Page Turners

* Jump! by Jilly Cooper is published in hardback by Bantam Press, priced £18.99.

The queen of the bonkbuster, right, is back with a horsey tale about jump racing.

Set in fictional Larkshire, Jump! follows put-upon sixtysomething widow Etta Bancroft, whose life is tightly controlled by her beastly children, and Mrs Wilkinson, the abused filly she carefully nurses back to health and to steeplechasing glory.

While this novel contains some elements of classic Jilly Cooper – a huge cast of colourful characters, a picture-perfect country setting and lively prose – it fails to replicate the magic of its predecessors.

The loosely structured story rambles over more than 700 pages, and the silly word play grows tiresome after a while.

More importantly, the racy bits, which are arguably the reason many read Cooper, are a little late on. But for ardent fans of the author, and of horses, it is still an entertaining read.

* The Confession by John Grisham is published in hardback by Century, priced £18.99.

Nobody knows the inside of a courtroom and the workings of the legal system like a lawyer.

That’s what makes John Grisham’s legal-based thrillers such gripping reading.

In The Confession an innocent man is on death row and the bloodthirsty people of the state of Texas won’t allow a last-minute confession by the true culprit get in the way of their desire to ‘light another one up’.

A master of his genre, Grisham twists and turns you through the legal minefield of last-minute appeals as lawyers bid to get a stay of execution for Donte Drumm – the man about to die after being manipulated into confessing to killing his high school classmate.

Throw in the search for the remains of everyone’s favourite cheerleader, the musings of a belligerent governor and public opinion clearly divided along racial lines and the city of Sloan is set to explode like a firecracker on the fourth of July.

* The Reversal by Michael Connelly is published in hardback by Orion, priced £18.99.

For fans of the Harry Bosch series of detective thrillers by best-selling author Michael Connelly, The Reversal will not let you down. Connelly keeps readers hooked with his fast pacing and authentic narrative.

What makes The Reversal even more appealing is the up to date storyline and a cast of characters always ready to take that extra risk.

The twist is having defence attorney Mickey Haller switch sides to prosecute a child-killer who has been freed after DNA evidence was used to show the wrong man had been convicted.

But just when it looks like the doomed prosecution is about to fail, a totally unexpected twist takes you in a new direction as the high-profile case of Jason Jessup lurches to an exciting conclusion.

Connelly fans will not feel any disappointment by his latest Harry Bosch offering, even if their favourite detective might be taking something of a back seat on this one.

* Stieg Larsson, My Friend by Kurdo Baksi is published in hardback by Maclehose Press, priced £14.99.

Stieg Larsson is best known around the world as the man who brought us the Millennium trilogy: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, followed by The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest.

His posthumous success made his tragic death in 2004 all the more poignant and, in this book, his colleague and friend Kurdo Baksi, who first met the writer in 1992, attempts to reveal the true character of Larsson.

Without going overboard on flowery sentiment, he describes the author and political journalist as a coffee-drinking, hard-working campaigner against racism who often received death threats from neo-Nazi groups.

In this memoir, Baksi also reveals that aspects of Larsson’s personality are mirrored in the characters in his novels, such as journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Millennium heroine Lisbeth Salander.

It’s not a definitive conclusion about Larsson, but those interested in finding out more about the author will surely enjoy this read.