Beautifully constructed, it is as good as its predecessor: The Thrillers you should have
Presumed Guilty by Scott Turow (Swift £20, 544pp)
PROSECUTING attorney Rusty Sabich – star of Turow’s breakout legal drama Presumed Innocent almost 40 years ago – makes a return. Now he is a retired judge living with his new love, school principal Bea, and her black stepson Aaron, who is on probation for drug possession.
Then Aaron’s troubled white girlfriend Mae disappears while the couple are away on a trip. When the young man finally returns alone he tells Rusty and his mother that he stormed off after he and Mae had a fight, and left her in the wilderness.
Unsurprisingly, suspicion falls on the young man, so when the girl’s body is found he is charged with murder and Rusty is back in the courtroom to defend him. Beautifully constructed, it is as good as its predecessor. There can be no higher praise.
The Daughter by T. M. Logan (Zaffre £16.99, 416pp)
The Daughter is available from the Mail Bookshop
SINGLE mother-of-two Lauren Scott goes to pick up her 18-year-old daughter Evie at the end of her first term at a university, but when she gets there the teen has vanished.
It transpires she left college weeks ago, without telling her family. So begins Logan’s latest twisty, compelling story with threat and suspense at every turn.
Lauren begins her painstaking search for Evie by asking for help from the university. But the students’ right to privacy seems to block her every step.
Then it gradually emerges that there are far more sinister forces at work, and that another young woman may have disappeared in similar circumstances.
As ever with Logan, there is a fierce sting in the tale, a denouement that all but takes the breath away – it is a tribute to his formidable skill as a storyteller.
Give Him to Me by Dorothy Koomson (Headline Review £20, 480pp)
BLACK criminal profiler and psychologist Dr Kez Lanyon, one of Koomson’s regulars, is at the heart of this dark story.
It follows Robyn ‘Avril’ Managa, a young mixed-race woman out for revenge on her abusive father, who killed her mother more than 12 years ago. He got away with it and was given a new identity in Witness Protection, while she was placed in local authority care. Driven by an obsession, Robyn has planned the search for her father who has been hidden away all these years.
Now in her 20s, she is prepared to go to any lengths to track down the man who destroyed her life – even if it means killing anyone who gets in her way. This tale can be painful at times, but menace oozes from every page, chilling the blood.