Criminally good crime: The Red Shore by William Shaw, The Inside Man by Trevor Wood, Gunner by Alan Parks

A confirmed bachelor, Met detective Eden Driscoll never wanted a child.

But then his estranged sister, Apple, who lives on the Devon coast, disappears while out on her sailing boat.

Eden and Apple have not spoken in years – he doesn’t even know that she has a nine-year-old son, Finn. But he knows that she was a good enough sailor never to neglect to wear a life jacket.

So he decides to investigate, and as he does so, it emerges that he is Finn’s only living relative.

The relationship between Eden and the stubborn boy are at the heart of this exceptional crime story.

Shaw was always a fine writer, but this is his best work. It’s my finest crime novel of the year – so far.

DCI Jack Parker, who is only 53 and suffers from early- onset dementia but hasn’t told his colleagues in Newcastle about it, returns for a second compelling story.

Still haunted by the death of his DS, and desperate to track down the hit-and-run driver who killed her, he sends her replacement, Emma Steel, on an undercover mission to get close to the local gangster who Parker believes may have had a hand in the killing.

He is then called in to investigate the disappearance of a mother and her young son. Meanwhile, Parker is taking part in the trial of a new dementia drug and debating whether to move back in with his wife and son.

This is stunning storytelling, with a hero to cherish.

Set against the bleak backdrop of the German bombing of Glasgow and the Clyde shipyards during the Second World War, this compelling story introduces Joe Gunner, a former police detective.

He has returned to his native Scottish city as a war veteran – with a dependence on morphine because of a damaged left leg and one eye covered by a patch.

He is barely off the train from London when he is dragged into an investigation to identify a body – a man with almost no face and the tips of his fingers cut off.

Add in Glasgow’s warring gangsters and MI5 espionage and you have the ingredients of a striking drama that is destined for a series and, possibly, for television – Foyle’s War, but with a sharper, darker edge.