Tana French

OK, listen up, you: Summer is almost over, put down that Lee Child or Stieg Larsson; don't you think you are ready for a grown-up thriller? Tana French's rich psychological crime novels, set in the Irish present and recent past, are simply the best. You may as well start with the first of the three, In the Woods, and then you should need no prompting from me to read The Likeness and Faithful Place, her latest. Of these, I would have to say the first two are nearly perfect. Faithful Place, which came out this summer, suffers from a bit too much dysfunctional Irish family melodrama, but to say it is a little weaker than the first two is to say A- instead of A+.