Be Cool by Elmore Leonard (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)

Elmore Leonard has to be the coolest 75-year-old on the planet. This is his umpteenth novel, and it's as fresh, exuberant and hip as the work of a teenager, but a lot shrewder. It follows the incomparable Chili Palmer, who, not content to rest on the rather brilliant laurels of Get Shorty, has another idea for a movie; and this time it's LA's second-largest industry, the record business, which comes under Leonard's acerbic scrutiny as a succession of hustlers, chancers and no-hopers dance to his ass-kickin' tune. Class.