A really exciting British legal thriller - now, that's not something that comes along every month.

But Nick Stone's The Verdict (Sphere, £16.99) combines tense courtroom scenes with plenty of out-of-court action and I loved it.

Terry has fallen into a job as a legal clerk for a big London firm. In recessionary times, that's a toe in the door he doesn't want to lose. He gets a chance to prove himself, aiding the defence of a millionaire businessman charged with murder.

There are two problems. The case against their client seems overwhelming, despite his claims of a set-up. And, more importantly, the client is the former childhood friend who Terry blames for ruining his life.

Elias, in Every Second Lost by Dylan Lawson (Headline, £7.99), works as an accident investigator for insurance companies in Los Angeles.

It's a grimly appropriate profession for one whose life is dominated by the devastating effects of a car crash he was involved in as a teenager, while on a first date with the girl of his dreams.

Eighteen years later, he sees her again for the first time since the crash when she begs him for help finding her runaway daughter.

He can't resist, even though it's obvious she's not telling him the truth -even though any stress could cause him a fatal brain aneurysm.

That's a good gimmick for a missing person thriller, as is the way Elias uses skills from his day-job to investigate the girl's "car crash" of a life.

A Swedish journalist has sex with a much younger stranger during an out-of-town editorial conference, in You're Mine Now by Hans Koppel (Sphere, £6.99).

Anna knows it was a daft thing to do. But, provided she conquers her urge to confess to her husband, then surely no harm can come to her happy-enough marriage, can it?

But the young man wants more than a quick fling and Anna soon realises that he's willing to go to any lengths to get it.

There's nothing new about a plot involving a deranged stalker, of course.

But Koppel's a true craftsman when it comes to building tension, especially through a deceptively effortless dissection of ordinary people's lives and psyches, making this book easy to get into and hard to put down.

Topically enough, Through The Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming (Headline, £13.99) takes place during a once-in-a-generation winter storm which reduces the Adirondack region of rural New York to near chaos.

It's not the best time for Clare, an Episcopal priest, to go on honeymoon with her new husband Russ, the local police chief. Especially since she's pregnant and recovering from post-traumatic stress following her army service in Iraq.

The news that an eight-year-old girl is missing, and must be found before she runs out of life-saving medicine, adds to the urgency as the snow closes in.

If you're looking for a story that delivers tremendous excitement and descriptions of weather so real they nip your nose, this one will do you nicely.