THE DARK HOURS by Amy Jordan (HQ, £16.99) features a retired detective inspector who lives in a remote Irish village and mostly keeps to herself. When she sleeps, which isn’t her forte, there’s always a torch and a golf club close at hand.

Thirty years earlier she was a young Garda in Cork involved on the periphery of the hunt for a multiple murderer, and those events have haunted her ever since. When her old boss rings, needing her help, she learns that the past isn’t over yet.

This is a nice twisty plot, but best of all is the book’s truly unusual main character — a retired cop in her 60s who’s learned a bit over the years, and unlearned bits where necessary, too; she won’t take crap from anyone, but she’s more sympathetic to them now than she was then.