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Waites, Martyn

Mary's Prayer

London, Piatkus. 233 pp. £4.99.

Stephen Larkin swore never to return to Newcastle. His editor says "Go!" and where editors send, journalists go. He is sent to cover the death of an old school friend in particular, and a drugs war in general. He runs into a childhood sweetheart. His former childhood sweetheart is still very beautiful, now a successful solicitor and married to someone very successful himself. She is not interested in reviving the old romance, but wants Larkin to investigate the death of her friend Mary. The police think it was suicide, but she thinks it was murder and he is a tabloid journalist. Tabloid journalists can sniff anything out.

Larkin decides that the best way into Charlotte's bed is to solve the mystery of Mary's death. He succeeds in both.

A very good picture of local politics, greed, corruption, business malpractice and commercial czars in small places, whose only aim in life is more and more and more money and more public honours.

Walker, Mary Willis

All the Dead Lie Down

London, Collins Crime, HarperCollins. 308 pp. £16.99.

"It is amazing how much trouble you can get into just by being alive," Sarah Jane a.k.a. Cow Lady ruminates. Sarah Jane is homeless, what in the States is called a bag-lady. The story of her life is a steady drying up of places she can go. There is no place on earth for her. She finds a patch under the verandah of a creekside restaurant and thinks she is safe there. She overhears a plot (against the State Senate) and when the plotters discover they have been overheard they set off to kill her.

Sarah Jane comes into contact with a journalist called Molly Cates. For her the past isn't really past. Did her much-loved father commit suicide? Never! Not her father! She will find out the truth yet, no matter what it does to her or her loved ones.

The picture of the down-and-outs in society is a sympathetic one. The book shows how they are torn between helping each other and exploiting each other in their desperation. There is a wonderful character called Lufkin, who tries to talk like a knight and to behave like one (sometimes), the sort of person you laugh about and then regret having done so. One particularly satisfying aspect of the book deals with feelings about discovering the truth about family members worshipped in their lifetime. Here the author is very understanding and, perhaps, we have all to learn something even if the American debate on the right to bear arms does not interest us.

The book is set in Texas, and no Texan will ever be able to boast of his state in your presence if you read this book. The background is a bill to legalize the carrying of hidden weapons. The author plays fair with both sides of the argument and will leave your sympathies suspended, till you realise what sort of people are in favour of carrying arms. These include a group of vigilantes, who think the right to bear arms is more important than human life. Like so many extremist groups they are able to command money, support and try to drag the innocent in their wake.

The climax is fast-paced, exciting ... and will keep you guessing about the fate of the luckless Sarah Jane.

Mary Willis Walker lives in Texas.

Weldon, Thomas

The Trader's Wife

London, Pocket Books (Simon & Schuster). 311 pp. £5.99.

Sara Klein is 26. Perfect marriage. Perfect husband. Six months pregnant. Her husband is a trusted and successful investments consultant. He vanishes. Millions of dollars vanish. Dawn raid by the FBI who think Sara knows where he is and are determined to grind her down. A menacing Russian woman representing that mafia are even crueller than the FBI.

Only her frail father stands by her (and he is kidnapped and held as hostage), and her husband's boss. The family lawyer she thought she could rely on ... well, the less said about him, the better.

Pessimism is a dead end. Sara's picture of herself is a pregnant little suburban housewife. Meek at heart. She tries to convince the FBI and the dreaded Russian witch that she has no idea where her husband is or where he has stashed the millions. Is her husband really a crook? Did he really desert her? Sara has to know whether she was really wrong about him.

She summons every ounce of energy, discovers she has reserves of guile. First she has to rescue her father, then discover who is hands in glove with whom? The scenes in which she wants to physically take action and her baby protests inside her are superbly written, a reminder that one day the baby too will want to know.

A fast-paced thriller with all the endings coming as surprises.

Thomas Weldon is the pseudonym of Campbell Armstrong. He was born In Glasgow, studied in England and lives in Ireland with his wife Rebecca.

Willett, Sabin

The Betrayal

London, Heinemann. 409 pp. £10.00.

Louisa Shidler is thirty-seven years old, a senior US government official. She discovers that her boss has parked a lot of money in a Swiss bank account in her name, and betrayed her to the authorities. Why her boss betrays her teases us with increasing intensity as the book progresses.

Louisa Shilder's daughter is kidnapped and unless she pleads guilty, her daughter will be killed. The daughter is told that if she tries to escape, her mother and father will be killed. But ordinary decent Americans they both come across trust their own intuition, knowing that the forces of law and order are flawed, corrupt, and thank heavens often incompetent.

Selling armaments (and much else) is legal, but you have to have the right signatures available. The higher one goes, the more corrupt people get, but they have to be protected against being found out. They must be provided with "cover", to take the blame. This is what this multi-layered, superbly-paced book, set against the background of the American presidential election, is about. The portrait of the people who stage-manage elections (in a democracy) is terrifying. The denouement, illustrating how the good guys can also handle modern communications equipment, will send you investing in every kind of telephone gadget.

A page-turner.

Sabin Willett went to a British public school and is a trial lawyer in Boston.