Did she jump or was she pushed? 

Psychos 

The Hike by Lucy Clarke (Harper £14.99, 384pp)

The Hike

by Lucy Clarke (Harper £14.99, 384pp)

There is more than a whiff of a Reese Witherspoon film about this tale of four long-term girlfriends setting out on a reunion hike in the Norwegian wilderness.

Each girl brings a lot more baggage than their carefully packed backpacks. They have secrets galore, both from each other and from themselves as the dangers of the trip escalate. Facing their own personal demons becomes as challenging as the terrain.

The news that there’s the body of a dead woman at the bottom of a mountain doesn’t help. The reader knows a bit more than the characters, which is a clever plot device, while the landscape, the girls’ fight for survival against the harsh terrain and an unknown danger make the perfect ingredients for a Witherspoon film like Wild. It’s a pretty good book, too.

Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater (Hodder £14.99, 384pp)

Death of a Bookseller 

by Alice Slater (Hodder £14.99, 384pp)

Two young women working in a bookshop in the gentrifying London suburb of Walthamstow quickly become entangled in each other’s lives. Roach is addicted to true crime podcasts and sees the bookshop as a refuge from the real world.

On the surface Laura is the more straightforward of the pair. She loves everything about the bookshop, including the customers.

The action takes off after Roach, shamelessly rummaging in Laura’s handbag, discovers her secret connection with a real-life crime and becomes obsessed with it.

Both characters are convincing despite not being very relatable. But the really terrific thing about the book is how the writer conjures that slightly mysterious quality that people working in bookshops always have.

These shops all have their mysteries, a charm that an Amazon package arriving on the doormat will never be able to recreate.

That said, this book is worth your time and effort however you choose to buy it.

The Fall by Louise Jensen (HQ £8.99, 480pp)

The Fall

by Louise Jensen (HQ £8.99, 480pp)

In a beautifully written prologue we meet cousins Cally and Tegan, who are ballet dancing on a stage watched by their identical twin sister mothers, Kate and Beth.

There is a warning that the future holds a tragedy which will divide this close family.

Cut to several years later and the surprise 40th birthday party of Kate and Beth on their family farm.

And sure enough, as foretold, the news comes that Cally is lying in a coma after falling from a bridge onto some rocks below.

The police investigating soon become convinced the circumstances are suspicious and the family slowly starts to bend under the pressure.

This is a thought-provoking account of modern family dynamics tested by financial pressures, social media and misplaced loyalties.