A jobbing viola player is recruited to fill a mysterious vacancy in one of Britain's most famous string quartets, in The Tooth

Tattoo by Peter Lovesey (Sphere, £8.99).

There's something a bit peculiar about the whole affair but the lure of a lucrative and musically challenging residency in Bath is too much to resist.

When a fan of the group is found dead in a canal, for Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond the murder involves a very strange coincidence. He has little doubt that the quartet are somehow at the centre of two baffling deaths. Can he solve the puzzle before any more die?

Lovesey is one of crime fiction's great entertainers. Even those of us with no interest in chamber music can't help but be fascinated by his knowing but affectionate backstage portrait of its rituals and lore and his mystery plots never fail to satisfy.

The Stolen Ones by Richard Montanari (Sphere, £7.99) is the latest in the series set in Philadelphia's homicide division.

Detectives Balzano and Byrne arrive at a bizarre murder scene which eventually leads them to investigate strange psychological experiments that took place years ago in a notorious "warehouse for the criminally insane."

Montanari provides big ideas, big characters and sustained excitement.

Eighteen years ago, New York police detective Kat Donovan had her life turned upside-down by Jeff, the fiance who suddenly dumped her for reasons she's never understood.

Now, in Missing You by Harlan Coben (Orion, £7.99), Kit - bullied into joining a dating website by her best friend - sees Jeff's face staring back at her.

But when she contacts him, his response leaves her stunned and humiliated, her heart broken afresh. But as it turns out that's not the end of the matter. Her activity online has been observed by a young computer hacker, who is worried about his missing mother.

Reluctantly, sceptically, Kat begins to uncover a con game of startling ambition and murderous cruelty.

Her endearing lack of the plastic perfection which so often mars female protagonists written by male writers means that Kat's love story sits surprisingly well alongside a truly nerve-shredding thriller.

Struggling screenwriter Ben hasn't seen his childhood best friend and worst enemy, Jacob, since they were 13-year-olds at boarding school together.

Thirty years later, in The Long Shadow by Mark Mills (Headline, £7.99), Jacob suddenly reappears in Ben's life with a new name and a yearning to use some of the billions he made as a stock market gambler on producing films. He seems a reformed character - philosophical, nostalgic and philanthropic.

Ben's career is almost non-existent, he lives in a tiny flat and he's unhappily divorced. Why not grab this astonishing second chance at life?

But he can't help remembering that he and Jacob parted on extremely bad terms.

Regret and forgiveness, as much as vengeance, are the themes of this very smartly written psychological suspense story, from which we learn that revenge may be a dish best not served at all.