In The Dark by Mark Billingham

The narrative then flips back three weeks to reveal that the crushed policeman was smarting from his pregnant partner's recent affair and was bent to boot.

However, Mark Billingham's first "stand-alone" thriller (which features his regular character DI Thorne in a tiny cameo role) is far more ambitious than this would suggest. The build-up to the opening incident is viewed not only from the cop's perspective but that of the black teenagers in the Cavalier and in particular that of the shooter. As the mother-to-be, who also happens to be a cop, investigates her dead lover's recent history she soon begins to realise that nothing is what it seems.

In The Dark is not only a topnotch mystery - the first twist is far less obvious than the second - and a convincing portrait of crackdealing on south London estates but a moving exploration of grief.

Many so-called literary novels achieve far less and are by no means as impressive.

Synopsis by Foyles.co.uk

A rainy night in London. Shots are fired into a car which swerves on to the pavement, ploughing into a bus stop. It seems that a chilling gang initiation has cost an innocent victim their life. But the reality is far more sinister...One life is wiped out and three more are changed forever: the young man whose finger was on the trigger; an ageing gangster planning a deadly revenge, and the pregnant woman who struggles desperately to uncover the truth. Two weeks away from giving birth, how will she deal with a world where death is an occupational hazard? In a city where violence can be random or meticulously planned, where teenage gangs clash with career criminals and where loyalty is paid for in blood, anything is possible. Secrets are uncovered as fast as bodies, and the story's final twist is as breathtakingly surprising as they come.