Spanish Fly by Will Ferguson
Harvill Secker, £12.99
It is 1939, in the heart of the American Dustbowl. The 19-year-old Jack McGreary has fallen in with a pair of small-time fraudsters. “Rose will make the drop, I'll do the swoop, you'll get us out.” Jack's a naive country boy, but he learns fast - and is smarter than he looks. Ferguson takes us back to Jack's childhood in Paradise Flats, “a town settled entirely by suckers” - lured there by conmen. His mother is dead, his father's a loner, and he must live in a world of ingenious survivors. By the end, you wonder who's really in charge. Brilliantly entertaining.

Detective Story by Imre Kertész
translated by Tim Wilkinson
Harvill Secker, £12.99
The Hungarian Nobel Laureate takes a journey into the mind of a torturer. Antonio Martens is in a South American prison for unspeakable crimes committed in the name of the old regime. He has requested writing materials, to give his account of the murders of Federigo and Enrique Salinas, a liberal father and son. This is not, however, a confession. It's “a simple and sickening story”, as Martens himself describes it; a remorseless account of the beginnings of evil and the danger of doing nothing until it's too late. A dark, disturbing novel, from a writer with a profound understanding of a dictatorship's inner workings.

Filthy Rich by Wendy Holden
Headline Review, £12.99
Mary lives in a beautiful old mansion, which is slowly rotting away for want of money. Beth is a pushy, vulgar American with too much money, who longs to mix with the Briddish aristocracy. Morag is an eco-freak and general harridan (her surname is Archbutt-Pesk - need one say more?) Alexandra is a footballer's Wag, as common as muck. Meet the villagers in Wendy Holden's latest piece of delicious rom-com froth. Filthy Rich is up there with the best of Jilly Cooper - only the words “romp” and “rollicking” do it justice, and there's the same light edging of snobbery that makes anyone with aspirations a figure of fun.

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