Paperback: Death of a Murderer, by Rupert Thomson

Bloomsbury £7.99 (249pp)

At first, Thomson's eighth novel seems to turn its back on his eerie hyper-realism for a far more downbeat tale. After all, it traces one night of memory and fear in the life of a Suffolk copper guarding the body of an infamous killer, based on Myra Hindley. Yet Thomson's uncanny magic still lurks in the sense of risk, terror and wonder in PC Tyler's family life, and in the mythical evil of the dead "monster" – who, eventually, makes the most haunting of entrances.