Russel D McLean

In the Raven Bar on Renfrew Street in Glasgow, crime novelist Eva Dolan is talking over food and drinks. In her early thirties, tall, animated and with a mischievous sense of humour, she is particularly fond of the chicken wings. “You have to mention them,” she says. Later, the cheesecake requires a name check, too. As well as being distracted by what we're eating, our conversation occasionally freewheels into off-the-record territory, which is what happens when you put two writers who have known each other for a while in the same room. When I finally ask my first question about her latest book, she raises an eyebrow and asks, “Is that your professional voice?”

Kate Medina’s Fire Damage (HarperCollins, £12.99), the first in a series featuring Army Psychologist Dr Jessie Flynn is an absorbing and convincing thriller from an author whose armed services background adds a subtle layer of conviction to her writing. Jessie is, naturally, almost as neurotic as some of her own patients, but Medina’s convincingly tough prose and psychological insight ensure that her damaged protagonist is never less than fascinating.

If it’s Christmas, it must be Pantomime season, which is excellent timing for the release of Smoke and Mirrors (Quercus, £16.99), the second in Elly Griffiths’ series featuring Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens and stage magician Max Mephisto.

It may be difficult, initially, to see why the autobiography of a man who was the Sunday Times Typographic advisor and former editor of Garden and Home might be of interest to fans of crime and thriller fiction. But Ian Fleming: A Personal Memoir, by Robert Harling (The Robson Press, £20) isn’t a typical memoir. Instead, it uses Harling’s life to give readers a unique, sideways glance at his close friend, Ian Fleming, whose real life experiences during World War II clearly shaped at least some aspects of his highly regarded spy hero, James Bond. Harling’s life story intersects neatly with Fleming's through a close friendship and shared interests that include book collecting and design, typography and, of course, women.

“The best puppets don’t know they have strings.” So says the iconically code-named spy in James Grady’s Last Days Of The Condor (No Exit Press, £8.99), the recently released sequel to his classic spy thriller, Six Days Of The Condor. The world has changed over the 40 years since the Condor last surfaced and, while others have used his cover, the original is still around. Older but not necessarily wiser, he is troubled by gaps in his mind and the ghosts of his past. When he once more becomes the target of faceless and seemingly infinite assassins, he must go on the run and try to unravel the mystery of who wants him dead and why.