BEST CRIME STORIES OF THE YEAR VOLUME 4 edited by Anthony Horowitz and Otto Penzler (Head of Zeus, £20) should probably have the word “American” in its title since, other than a solitary Cuban, I don’t think it includes any author from outside the US. 

Apart from that slight complaint — and to be fair, the selection probably only reflects the current state of the market — this is a satisfying collection, varied in style and subject, and good value at nearly 400 pages. Each of the stories is followed by a brief afterword in which the writer discusses the origins of the piece. 

The contemporary version of the journalist-as-sleuth often features a true-crime podcaster taking up cold cases on behalf of families who feel let down by the police. In Unsound by Heather Critchlow (Canelo Crime, £9.99) the crusader with a microphone is Cal Lovett, who is going through hard days himself: his mother is frail, his daughter isn’t talking to him, his girlfriend may not be his girlfriend for much longer, and the trial of the man he believes murdered his sister when Cal was a child is approaching its climax. 

Only work can keep him sane, so he throws himself into the hunt for a farmer’s son who went missing years ago while a student at Edinburgh University. None of the young man’s contemporaries want to talk, but Cal does have one thread to pull at: how did a level-headed, friendly boy from a humble background get involved in a Bullingdon-style club for posh yobboes?

It’s a grim tale without much in the way of light relief, but it’s grippingly told through lifelike characters.

There are several proper belly-laughs, and a constant stream of chuckles, in Happy Bloody Christmas by Jo Middleton (Avon, £9.99). It takes place over a long Christmas Eve in the suburbs, where Anna wakes up with a fierce hangover to discover a man dressed as Father Christmas dead in her larder. Someone has taken advantage of last night’s party to murder her universally loathed boss.

That would be an inconvenience under any circumstances, but with her fault-finding mother-in-law due to arrive for an extended bout of seasonal sniping, Anna urgently needs to get the body gone, the crime solved, and everything back in its place.

On Achill Island, off County Mayo, Detective Sergeant Lucy Golden investigates an arson attack which leaves one person dead and one missing in The Bone Fire by Martina Murphy (Constable, £15.99). There are plenty of likely suspects, including the controlling ex-husband and the landlord with a secret, but Lucy’s main problem may be keeping them alive long enough to interview — the missing woman’s furious father is one of Ireland’s best-known gangsters.

With lovely fluent, naturally witty writing, the book makes good use of its offshore setting. The complications of detective work in a community where everyone knows everyone else — and most of them are connected to the detective’s mother — is particularly well handled.