I'M usually not one to name drop, but here goes. When I was chatting to bestselling author James Patterson the other week, he told me that James Siegel's latest thriller, Derailed (TimeWarner, £9.99), was definitely worth a look.

In fact, he described it as a "neat, twisty, well-written thriller". And was he right? Is Patterson ever wrong? Derailed is perhaps the best thriller of the year so far.

Siegel hooks from the first paragraph and by the end, you feel like you've been on full spin in a tumble drier.

Middle-class advertising creative director Charles Shine - Siegel himself is a middle-class advertising creative director - sees his life change for ever when he meets a beautiful woman on a commuter train.

Although both married, the pair begin a "relationship" - cocktails, meals and so on. The affair culminates in an assignation at a New York hotel, which is where Charles's nightmare begins. An armed man bursts in, beats up Charles and rapes his date.

He then blackmails Charles, saying he will tell his wife and diabetic teenage daughter about the affair.

Not wanting to shatter his family, Charles pays up at first, but when more and more money is demanded he decides to fight back, but with disastrous consequences.

Derailed moves with relentless pace and energy. I guarantee that if you put it down you'll return in a few minutes, saying to yourself just one more page, just one more page.

Jeffrey Deaver works his magic once again with his latest novel featuring quadriplegic forensic examiner Lincoln Rhyme. In The Vanished Man (Hodder, £14.99), Rhyme, the hero of four previous books including The Bone Collector and the excellent Stone Money, which is newly out in paperback, tackles a master illusionist and conjuror with a craving for killing.

Rhyme teams up again with his sidekick and lover, Amelia Sachs, who, in a sub plot, is pushing for promotion within the New York Police Department.

Their case begins with a murder of a student in a music school. The killer is cornered in a locked room by two police officers, then appears to vanish.

Rhyme seeks the help of a female apprentice magician, who teaches him some of the tricks of the trade.

But the killings continue, and to confuse matters Rhyme discovers that the conjuror may be linked with a white supremacist group, which is bent on getting its leader out of jail.

No crime writer is more consistent than Michael Connelly. His latest, Lost Light (Orion, £17.99), sees the return of Harry Bosch, the Vietnam veteran turned hard-nosed police detective. Disillusioned by his battles with police red tape, Harry quits the Los Angeles police department after 28 years on the job.

Quickly bored, he starts thinking of unsolved cases he worked on, and decides to look again at the murder four years previously of Angella Benton, a 24-year-old film industry worker. Her brutal slaying was linked to the theft of $2 million from a film company which employed real cash as a prop on a movie set.

Harry's private investigation leads him to the disappearance of an FBI computer expert, the shooting of two cops and the hunt for terrorists.

The FBI wants him off the case, but Harry keeps on digging until he gets what he wants. A terrific read. Anyone who hasn't met Harry yet should do so now.

New out in paperback this month is the excellent Maroc (Pan, £6.99) by Daniel Easterbrook, a story of espionage, murder and betrayal set in Morocco.

After learning about the suicide of his French ex-wife, recently-retired Special Branch commander Nicholas Budgeon finds himself in Marrakesh, retracing the paths of her forebears who settled in the region during the Second World War.

He soon finds himself in danger, as he uncovers secrets about the war which many people want to remain hidden.

Updated: 10:05 Wednesday, May 07, 2003