THRILLERS

HOLLY 

by Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton £25, 448pp)

First appearing as a shy, reclusive character in King’s magnificent Mr Mercedes in 2014, Holly Gibney has matured into one of his most memorable creations — a resourceful private investigator.

In this, her fourth story, she is asked to investigate the disappearance of a young librarian, Bonnie Dahl.

At first, Holly is reluctant. Her demanding mother has just died, so she is supposed to be on leave. But she weakens and takes the case.

The focus is on two of King’s most remarkable villains: married octogenarian academics, who also happen to be cold-blooded serial killers hiding behind a facade of bourgeois respectability.

As ever, King reveals the horrors that lurk in plain sight. Holly emerges as brave and resolute in pursuing these unlikely monsters.

Truly chilling, it aptly demonstrates King’s inimitable talent as a storyteller.

THE TRAP 

by Catherine Ryan Howard (Bantam Press £14.99, 320pp)

The Irish-born author of a series of international best-sellers opens her seventh novel with an astonishingly bold premise.

A young woman deliberately accepts a lift late at night from a male stranger, in spite of all the warnings that this is both foolish and dangerous. As the couple drive through the darkness, her mood changes from fear to relief when he delivers her safely home.

But it was not what she wanted, because she has an ulterior motive for behaving so recklessly. She is trying to trap the man who was involved in her sister’s disappearance a year ago — and placing herself in harm’s way to do so.

So begins a story of obsession and revenge, which reveals that other young women have been going missing in Ireland’s Wicklow Mountains. But who is responsible?

As the novel unfolds, it also reveals a portrait of the man who might have done it — he is happily married, yet with a terrifying dark side.

Elegant and twisty, it lingers in the memory.

ALL THE LITTLE LIARS 

by Victoria Selman (Quercus £16.99, 384pp)

This new novel from the author of the best-selling Truly Darkly Deeply confirms that she is a writer of great promise.

A 13-year-old girl goes missing from a party at Turtle Lake in California. Three teenage girls went together, but only two returned, and the word ‘liar’ is found written in blood on a nearby cottonwood tree.

A search is mounted, but then the two surviving girls confess to killing their friend. If they didn’t do it, why would they confess?

Their story becomes an international sensation. Told through the eyes of the missing girl’s younger sister, who left her home in the U.S. for Britain in the wake of the scandal and changed her name to avoid the notoriety, the story evolves when she is approached by a television documentary-maker.

Cutting between the original events 20 years ago and the present day, it is both a mystery and a thriller, which is impossible to put down.