The Constant Gardener, by John le Carre. Hodder, £16.99 in UK.
Tessa, the young wife of middle-aged career diplomat Justin Quayle, is raped and murdered in one of Kenya's national parks. An avid aid worker with a complaisant husband, Tessa may have been killed by bandits, by her black companion/lover, or more likely she is the victim of a hit contract. Shortly before her violent death, she delivered a dossier exposing the machinations of the vast pharmaceutical companies who have been using the country as their laboratory, concocting new diseases to make themselves even richer. The dossier has been buried by Whitehall, in the interests of "British trade", but Tessa herself has also to be silenced. Her husband Justin is a typical le Carre antihero, his main interest in life being gardening. But he also has a stubborn streak and, feeling he has failed Tessa, he sets out to uncover the facts of her death. This, in a nutshell, is the framework of le Carre's 18th work of fiction, but it is, as one would expect, adorned with many ramifications of a complex nature. It also exhibits a surprising force of angry argumentation from a writer formerly known for his cool and distanced approach to the perfidy inherent in international political affairs. Entertaining, yes, but with an added condiment of outraged indignation, The Constant Gardener shows no waning in the powers of le Carre as he thunders into his seventies.
A Darkness More Than Night, by Michael Connelly. Orion, hbk £16.99, pbk £9.99 in UK
As well as being one of the best crime writers around, Michael Connelly is one of the most prolific, his last novel, Void Moon, having already appeared in this millennium year. This latest also gives two for the price of one, as it features both Detective Harry Bosch of the LAPD, Connelly's regular protagonist, and Terry McCaleb, the ex-FBI man of the transplanted heart from Blood Work. Incidentally, Clint Eastwood is due to begin filming Blood Work next month. A Darkness More Than Night is a richly plotted and complex novel, with Bosch being set up for murder by a wealthy psychopath who is himself on trial for a gruesome killing. The man brought out of retirement to inquire into the case is McCaleb, a reluctant investigator but a thorough one. The proof against Bosch, including a print by his namesake, Hieronymus Bosch, called "The Garden of Earthly Delights", begins to mount up, and even McCaleb starts to doubt his innocence. The resolution is brilliantly worked out, most of the strands of a very intricate plot coming together in a violent and tension-filled climax. And, as is usual with this author, there is a coda that brings more surprises. A rich and satisfying read, this, and one that throws light on the dark underbelly of human behaviour.
Eager to Please, by Julie Parsons. Town House, £11.99
In Julie Parsons's third psychological thriller, Rachel Beckett has just been released from prison, after serving 12 years for the murder of her policeman husband. In her former life Rachel had been a 30-year-old architect, with a young daughter Amy, a comfortable house on Dublin's southside and an apparently happy marriage. Then two shotgun blasts ruined her idyllic lifestyle. She maintained she was innocent of the crime, and that her husband had been murdered by his halfbrother, Daniel, with whom Rachel admitted she had been having an affair. However, she was convicted, incarcerated, and had her daughter turn against her. Now she is free, with revenge the first and only listing on her agenda. Working to an intricate scheme that involves her own supposed death and the kidnapping of her daughter, she sets out to entrap her adversary, ignoring the very real danger to herself as the plan progresses. The book is a bit overlong and contains an amount of padding, but Ms Parsons writes well and convincingly. And when she does get into her stride, the pace picks up as it races to an exciting climax.
Final Duty, by Paul Carson. Heinemann, £10.00 in UK
This is Paul Carson's third medical thriller, following Scalpel and Cold Steel. It is set in Chicago, where the brilliant young specialist Jack Hunt has just been made head of the cardiac unit. Life appears rosy for himself, his wife Beth and his son Daniel. Then things begin to go wrong in no uncertain fashion. He is attacked in the street and only spared from violent death when his assassin takes a wrong turning and shoots someone else. Disgraced and out of a job, he decides to fight back. His main enemies work for a huge drug cartel which has been carrying out illegal experiments on children in orphanages, much in the manner of Nazi doctors in concentration camps during the last war. If you can swallow the ramifications of all this, then the story will carry you along effortlessly. Carson writes an in-your-face, breathless type of prose that suits his subject matter, but a large suspension of incredulity is called for, most definitely.
Places in the Dark, by Thomas H. Cook. Gollancz, £16.99 in UK
This author comes with a big reputation and, although he has penned some 15 novels, I have to admit that this is my first introduction to him. And I'm sorry to say that on the evidence of Places in the Dark I won't be going out of my way to search out the rest of his work. In the first instance, the book is completely over-written, the prose stilted and pretentious, and the story-line collapsing under the burden of its own supposed weightiness. Set in Maine in 1937, it tells the tale of what almost amounts to an incestuous relationship between two brothers, Cal and Billy Chase, and the tragedy that ensues when one Dora March arrives one autumn day. Intimations of dark and dire deeds abound, but when the conundrum is finally elucidated it amounts to no more than the proverbial hill of beans. Maybe I've caught this author on a bad day and I should, after all, read some of his earlier efforts.
All the Empty Places, by Mark Timlin. No Exit Press, £14.99 in UK
What a relief it is, then, to open Mark Timlin's latest Nick Sharman opus, a crash, bang, wallop chunk of noir fiction that has no pretensions about itself and settles all its difficulties by means of a boot in the groin or a shotgun blast to the head. Wandering the mean streets of underground London, Nick comes across a damsel in distress and before you can say, "Cor blimey, what's this then?" he's up to his armpits in bloody mayhem. The girl has a violent ex-con boyfriend, a crooked lawyer is planning a multi-million pound robbery, a beautiful CID sister is hovering, and a medley of lager louts, all tooled up with ordnance, are out for Sharman's blood. Written in language that deafens the mind, All the Empty Places reverberates like a gunshot in an enclosed space.
Michael Painter is a freelance journalist