John Creasey (New Blood) 2014

Terry Hayes
I Am Pilgrim
shortlisted
Bantam

Astonishingly assured writing that fully delivers an ambitious, epic, cinematic thriller.  The novel starts with a murder in New York then moves away into a hunt for a terrorist but it’s satisfying to see how the two eventually collide.  Like Lee Child, Hayes is good at the fascinating detail of how something might or does work – a smallpox attack most chillingly.  700 page page-turners don’t come along very often but you won’t want this one to end.