Short takes: Thrillers

Reviewed by MICHELE HEWITSON

Michel Crespy: Head Hunters

In a world of restructuring and redundancy, Jerome Carceville is given one last chance to prove his worth in the corporate world. Submitting his CV to an international headhunting organisation, he is chosen for an elaborate job interview on an isolated island in the middle of a lake. Only two people will be offered a job. Those two have to win the "game" - "simulated economic warfare" - setting up a company to win against the other teams' companies. Ruthlessness and espionage is not necessarily frowned upon. It's a 21st-century fable deftly told, a reflection on the nature of the corporate world. And it swiftly turns into a nasty thriller as the corporate-climbers turn against each other in their quest for a perceived last chance at status in society.

Vintage, $26.95

* * *

Karin Fossum: He Who Fears The Wolf

A new Nordic thriller featuring caring, cautious Inspector Konrad Sejer. He's a delight: stern but fair, a breath of air in the claustrophobic little thrillers Fossum constructs from small village life where lunatics and misfits lurk in the woods nearby. In those woods is an escaped psychiatric patient. In a small house on the edge of the woods is the body of an old woman who lived alone. A boy from a home for disturbed children discovers the murder. Errki, the lunatic, is then taken hostage by a real madman who has robbed a bank. They take to a cabin in the woods where they proceed to drive each other really mad while Sejer and his constables search for Errki. Fossum's stories begin with a murder and end with examinations of human spirit and the ways communities create myths which last - and blight - for generations.

Harvill, $34.95

* * *

Barry Eisler: Hard Rain

John Rain, the half-Japanese, half-American former government agent, has gone underground. He carries out murders for shadowy people - some may be government - but he believes he lives by a moral code: he kills only horrible types. "Once you get past the overall irony of the situation, you realise that killing a guy in the middle of his own health club has a lot to recommend it." There is much to recommend about Eisler: this is his second John Rain book. He writes about shocking violence with tongue firmly in his mercenary's cheek. Exotic settings - cool little whisky bars in Tokyo and Osaka. Exotic women - Rain's Achilles heel. Cool murders - people who devote their lives to lifting weights probably deserve all they get.

Penguin/Michael Joseph, $34.95

* * *

P.J. Tracy: Want to Play?

In Wisconsin a priest is served his Sunday night treat by Sister Ignatius. In a loft in Minneapolis a group of young people are developing a computer game called Want to Play? in which the players hunt a serial killer. Across the city a real serial killer is knocking people off and the murders are identical to those in Want to Play? And, back in Wisconsin, a pious elderly couple are discovered in the priest's church. They have been shot in the back of their heads.

Nice writing, and a twisty plot which brings town and country, sophisticated city types and simple country folk together, while managing to avoid the cliches that that might imply.

Penguin/Michael Joseph, $34.95

* * *

Karin Alvtegen: Missing

This won the Best Nordic Crime Novel in 2000. Alvtegen's first book to be translated into English, it's a nicely turned tale about a homeless woman who becomes the prime suspect in a murder. Sibylla has been living on the streets of Stockholm for 15 years and has perfected a number of scams which buy her a little luxury. In her Oxfam suit, she tricks businessmen into shouting her dinner and a night in a posh hotel. When her latest sucker is found murdered in his hotel room, Sibylla, usually on the run from her past, has to discover a way of hiding from her present. The writing's a bit clunky, the ending a bit schmaltzy - perhaps it lost something in the translation.

Canongate, $34.95