The Conspiracy Club ISBN 075530733X By Jonathan Kellerman, reviewed by Doug… The unreliable Kellerman takes a break from his Alex Delaware series to present us another young psychologist dragged into terrible events and deep psycho-drama. This time, as if acknowledging Alex’s almost too-perfect heroics, he attempts to give his protagonist, Jeremy Carrier, a darker edge as the young doctor has recently lost his wife to a murderer and was under suspicion by the police. But Kellerman just can’t help by make his characters sickeningly sympathetic and soon enough one suspects Carrier is just Delaware given another life. The prose is as good as ever and the plot twists and turns enough to keep the reader turning the pages, but as with many Kellerman books, the good doctor has found a formula and he’s sticking rigidly to it. Thank goodness, however, its still a fairly entertaining formula in an airport bestseller kind of way.

Milk Treading ISBN 1842820370 By Nick Smith, reviewed by Russel Working our way backwards through Smith’s books, Milk Treading is the story of newspaper hack Julius Kyle, a washed up crime writer forced to write for the city’s biggest newspaper and finding himself dragged into a terrible conspiracy while trying to rekindle the passionate flames that fuelled the adventures of his fictional PI Tiger Straight. Kyle’s book has recently been released in the “real world” under the title The Kitty Killer Cult, which we reviewed last issue. Milk Treading feels darker than The Kitty Killer Cult and as a result has a grittier, more satisfying feel. As ever, the jokes are spot on and the social commentary occasionally heavy handed but always inventive. And did we mention that all the protagonists are of the feline persuasion (except the dogs)?

The Autumn Dead ISBN 0850319641 by Edward Gorman, reviewed by Doug A swift moving PI tale from Ed Gorman that sees Jack Dwyer, who works in private security, lured into some dark places by the woman he used to love. At once an homage to classic PI clichés and at the same an original tale, well-told with foreboding atmospherics.

Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake ISBN 1840187166 by Frank W Abagnale reviewed by Russel The film adaptation is remarkable for showing us Leonardo DiCaprio might just be able to put in a decent performance every so often, but the book is remarkable for being entirely true. It might read like a nostalgic romp, with our hero pulling the wool over everyone's eyes and keeping one step ahead of law enforcement agencies the world over, but for once the old cliche "you couldn't make it up" is quite true; Abagnale's adventures are the stuff of history, the real life adventures of a con man too young to be afriad of the inherent dangers in his chosen "profession". Abagnale is a wonderfully compelling narrator and this only enhances the joyful atmosphere of this extraordinary true story.