Skilled Royal Air Force bomber pilot Sam Lambert is exhausted, and his veteran crewmen have just been replaced by an inexperienced new team. Victor von Löwenherz, a German night fighter pilot who intercepts RAF bombers in his Junkers Ju88, looks on with horror at the Nazi regime. Hansl, a German boy in the small market town of Altgarten, sleeps at home. Lambert and his crew prepare for a bombing raid on the Ruhr area. It's a night that many will never forget. Bomber is a masterful, gripping, minute-by-minute account of what occurs over the next 24 hours, told through the eyes of protagonists on all sides. It is astonishingly precise in its depictions of planes, weapons and behind-the-scenes war strategy, an unforgettable portrait of war both in the air and on the ground. Len Deighton combines his expertise as both a historian and novelist in this classic Second World War novel. Nicely designed series, 484pp in paperback.

Along with The IPCRESS File code 94978 this became a film starring Michael Caine, but the book is somewhat different in its chronically aching painful pace. 1963 and Berlin is dark and dangerous, and neither side of the wall is safe. Deighton's skilled, jaded anonymous hero of The IPCRESS File (Harry Palmer) is now set to arrange the defection, and the fake death, of a leading Soviet scientist. But behind the elaborate funeral and mock coffin, Palmer discovers this deception hides an even deadlier truth - the scientist may not be all he appears. The Russian Colonel Stok makes criticisms of Western capitalism, but from the other side there are side swipes against 'communism' - for example 'Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Yes? Well Socialism is exactly the reverse.' As with all in the series, excellent entertainment. 276pp, paperback.

'A stone-cold Cold War classic' by one of the greatest fictional spymasters. A high-ranking scientist has been kidnapped, and a secret British intelligence agency has just recruited Deighton's iconic unnamed protagonist, later christened Harry Palmer, to find out why. His search begins in a grimy Soho club and brings him to the other side of the world. When he ends up amongst the Soviets in Beirut, what seemed a straightforward mission turns into something far more sinister. With its sardonic cool, working-class hero, this sensational debut was a bestseller and broke the mould of thriller writing and became the defining novel of 1960s London. Very different from the film, here is the gritty realism of a working class protagonist on a paltry salary in a spy agency that doesn't do much spying and assignments that are rather tedious except for the rather prescient stuff on brainwashing and industrial espionage. 240pp, paperback reprint in a nicely designed set.

A stand alone but actually a second volume in his autobiographical quartet based on the seasons, Winter is an achingly beautiful collection of daily meditations and love letters addressed directly to Knausgaard's unborn daughter. He takes stock of the world seeing it as if for the first time in his inimitably sensitive style as shown in his masterpiece My Struggle. He writes about the moon, water, messiness, owls, birthdays, puddles and waterfalls, the nose ('all the other body orifices can be closed, either by sphincter muscles as in the rectum or the mouth, or with folds of skin, like the labia and the foreskin, or by a permanent inner wall, as in the ears. Only the nostrils always remain open.) These oh so familiar objects and ideas are filled with new meaning and with a new life of his daughter on the horizon and the earth in hibernation in winter, there is a contradictory melancholy inflecting his gaze. Exquisitely beautiful writing translated from the Norwegian, startling, compassionate and sublime. Tiny remainder mark, beautifully decorated endpapers, 256pp.

A tender and thrilling story of love and family secrets in the time of war from the bestselling author of While Paris Slept. Paris 1944 and Elise Chevalier knows what it is to love and to hate. Her fiancé, a young French soldier, was killed by the German army at the Maginot Line and now, living amongst the enemy, Elise must keep her rage buried deep within her. Sebastian Kleinhaus no longer recognises himself having spent four years fighting a war he doesn't believe in, wearing a uniform he despises. He longs for a way out for something and someone to be his salvation. Years later in Brittany 1963, reaching for the suitcase under her mother's bed, 18 year old Josephine Chevalier uncovers a secret that shakes her to the core. She travels to Paris to discovers the story of a dangerous love that grew as a city fought for its freedom, of the last stolen hours before the first light of liberation, and of the betrayal so deep it would irrevocably change the course of two young lives for ever. Poignant and gripping tale of love and sacrifice. 438pp, paperback.

