1. Darkly cosy, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History draws you into another world – a small university campus in snowy Vermont – and holds you in its grip from the narrator’s first killer line. Timeless yet old-fashioned, literary yet entertaining, still a dazzling read.
2. Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan is set in 1950s Bombay and introduces India’s first female detective, the charismatic Insp Persis Wadia. Cosy crime with complex clues and a decidedly Christie-esque sensibility.
