A YOUNG couple move from London to an island off the west coast of Scotland at the start of The Saved by Liz Webb (Allison & Busby, £16.99). Langer has “a population of eighty-three, one pub and one shop” – which these days, of course, gives it one more pub and one more shop than most mainland villages. But it is very isolated, and when the weather turns bad it can be entirely cut off. That suits Calder and Nancy, though each for different, unspoken reasons. 

The island comes complete with a mysterious disappearance from years ago, a local church which looks a lot like a cult, and eventually a violent death. In other words, all the cliches of this type of crime story are present – but hold on tight, because Webb is about to twist every one of them inside out. 

We’re on another island in Good Half Gone by Tarryn Fisher (Graydon House, £16.99), and this one, in Washington State, hosts a hospital for the criminally insane. So, when Iris chooses to work there as an intern, readers might be forgiven for rolling their eyes and asking “What could possibly go wrong?” Iris isn’t innocently blundering into danger, though. She’s not there to learn a trade, but to solve a mystery. 

Fisher has a fresh, distinctive voice as a writer, along with a talent for plotting that produces genuine surprises. 

Emily might as well be trapped on an island, in Five Nights by Rachel Wolf (Head of Zeus, £9.99). She’s a reluctant guest on the maiden voyage of the world’s most luxurious cruise ship, answering a desperate plea from her former best friend, who’s married into the billionaire family that owns the boat and is convinced one of them’s trying to kill her. Which is bad enough even before the storm sets in. 

This page-turning debut suspense novel makes excellent use of a classic whodunnit setting. 

A hard winter’s on the way in Leeds, in 1824, as Simon Westow, professional finder of stolen objects, is hired to retrieve some missing documents, in The Scream Of Sins by Chris Nickson (Severn House, £21.99). 

They belonged to a notorious city magistrate, responsible for the deaths and transportations of many Luddites and other dissidents. The old man’s dead, but his son fears that publication of his papers could bring disgrace on the whole family. 

Simon’s distracted from this job by news from his assistant, former street-girl Jane, who has heard an unbearable story of cruelty from a homeless child. If half of what they’re being told is true, this is going to be the worst case they’ve ever been involved in. 

The sixth in this impressive historical crime series, this one is possibly the best — and certainly, as the author says in an afterword, the “darkest.” But not finally bleak; Nickson’s subjects are honour, obligation and solidarity, and why those at or near the bottom of the heap might take them more seriously than their betters do.