20 years ago, Cyrus Haven's brother killed their parents and twin sisters. Since then he has devoted his life as a forensic psychologist to understanding why people commit terrible crimes. Now Elias is being released from his psychiatric hospital, and Cyrus must decide if he's ready to trust the man who destroyed his childhood. His friend Evie Cormac who has a gift for knowing when people are lying isn't so sure, and as they seek the truth behind a double abduction case, past and present collide with devastating consequences. Real characters who are constantly surprising and a heart-pounding mystery which is hard to put down. You will devour this one. 390pp, paperback.

Written long before the Covid pandemic, this is the last book in the Plague series Remade, probably for young adults but equally enjoyed by much older people. Time's up. It's time to join us. Leon is stuck in England. Grace is on her way to New Zealand, and Freya to the 'New United States'. The virus has assimilated all of humanity, except for these three communities. Now it's prepared to talk. How these last humans choose to respond to the virus will ultimately decide their fate, and Leon, Grace and Freya have a fight on their hands if they're ever going to see each other again. Be prepared for a superb doomsday thriller. 370pp, paperback with fairly large print.

Made into a major BBC TV series and written in a 'clean prose and whipcrack pacing' - Stephen King. Everyone has an idea of what their perfect life is. For Agatha, it's Meghan Shaughnessy's. These two women from vastly different backgrounds have one thing in common - a dangerous secret that could destroy everything they hold dear. Both risk everything to hide the truth, but their worlds are about to collide in a shocking act that cannot be undone. Meg appears to have the perfect life, a mummy blogger with two beautiful children and another on the way and a handsome husband with a high profile TV job. Agatha on the other hand works in a local supermarket and doesn't really seem to have any friends to speak of. Her baby daddy is in the Navy and currently doesn't know she is pregnant and she is estranged from her family. We alternate between the two narratives as bombshell after bombshell drops by the great writer with his psychological intuition. 532pp, paperback.

Daily Telegraph Book of the Year, this atmospheric thriller introduces a Scandi-noir Tuva Moodyson Mystery. Eyes missing, two bodies lie deep in the forest near a remote Swedish town. Tuva Moodyson, a deaf reporter on a small-time local paper, is looking for the story that could make her career. Can she outwit the killer before she becomes the final victim? She would like to think so, but first she must face her demons and venture far into the deep dark woods if she wants to stand any chance of getting the hell out of small-time Gavrik. Five villagers, 600 square kilometres of Swedish forest. One reporter. Two bodies... A novel loaded with atmosphere, the tension is unrelenting right from the highly tense opening when Tuva comes face to face (or truck to face) with a charging stag; there is an ominous feeling of dread seeping from every page. Written by a British graduate who lives in Sweden who must have seen the troll sculptures he includes in his book. Stickered, 339pp, paperback.

Set in London 1960 and the lives of teenage twins Maisy and Duncan change for ever the night their mother is taken into an asylum. Sent to live in the New Forest with their cold-hearted grandmother, Mrs Mitcham, the children feel unloved and abandoned. At least they have each other, but one day Duncan doesn't come home from exploring in the forest and no one, least of all his grandmother, seems to care about his disappearance. The police who have found the bodies of other missing boys offer little hope of finding Duncan alive. Yet Maisy refuses to give up. Although she doesn't know the woods well, she knows someone who does, the strange old woman who lives at their heart. Does Maisy dare enlist the help of the woman in the wood? The Sunday Times bestselling author provides a narrative that gallops along in a glorious and heartwarming story of a girl who at just 15 was determined to find the truth. 398pp, Penguin paperback.