Readers of David Lodge may recall the enjoyable episode in Changing Places when the members of a university English department play the game of Humiliation, confessing to blanks in their knowledge of the literary canon. The game is won by an obnoxiously competitive type who reveals that he has never read Hamlet, and is consequently sacked by the Head of Department, who has been longing for an excuse to get rid of him. The moral is clear: a crime reviewer should think twice before admitting in print not only that Every Last Cent by Jonathan Gash (Macmillan, £16.99) is the first Lovejoy novel that he has ever read, but also - shock! - that Sara Paretsky's Total Recall (Hamish Hamilton, £16.99) is his first V. I. Warshawski. Still, if I get the boot, I can at least spend my twilight years happily working through Gash's 21-book backlist and Lord knows how many Paretskys, for in their different ways they both turn out to be first-rate.

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