Original Sin, by P.D. James (Penguin, £5.99 in UK)

Commander Adam Dalgliesh - "terrifying enough to the innocent, so God knows what he does to the guilty" is confronted by a puzzle of delicious complexity when a murder takes place at an old world publishing house located in a mock Venetian palace on the Thames. Few can manage the business of compulsive page turning as elegantly as P.D. James, and the way, she creates and sustains the riverside atmosphere of this novel, its moods shifting through smelly and sinister to sunny and sparkling, is quite outstanding.