Shades of Madelaine McCann (mark one).
A 3-year-old identical twin, Coco, goes missing from her bed during a family and friends celebration.
Rich, influential and hedonistic, the partygoers are subjected to a media frenzy following Coco's mysterious disappearance.
Related over two weekends, it's a venal story of drugs, alcohol and infidelity, of damage, deception, disarray and of lives lived in the limelight.
The first weekend, when Coco goes missing, is during Coco's father's 50th birthday.
The second, is the weekend of her father's funeral 12 years later.
He'd been found dead handcuffed to a bed in a Mayfair hotel, his companion of the night having fled.
The coming together at the funeral, of ex-wives, children and mistresses is described by the remaining twin, Camilla, (Milly).
Mostly the book is in the third person, with the darkest secret being left to the very end of this psychological thriller.
Shades of Madelaine McCann (Mk II).
Two-year-old Bella Elliot is snatched from her front garden and later found murdered.
Jean Taylor, the widow of the story, is the woman who stands by her husband when he is accused of the kidnap and murder of the little girl.
The story is told mainly through the eyes of the widow, a reporter Kate, convinced of the existence of a deeper story, and the detective on the case, Bob Sparkes.
Until her husband is killed, Jean lives a claustrophobic life in his shadow, dutifully playing the part of the devoted wife.
After his death under the wheels of a bus, she no longer has to be that woman.
There are people who want to hear her story about that man, about the secrets.
Hardly surprising then, to learn the author, a veteran journalist, covered notorious criminal trials.
What caught her attention was the wife of the man in the dock.
What did she know, or allow herself to know.
The book is as unsettling as it is compelling, as it switches back and forth from the widow, the journalist, the detective and, briefly, the mother of Bella.
This is Stuart MacBride's 10th book featuring tough-as-nails copper Logan McRae.
Aberdeen gang boss Wee Hamish Mowat is about to turn up his toes and make McRae his heir, Mowat's future demise being the potential cue for a bloody and messy tartan turf war as chancers try to muscle in.
Add to this a depraved killer on the loose, DCI Steel wanting McRae to do her job, Professional Standards gunning for Steel and seconding McRae to keep an eye on her.
Add again the new Super from the Serious Organised Crime Task Force having McRae, (and Steel) firmly in her sights, not forgetting Reuben, Mowat's enforcer, who wants McRae's inheritance and all in all, McRae's cup runneth over.
Fans of Scottish mystery fiction will enjoy this tale.
Reminiscent of darker Rebus cases, it's not for the faint-hearted.
It's likely to put them off their bacon.
Nevertheless it's a gritty, gripping north of the Border tale, best enjoyed over a wee dram.
Ashley Bell is a dark psychological suspenseful tale, that's both mystical and temporal.
Bibi Blair, a talented writer, is suddenly afflicted with incurable brain cancer and given one year to live, then, seemingly miraculously, the cancer goes away.
Bibi doesn't know why until a mystery woman, a practitioner of Scrabblemancy, convinces her she will not die, as she has to save someone called Ashley Bell.
In order to save the mystical Ashley, Bibi must revive the fearful memories of her past, a theme suggestive of how much our early childhood memories influence our later adult life.
It's a mind-bender that succeeds, as the book says: "Partly because fiction can deal with the numinous, the unknown, the unknowable.''
As such it reminds me very much of the literary classics I used to frighten myself with at an early age.
It's a mix of mystery, the occult, the supernatural and too much imagination on the part of heroine, Bibi Blair.
Marshall Grade is a ex NYPD undercover cop and protected federal witness living in a Santa Fe, New Mexico, safe house he sub-lets to a wanted felon.
He is invisible and anonymous, that is until he starts searching for a missing local woman, Alyce Ray, and "aggravates people best not aggravated''.
He does so by stealing a Drug Enforcement Administration agent's car, and offering a kilo of fake meth samples to a couple of dealers he then manhandles.
These people, the worst elements of Marshall's former life - he once worked in narcotics in Brooklyn - are soon on his tail, along with the Dallas Man, a contract killer, and former colleagues looking into his past.
This book is very cinematic.
Ben Sanders is from Auckland and his work has received critical acclaim.
He's writing a sequel to American Blood and I will be looking forward to more of Grade's bloody exploits.
Gerald Seymour's latest novel turns the spotlight on to the Ndrangheta families in the Reggio Calabria region of Southern Italy.
A young English banker, Jago Browne, on secondment to Berlin, is witness to a brutal attack on a girl by Marcantonio Cancello, a young Italian extortionist.
Cancello's in town on "family'' business, the laundering of illicitly gained money.
Jago's report to the police is rebuffed and he's told to forget it.
Except the detective he speaks to leaves his computer open at Cancello's file and where Jago can see the screen when the detective leaves the room.
Jago becomes obsessed with revenge for Cancello's callous disfigurement of the girl.
Armed with the information he saw on-screen, Jago follows Cancello to Reggio Calabria.
Cancello leads Jago to his grandfather's mountain hideout and into a delicate surveillance operation, an action that sets off alarm bells in London, Berlin and Rome.
Seymour's work as a former ITN reporter, as well as his extensive knowledge and research, shine through here.
Cold War black ops with a black budget make orphans into untraceable, disposable assassins.
Orphan X, (Evan Smoak) has been raised and trained as part of this off-the-books, black box Orphan programme, designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets.
Drilled to escape, evade and survive any contingency, Evan disappears in the manner he was trained to do after refusing to kill a fellow Orphan.
He goes underground, leaving the Orphans behind.
He becomes the Nowhere Man, working as a freelancer, helping desperate people who need protection.
Knowing where the bodies are buried, he becomes the target of one of his own.
Someone who knows Orphan X.
Someone with similar skills and training.
Someone who can exploit Nowhere Man's way of working.
In the words of David Baldacci: "Read this book. You will thank me later.''
The kidnapped girl of the story, Dorothy Salucci, is no victim.
She's a calculating, vengeful prodigy, biding her time.
She's also 16, pregnant and the kidnappers, baby traffickers, want her baby.
The story alternates between her and FBI Special Agent Roger Liu, who has been assigned the case.
For most of the book we're in the head of Dorothy as she plots and plans, while Liu, supported by his understanding associate, has a personal need to focus on child abduction cases.
The book is sinister, violent and inexorable.
The baby traffickers realise they've captured not a whimpering, hysterical teen, but a borderline sociopath determined to protect her unborn child, and bent on escape.
• Ted Fox is an online marketing and social media consultant.
