simon & Schuster £12.99)

Neil Cross's latest novel is a horrible reminder that the past can come back and bite you on the backside – hard. Nathan met Bob when he was young and foolish, and a young girl died. A young girl they buried together, before parting for ever – or so Nathan had hoped. But Bob returns to inform him that the burial site is about to be developed and they'd better do something about it fast. So they do, and things go from bad to worse in this suspense-filled thriller.

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