THE setting for THE MESSENGER by Megan Davis (Zaffre, £14.99) is contemporary Paris, and its never-quite-declared war between the inner city and the suburbs, the rich and the poor, the white and the not white enough. 

It centres on Alex, a young man raised in both France and the US, who’s just been released from a prison sentence for his part in the murder of his journalist father.

He didn’t do it — but the trouble is, he almost did. Driven by guilt at having sold out a friend to get a lighter sentence, and anger at his wasted youth, he is now set on finding out who finished his dad off, after Alex and his friend left him beaten but alive. 

This is an unusual and engaging mixture of a conspiracy story concerning both the cold war and modern gangster capitalism, along with a coming-of-age tale of revenge and redemption. 

Another Alex, his wife Morven and their young daughter begin I KNOW WHO YOU WERE by NK Curran (Constable, £18.99) in Shoreditch, leading the kind of happy existence usually found in the opening chapters of such dramas.

But when Morven sets out for a corporate retreat and never arrives, Alex learns that everything he knew about her was false. Before they met, she had another name and a different life. 

Throughout a twisty, tense plot, you’re never quite sure which characters will still be alive in the final chapter. 

Buried secrets are also clawing their way towards the light in NO PLACE TO HIDE by JS Monroe (Head of Zeus, £20). In this case the tormenting memories belong to a London paediatrician, who has become convinced that the ubiquitous CCTV cameras are watching him, specifically. 

His paranoia has its origins a quarter of a century earlier, in his days as a working-class medical student at Cambridge, and a series of fateful encounters with his social “betters.”

Disturbing and fun at the same time, this is a techno-thriller with an entirely human core. 

CARMEN & GRACE, in the novel by Melissa Coss Aquino (Head of Zeus, £16.99), are two Puerto Rican cousins in the Bronx, growing up closer than sisters in the 1990s and 2000s, who more or less by accident become highly successful drug dealers. 

Their all-female gang lives together, works together and even studies together, following the lead of the local matriarch who is ultimately their employer, their mentor, their saviour and their ruiner. 

All the women dream of getting out — out of the life, out of the neighbourhood, away from the damage of their childhoods — but the ties are strong and the rewards can seem as great as the risks.

What other way of life could offer them such easy money and such unbreakable sorority? Where else would they find so much autonomy, never needing to apologise for being female, or for their class or race? 

This passionate, uninhibited book, written with great craft as well with great feeling, has the air of an instant classic.