MR PARADISE. Elmore Leonard/ Phoenix. £7.99.

EIGHTY four year old Tony Paradiso is a Detroit millionaire who gets his kicks by paying a young woman to dress as a cheerleader and wave her pompoms while he watches re-runs of old football games.

Then one night, someone walks in and shoots them both.

Frank Delsa is the homicide detective sent to investigate who becomes entangled with the dead girl's best friend, Kelly Barr, who is also in the house and has her own secret to keep.

The apparent reason for the deaths is a burglary gone wrong but it's a killing that doesn't add up and gets more complicated as Delsa gets closer to Kelly and other people start getting killed.

Another brilliant thriller from Elmore Leonard, with touches of black comedy, a cast of wonderful characters and dialogue sharp enough to shave with. It was first published in the UK in 2004 and this new edition is in the distinctive series from Phoenix.

DENIS KILCOMMONS

FEVER DREAM.

Preston and Child. Orion £7.99.

FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast is a son of the south, well educated, impeccable manners, extremely wealthy and out for revenge when he discovers that the hunting mishap in Africa in which his wife died 12 years before, was no accident.

He calls his old friend – possibly his only friend – detective Vincent D'Agosta to help him in a cold case murder investigation that throws up unexpected detours and conspiracies.

Why was his wife fascinated by the work of a long dead artist? Why did she steal a parrot? And what was the secret she was trying so hard to uncover that got her killed?

The lead character is unusual, to say the least, and it takes a stretch of the imagination to accept him in a modern world, but he grows on you, and the plotting is meticulous, clever and many layered.

DENIS KILCOMMONS

ENIGMA - THE BATTLE FOR THE CODE.

Hugh Sebag-Montefiore/Orion. £9.99

BREAKING the German Enigma code was not only about brilliant mathematicians and professors at Bletchley Park.

There is another aspect of the story involving the exploits of spies, naval officers and ordinary British seamen who risked and, in some cases, lost their lives snatching the vital codebooks from under the noses of Nazi officials and from sinking German ships and submarines.

This is a fascinating account of how the Poles were first to crack - and pass on the British - the key to the German airforce Enigma and the efforts made to ensure the Germans never realised that the code had been broken.

CHRIS BURGESS