A choice of crime novels

Natasha Cooper’s heroine, Trish Maguire, is a barrister who subverts the stereotypes, an outsider whose troubled background sometimes gives her more in common with clients than colleagues. At the start of A Greater Evil (Simon & Schuster, £17.99), the latest novel in the series, Trish’s private life is on a relatively even keel. At work, her attention is on a complex insurance case involving the Arrow, an elegant addition to the City’s skyline which is developing some unexpected cracks. The opposing team includes a heavily pregnant friend, Cecilia. Then Cecilia is brutally attacked in the studio of her sculptor husband Sam. Her baby is born prematurely as she dies. Sam, who has a history of violence, is the police’s prime suspect. Trish has a professional connection with the sculptor, once an abused and abandoned child. A woman charged with the murder of her baby is claiming to be Sam’s birth mother and is desperate to get in touch with him.