THIS cracking read offers you a bit of everything. It is part crime thriller, part pre-war espionage story and a passionate love affair.

The narrative takes place in Dublin in 1934 and moves on to rural Ireland before ending up in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdansk), a place beginning to be darkened by the deadly presence of the Nazis.

YOU can't beat a good crime thriller and this effort from Stuart MacBride is one of the best I've read in a long time.

The main protagonist is police sergeant Logan McRae whose patch is the Scottish city of Aberdeen where both cops and robbers are very tough breeds indeed.

SOMETIMES you come across a novel which haunts you long after you have reached the final page, firmly lodged in your memory.

And memory is a key factor in this splendid offering by the renowned British author Sebastian Faulks.

The narrator is successful psychiatrist Dr Robert Hendricks who is an author and a veteran of the Anzio landings in the Second World War.

He is haunted by memories of his past experiences and Hendricks leads the reader on a moving journey through his life.

R.I.P. By Nigel Williams (Corsair)

Reviewed by Patrick O'Connor

THIS is in many ways a classic whodunnit.

Except that it is extremely funny and that the story is told through the eyes of one of the murder victims!

The Year of the Ladybird by Graham Joyce (Gollanz)

SKEGNESS is a holiday resort in Lincolnshire on the east coast of the UK which I visited many times as a child.

In the past it was a hugely popular seaside town, especially with working class visitors from the East Midlands.

But since the arrival of cut-price overseas holidays in the 70s ,it has suffered a decline and now looks rather faded and jaded.

The Suicide Club by Andrew Williams (Hodder & Stoughton)

THE never-ending slaughter of the First World War is the backdrop for this novel but mainly seen through the eyes of those involved in the murky world of the spy.

The central character is Alexander Innes, a captain wounded at the Somme, and now working with the resistance in Belgium.

He is called back to London for a briefing and then dispatched to just behind the front line to Field-Marshall Haig's army headquarters in France.