HOW to describe The Hand That Feeds You by Mercedes Rosende (Bitter Lemon Press, £9.99) without resorting to listing its startling events and extraordinary characters? It’s about an armed robbery in Montevideo, in which the people being robbed are armed robbers. It’s a crime caper, a literary novel, a condensed family saga, a comedy and a satire. It’s also a thriller, in which the importance of momentum in the plot is never neglected.

I’m reluctant to say more since it’s perhaps the sort of book you’re better coming to without too much forewarning. I haven’t read anything like this in ages, and I loved every page.

Fatal Proof (Abacus, £20) is the fourth book in John Fairfax’s courtroom drama series featuring Will Benson and Tess de Vere. Will is the convicted murderer who studied law inside and became a barrister on his release, and Tess is the lawyer who believed in his innocence right back at the start, when they were both little more than kids, and has worked with him since he got out.

But she hasn’t sent him any cases for two years, and Will doesn’t know why. Nor does he know why she’s broken that silence now by instructing him on behalf of her latest client, the runaway daughter of a London gangster who insists she’s innocent of murder.

In this instalment we learn much more about the complications that lie behind Tess and Will’s will-they-won’t-they relationship, alongside a plot with enough cross-examination bombshells to satisfy the most ardent wig-and-gown fan.

Readers of a certain generation will remember the racist and pro-fascist remarks made by some British music stars in the 1970s, most notably that talentless blues impersonator Eric Clapton. The campaign triggered by such outrages, Rock Against Racism, forms part of the framework of White Riot by Joe Thomas (Arcadia Books, £16.99).

The first in a trilogy, it’s set in a London of punk rock and reggae, spy-cops and snatch squads, of jawdroppingly blatant police corruption and violence. As Thatcher prepared for power, the state declared war on the nation with a ferocity not seen for 150 years — and being seen again today.

So impressive in its unpredictable and uncliched choice of characters, this is highly effective historical fiction about class war — but crucially for its success as a novel it is also a story of people, recognisable in their conflicts, hopes and mistakes.

The future of private transport is being unveiled on an island off Massachusetts in Look Both Ways by Linwood Barclay (HQ, £20). The inhabitants have agreed to temporarily swap their traditional cars for silent, electric, ultra-safe, self-driven vehicles. There are no steering wheels, and no risk of accidentally breaking traffic laws. Each car communicates constantly with all the others, so crashes are impossible. Except, of course, if one of the company’s rivals manages to hack the programming ...