WHEN I reviewed A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny (Sphere) earlier in the year, I suggested that it was “the sort of book you might want to save for Christmas” because this series, set largely in an isolated Quebecois village, is rich in snow, reunions, food and booze, neighbourly conviviality and other such seasonal themes.

Its satisfyingly complex mysteries do not exclusively involve criminal matters and all Penny’s books carry an elusive, haunting air of strangeness without ever quite setting foot outside the real world.

I wouldn’t want to give the impression that this is a “cosy,” however, because, as always, it sees retired Chief Inspector Gamache investigating violent death, corruption and the lasting consequences of cruelty.

About as far from cosy as you could get is Lawless and the Flowers of Sin by William Sutton (Titan).

It’s a novel about London’s sex industry which suggests that frighteningly little has changed between the 1860s, when this book is set, and the 2010s.

It features Sgt Campbell Lawless of Scotland Yard, who is instructed to produce a census of “sin” in the capital, in order that his superiors may prove to their political patrons that prostitution is in decline due to police diligence.

Instead, Lawless’s journey into hell reveals the opposite — that what Victorians knew as “the great social evil” is all-pervasive, albeit invisible to those who prefer not to see it.

I don’t presume to guess the author’s political or philosophical views, but I do think many readers will detect an echo of Fred Engels in this extraordinary work of historical fiction.

I must, though, repeat the warning from my original review — it’s a marvellous read but the subject matter is harrowing and Sutton shows his readers little mercy.

If you’re looking for something to make the time pass faster during the dark midwinter, here are a pair of pacey, nerve-jangling suspense stories which should do the job.

In The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton (Piatkus), a British wildlife film-maker is missing in northern Alaska and the authorities have good reason to think he’s dead. His wife is sure they’re wrong and, with their 10-year-old daughter in tow, she sets off into the wilderness to rescue him. It’s winter, so the night is permanent, and a terrible storm is brewing. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Yasmin and Ruby are heading into fracking country and an unknown enemy will go to any lengths to stop them.

A combination of courtroom drama, locked-room mystery and conspiracy thriller, The Plea by Steve Cavanagh (Orion) finds New York conman-turned-lawyer Eddie Flynn coerced by Federal authorities into pinching another attorney’s client and persuading him to plead guilty to a headline-grabbing murder.

The Feds want to force the defendant, a young internet billionaire, into giving evidence against a bent law firm in exchange for a lighter sentence. But the man insists he’s innocent, despite the overwhelming evidence against him — and Eddie thinks he might be telling the truth.

Perhaps the most original thriller I read this year, in both plot and voice, was Shannon Kirk’s debut novel The Method (Sphere).

Its lead character is a pregnant 16-year-old girl, who’s kidnapped by a gang that sells babies to rich people. Once they’ve given birth, the mothers are ruthlessly disposed of.

But this girl is different. In her Indiana cell, she calmly and creatively plots her escape. And getting out alive with her baby isn’t the limit of her ambitions. She’s also planning, in ruthless detail, how to take her revenge.