The best new crime novels (and a rule for enjoying them)

I have a rule: to ignore the prologue of a crime novel, especially if it’s printed in italics and written in the present tense. Almost always it will be violent, unnecessary and will give far too much away about coming events. I like to be unsettled. I like a story to build at its own particular rate. So, ignoring its prologue, Peter May’s Runaway (Quercus, £18.99, Spectator Bookshop, £15.99) is a well-told tale about five youths who escape from Glasgow in 1965, heading for London and fame and fortune as a pop group. Instead, they fall into a world of drugs, radical doctors, lost love and death. Fifty years later the surviving members of the group return to London to uncover the truth about a long-ago murder. The two time streams are woven together skilfully and the book ends with an intensely moving glimmer of renewed hope.

But the prologue comes from a different kind of book, a more brutal thriller. I imagine editors are keen on this approach. Rumours are spreading that our attention spans have been burnt away by the internet, and that we’ll turn to some other entertainment unless immediately satisfied. Well, it’s just not true. Let us read on; the story unfolds as it must.

Dan Kavanagh’s Putting The Boot In (Orion, £14.99, Spectator Bookshop, £12.99) was published in 1985, before these things counted quite so much. That said, it’s short, the exact length it needs to be to tell the story of an ex-cop called Duffy who now runs a one-man security firm. This book takes him to a third-division football team, struggling against relegation and financial ruin.

Personally I like a murder in a mystery, and this doesn’t deliver that, but it’s filled with misdemeanours: GBH, corruption, bribery, match-fixing, racism.