Simon Ritchie casts his eye over the latest thrillers.

THERE'S nothing like a thriller with an historical twist to pull in the readers: just look at Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

Now Jeffrey Deaver - the man behind such hits as The Bone Collector and The Vanished Man - has delved into the past for his latest novel.

In The Twelfth Card (Hodder & Stoughton, £14.99), paralysed forensic expert Lincoln Rhyme and his sidekick, Detective Amelia Sachs, attempt to crack a 140-year-old crime.

Harlem schoolgirl Geneva Settle is the target of an assassin, who has been hired to murder her for reasons unknown.

His first attempt, in a deserted museum, is a failure but it's clear to Rhyme and his team that he's going to strike again, from clues the killer leaves behind, one of which is the 12th card in the tarot deck, The Hanged Man.

Rhyme believes Geneva may have been targeted because of a paper she's is writing about her ancestor, Charles Singleton, a former slave who was instrumental in the Civil Rights movement in the 1860s, but who was arrested for theft and disgraced.

In letters to his wife, Charles wrote about a "secret," that could have tragic consequences if revealed.

This secret, which Rhyme is convinced will provide the key to why Geneva is in danger, may strike at the very heart of the United States constitution, and have disastrous consequences for human rights today.

As with all Deaver novels, it's tightly plotted, extremely well written, with twists and turns aplenty.

Since Dean Koontz toned down the horror aspect of his novels, his writing has gone from strength to strength.

In Velocity (HarperCollins, £17.99), we meet popular bartender Billy Wiles. He lives a quiet life alone, until a serial killer singles him out - not to kill him, but to force him to decide who the next victim will be.

On leaving his bar one night, Billy finds a note stuck to his car staying: "If you don't take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blonde schoolteacher. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have four hours to decide. The choice is yours."

Billy pays an informal visit to a policemen friend, Lanny Olson, who dismisses it as a prank. But the schoolteacher does die.

The next note reverses the choices. If Billy takes the note to the police, a mother of two young children will die. If he doesn't, an unmarried man who won't be much missed will be killed.

Lanny has to take this note seriously, but the deadline runs out before he can decide how to make his involvement official. Billy doesn't hear from him again because Lanny himself, unmarried, who will not be much missed, has become the next victim

Soon Billy is soon drawn deeper into nightmare, a nightmare in which he must choose the killer's victims, or become the victim himself.

In Darkhouse (HarperCollins, £10), Alex Barclay has produced a gripping and gritty debut novel.

In 1985, two teenage boys made a chilling pact that would unite them forever in a dark and twisted loyalty.

Now one lies dead, and the man responsible is going to pay.

When a routine investigation comes to a tragic end, Detective Joe Lucchesi moves with his wife and son to Ireland.

But they are about to enter a nightmare more terrifying than the one they left behind.

When Joe's son's girlfriend goes missing and the village closes ranks, the detective sets out to find the truth and uncovers a sinister trail that cuts directly to the very heart of his family.

It was only a matter of time before James Patterson started writing novels for teenagers. Maximum Ride - The Angel Experiment (Headline, £12.99) is a follow up to his excellent novels, When The Wind Blows and The Lake House.

Max Ride and her five friends grew up in a science lab called the School. They were created as an experiment. An experiment in which they ended up 98 per cent human, and two per cent bird.

Yes, they can fly.

The friends manage to escape from their "prison", but the evil scientists are hot on their heels.

A book just for kids? Not a chance...

Updated: 16:35 Friday, September 02, 2005