The latest crime fiction: women provide their own take on sexual violence 

Having long escaped their relegation to the softer margins of the thriller genre, women writers have provided their own take on grimmer themes, including the sexual violence that has become such a staple of crime writing today. In The Eye of the Beholder by Margie Orford (Canongate, £16.99), Cora Berger is a South African painter who moved to London after her parents were killed in a car accident. Outwardly formidable, she has a penchant for creepy, dominating men, and finds herself under the spell of a wealthy art collector named Fournier, who has a cabin tucked away deep in the Canadian wilderness.

We are also introduced to Angel, a much younger woman who has a violent history – the result of horrendous sexual exploitation at the hands of her stepfather. Only recently released from prison, she now works for a conservation organisation, tracking the local population of wolves – an apt metaphor for someone once the victim of human ones. The two women, superficially quite different, overlap in Canada, and are linked by Fournier, whose initial charm hides a taste for sado-masochistic sex and particularly depraved pornography.

As the novel progresses, we move variously between Canada, London, Scotland and South Africa, and each of the widely differing settings is vividly portrayed; the descriptive writing is especially good. Slowly, the painful histories of Cora and Angel emerge, and these reveals are well handled, with none of the awkwardness that often arises when a story is put on hold while its characters’ histories are recounted. This is ultimately a novel about sexual violence, and may trouble some readers, especially male ones, who will notice that the few sympathetic men have only minor roles. But both the villainy of the abuse endured by the women and the stark violence of the revenge they eventually exact ring disturbingly true.

Small Deaths by Rijula Das (Amazon Crossing, £11) is a real find – a masterly debut, issued somewhat improbably by the translation arm of the behemoth’s publishing division.