Broken Angels -- Richard Montanari I gave up on Montanari's previous book Skin Gods because it was over-stuffed with plotlines, description and characters' private lives.

I'll take another look after being rivetted by this paperback, his latest serial-killer thriller featuring a team of Philadelphia cops.

The tense opening -- a tragic face-off in a diner -- is just the first of several gripping set-pieces placed throughout the story.

Central is the hunt for a psycho who butchers girls then poses them in scenes from old fairytales.

One of the main characters is being stalked by the grieving husband of a woman he failed to save in another incident.

Meanwhile two vigilante churchmen are killing paedophiles as they try to find the killer of their sister years before.

There's also an investigation into the death of a detective on his way home from his retirement party.

Montanari juggles the various plotlines well, adding atmosphere and depth to an already compulsive story.

David Knights Friend of the Devil -- Peter Robinson The best of Robinson's novels about Chief Inspector Banks put him in the top rank of British crime writers.

Even when he's coasting -- as with this latest paperback -- he's well worth reading.

This time Banks investigates the rape and murder of a teenager in a town centre alleyway.

Meanwhile his usual sidekick Annie is in Whitby probing the cliff-top killing of a woman in a wheelchair.

The cases eventually come together in a story told with Robinson's trademark no-frills prose.

At times the plot is a little mundane, one suspect after another wheeled out, but it's always engrossing.

Friend of the Devil is right up the grimy, gritty street of fans of Keighley's own Lesley Horton.

David Knights