Harlan Coben has been a first-division writer for some years now, and Caught (Orion, £18.99) finds him at the top of his game. Coben has been producing alternately Bolitar and non-Bolitar novels, and as someone who finds the sports agent an intensely irritating figure, this is a rare delight.

Coben brilliantly captures the "ornery-folks-caught-in-their-worst-nightmare" scenario, which nearly always involves the death or abduction of a child in suburban America. Small-town New Jersey is the setting for Caught, which sees a 17-year-old girl go missing from her bedroom. In an unconnected event, a local youth worker is accused of paedophile crimes on a tabloid TV show and drummed out of town. The TV reporter has second thoughts (those danged veteran reporters and their "gut feelings") and digs deeper into the case. When the accused contacts her to explain what's going on, she goes along...

And there we must stop, observing the crime reviewer's code. Coben fans know that they are in for twists, often unexpected, and always executed brilliantly. Suspicious characters come and go but the final conspiracy is rarely obvious. The sheer unputdownability of his books means this is a quick and deeply satisfying read.

Another writer who has been knocking on the door is Joseph Kanon, who has written some of the most memorable genre fiction of the past decade. Los Alamos, The Prodigal Spy and The Good German were lauded, but since Alibi in 2005 he has been silent. Stardust (Simon & Schuster, £12.99) shows him back in his familiar post-war era, with a shift of scenery to Hollywood.

Ben Collier is working as a translator for the US army as World War II draws to a close. He gets a call that his Hollywood producer brother has had a fall and sets off on a long dash to California. On the way he meets a movie mogul who offers him a job documenting the horrors of the extermination camps.

He arrives in LA in time to see his brother's last moments, dying from injuries apparently self-inflicted. Despite being estranged from his brother, Collier knew him well and refuses to accept that he killed himself. Taking up the mogul's offer, Collier quickly immerses himself in the scene, as well as comforting his brother's beautiful widow.

It is a strange time for Hollywood. After its sterling propaganda efforts, the red scare is about to begin and some nasty proto-McCarthyites are on the prowl. And there is plenty for them to consider: Collier's father was a German communist and Hollywood is full of Jews who fled there from the Nazis. Real characters such as Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann flit in and out of the plot, and the paranoia of the era is evoked.

Stardust brings to life one of the most evocative places on earth in a forgotten era. Kanon sketches some memorable characters and his plot, as ever, keeps you perplexed.

The Shakespeare Secret (Sphere, £6.99) is the second in JL Carrell's Kate Stanley series. While Dan Brown takes on the Bible, Carrell's desert island book is Shakespearean and this Da Willci Code series is already looking tired. A Macbeth-themed get-together in the highlands rapidly turns into a gorefest in a hamfisted attempt to milk the Scottish play of its mystery and menace. With mere hours to save the damsel, our heroine jets across the Atlantic, Robert Langdon-style, with ne'er a nod to the impossibility of flitting in minutes through a modern airport.

Tobias Jones first came to attention with his fantastic The Dark Heart of Italy, which shone a light on the corruption and criminality in the politics, religion, sport and business life of that country. The Salati Case (Faber & Faber, £6.99) is a first foray into fiction and is just as on-the-money as his non-fiction.

When an old lady dies, her will cannot be settled until the fate of her long-missing son is resolved. Private eye Castagnetti is hired to provide a rubber-stamping of 'presumed dead' but cannot do so. His reopening of the case exposes dangerous emotions and wounds. A tight, well-crafted novel, this is a powerful piece of atmospheric writing which augurs well for a man his publisher is keen to hail as the new Michael Dibdin.

Midnight Fugue (Harper, £7.99) is a delightful bit of plotting by Reginald Hill, who is clearly having fun with his Dalziel and Pascoe characters. Dalziel wakes up raddled after the weekend and heads into work. The full car-park at a local church is the first hint that it is only Sunday, a mystery that is just the start of the head-scratching for the superintendent. Each chapter comes with its own time slot, ensuring a rather English sort of 24 with Dalziel as a Jack Bauer-without-the-torture.