Portobello by Ruth Rendell
Hutchinson, £18.99; 278pp Buy the book

Rough Weather by Robert B. Parker
Quercus, £16.99; 294pp Buy the book

The Maze of Cadiz by Aly Monroe
John Murray, £16.99; 292pp Buy the book

Portobello is Ruth Rendell in a quiet mood with an absorbing story about strange inhabitants of Portobello Road market in London and its Notting Hill environs.

The chance discovery of an envelope filled with banknotes sets in train a chain of events leading to arson and murder. The finder, Eugene Wren, doesn't go to the police; instead he puts up notices asking for the loser of the money to phone him to claim return.

Two claimants emerge. Lance is a petty criminal and layabout, Joel, a young man with a heart condition who cannot bear the light. Eugene is revealed as being addicted to particular kinds of sweets. The various misfits, with their obsessions and eccentricities, interact as only Rendell can manipulate. She portrays the Portobello area, a melting-pot home to the poor and the posh, with harsh, realistic affection bordering on the elegaic.

In Rough Weather, Spenser, Robert B. Parker's tough guy Boston gumshoe, makes his 36th appearance in as many years. Not much has changed over the period. Hawk, his black friend, enforcer and protector, is still very much around, as is his so-clever and still beautiful shrink lover Susan Silverman. Not a lot of ageing goes on in the Spenser series.

What also remains is the sharp, witty dialogue, the literary references and the fast-paced plots, comfortingly reminiscent of the hard-boiled era of mystery writing. Spenser is hired by a rich, promiscuous, gold-digging femme fatale to be in attendance at her daughter's wedding on a private island. A tempest blows, a helicopter lands, armed thugs emerge, several people are shot dead and the bride is kidnapped. In charge of the attack is the Gray Man, who tried to kill Spenser several novels ago. But the dramatic events don't make sense to Spenser, who investigates, spurred on by a feeling of guilt that he didn't prevent the carnage. Parker delivers yet again.

Aly Monroe's The Maze of Cadiz is a splendid debut mystery set in Spain during the Second World War. The callow Peter Cotton, in his first job for British intelligence, is sent to the Andalusian port of Cadiz to sack the unsatisfactory and possibly corrupt resident agent, Roland May.

He gets there to find that May's body had washed up in the bay only days before. Locals try to persuade him that it was an accident. The inexperienced Cotton suspects otherwise and becomes enmeshed in a bewildering world of intrigue at a time of political confusion.

It is 1944, the war in Europe is nearly over and Franco is deciding Spain's future. Cadiz has played a part in the escape of Jews from Europe and other clandestine activities. Another body is found, clearly murdered. Monroe provides terrific and convincing historical atmosphere; I am delighted that she is writing more Peter Cotton novels.

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