These five choices below should ensure you a thrilling weekend without ever having to leave the couch. JAMES HIPKISS gets comfortable.

The Electric Church

The Art Thief

Double Cross
By James Patterson

The author’s latest title in his Alex Cross series, Alex Cross being a retired FBI criminal psychologist now working in private practice after his family became involved and put at risk in his earlier criminal investigations.

Alex Cross fans will not be disappointed, as their hero yet again comes out of semi retirement to help the FBI in their battle against serial killers, in this case two of them working independently, but in a mutual admiration relationship.

Cross is a believable hero, an African American family man, and the two killers creepy, amoral, psychopathic in an almost Hannibal Lecter way. One killer is actually an old adversary of Cross, and from the ending of this book... well I don’t want to give the plot away.
The only weakness for me was the author stretching credibility, with the killers apparently being able to slip on and off rubber masks, and so change their identities at will, with no one ever being able to spot any disguise, even up close, not even high security prison guards, or Cross himself. Otherwise a gripping believable psychological thriller, of the un-putdownable variety, already becoming a best seller in MPH bookshops.

The Electric Church
By Jeff Somers

A book which the reader will be glued to until the last page, or will not get past the first few pages without giving up on it. If you are into offbeat thrillers set in the future, with an “antihero” as the hero, this is for you. If you were a fan of the cult movie Blade Runner this is very definitely your cup of tea.

The story follows Avery Cates, a freelance hit man, in a post-apocalyptical New York, where the majority of the population live from hand to mouth within the city’s ruins. He battles the authorities and ominous cyborg monks of the Electric Church; humans who have been given immortality, by having just their brains transplanted into artificial bodies , so they may go out and preach “the word” eternally!

The style of writing with Avery in the first person is reminiscent of Mickey Spillane and his Mike Hammer novels — tough, gritty, brutal even, and to quote the back cover of the US edition of this book, “contains strong language and graphic violence”.

But the book is beautifully detailed too, The weird background and the weirder characters work with the strong and imaginative narrative.

A brilliant novel within its genre.

The Gravedigger’s Kiss
By Tunku Halim

A homegrown selection of 21 thriller, horror and mystery stories, published by MPH and written by Tunku Halim, who has been making a name for himself as one of Malaysia’s foremost writers, and indeed, Malaysia’s answer to Stephen King too.

These short stories are just long enough to make perfect bedside reading, or perhaps not if you are of nervous disposition, and especially not if you awaken and look at your alarm clock at 4am... Look out for that little chiller! But it is not all ghosts, some of the stories are more crime-based, and often with a twist in the tale, they reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock movies.

The settings are often contemporary modern-day Kuala Lumpur, for example, and the characters are everyday people,

bank managers, students, shopkeepers, very believable characters and well-fleshed out, as indeed are the backgrounds, considering the few pages within which each tale has to unfold.

Some stories are set overseas too, and the author has even dabbled in science fiction, where he seems able to skilfully change his writing style

to complement the setting.

For anyone into ghosts and

horror, or any reader who likes a good crime thriller or tale of mystery, you will find plenty to whet your appetite among the 400-odd pages this book.

The Art Thief
By Noah Charney

Set unusually in the fine arts world, this novel is a sophisticated thriller, with the storyline revolving around stolen art in London, Rome and Paris. The author is surely qualified to write on this theme, with degrees in art history from the Courtauld Institute and Cambridge University, and currently working with the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art.

The background paints a fascinating and detailed picture of the European art world, the galleries, museums, auction houses and millionaire collectors. As one might expect from the author’s qualifications, the book becomes quite technical in places, delving into the forging of paintings, overpainting and other techniques used by the master criminals in this field. The narrative follows three apparently unrelated art crimes in three countries, so involving three sets of characters, and from this the author gradually gathers these threads into one plot.

This is another sort of “thriller” then, good narrative, interesting and believable plot, informative too, and an exciting read without the necessity of blood and bullets on every other page, or a plot involving terrorism, world domination or serial sex killers ... A pleasing change.

The Last Secret Of The Temple
By Paul Sussman

If you enjoyed the bestselling The Da Vinci Code, this is the book for you. Even if you were only mildly entertained by Da Vinci Code, but perhaps thought that its characters were a little too improbable, backdrops a little sketchy, the plot too fantastic, this then could still be the book for you.

The author has the credentials in the subject, a trained archaeologist who has worked in Egypt, also a journalist, who has obviously researched the background to this novel in much detail. The plot, as in The Da Vinci Code, revolves around an ancient Biblical secret, with the story beginning in Jerusalem in 70AD. From there it moves through the Middle Ages, World War II, to the present day.

It follows two cops, one in Israel one in Egypt, who initially are working on fairly straightforward cases, but gradually realise that their investigations are connected, and deal with far bigger and older crimes than they can imagine. Thus they end up becoming unlikely partners in a mission to prevent certain secrets from being used by ruthless parties to turn the Middle East into a bloodbath.

Two very human, humble and likeable heroes and a wealth of narrative detail have rightfully made this book a bestseller.