Spine-tingling Thrillers to keep you guessing: Dead Island by Samuel Bjork, The Peacock

DEAD ISLAND by Samuel Bjork (Bantam £20, 432pp)

Just seven weeks before this tantalising mystery begins, the gifted, and psychic, homicide investigator Mia Kruger resigns her job in Oslo and retires to a tiny island at the opening of a Norwegian Fjord to try to recover from the horrifying pressures of being a detective. But even here she cannot escape.

A young girl of ten or 11 rows out to beg Mia to investigate the disappearance of her friend Jonathan three years earlier.

Then another teen is found murdered on the island and Mia finds herself reunited with her old mentor and boss Holger Munch as ugly questions begin to emerge.

This is their fifth case and underlines how captivating they are: the flawed genius and her subtle minder.

Burnout and murder on a remote island 

THE PEACOCK AND THE SPARROW by I. S. Berry (No Exit Press £9.99, 352pp)

The Peacock and the Sparrow is available now from the Mail Bookshop

Shane Collins is a fifty something washed-up CIA agent with a drinking problem, now past his best and sent to Bahrain to finish his last months as an active spy.

By chance, he stumbles upon an asset in the revolution against the government that provides him with exceptional inside information.

So begins this former real life CIA agent’s account of a life of espionage – lived in the twilight world where no one is to be trusted and deceit is part of life.

Then Collins meets a striking local woman, Almaisa, and a love story emerges from the wreckage of his career. This is a superb debut from a former female intelligence officer that oozes with atmosphere and nuance.

IDENTITY UNKNOWN by Patricia Cornwell (Sphere £22, 400pp)

FORENSIC pathologist Dr Kay Scarpetta is one of the best known heroines in crime thrillers, with more than 120 million books sold.

She has always been clever but somehow also a touch prissy, even chill, but here Cornwell gives her some humanity in that she is called to examine the corpse of a man with whom she had an intense affair many years ago in Italy. That was long before she married.

This gives Scarpetta a special relationship to the discovery of her former lover’s body in the middle of a field with a circle of petals spread around the body.

Could it have been dropped from a UFO? Some are tempted to think so, but not Scarpetta, who dissects the evidence with her customary icy skill.

Nicole Kidman is about to portray her in a new TV series and it is perfect casting.