Michael Connelly is the undisputed current star of American crime writing - but what exactly does he have that singles him out from a very big pack?

Connelly is the author of a string of successes centred on detective Harry Bosch but recently he has also introduced us to a new star, lawyer Mickey Haller, who gets his latest outing in the book The Fifth Witness, It’s a work that shows us Connelly is as slick at the John Grisham-style legal thriller as he is at the police procedural.

Here he focuses on the plight of ordinary people battered by the collapse of the world banking system.

And in particular he addresses the tidal wave of foreclosures that left thousands of US citizens without a roof over their heads when they defaulted on their mortgage payments.

It is clear where Connelly’s sympathies lie – with the ordinary families caught up in a financial whirlwind.

His hero Haller, no angel himself, has carved out a living representing people threatened with foreclosure but then it all gets very complicated when one of them is charged with murder.

Lisa Trammel is a single mother abandoned by her husband and facing foreclosure after failing to meet the mortgage payments.

She organises a series of public protests against the bank trying to throw her out on the street so when a top executive at that bank is murdered she is Prime Suspect.

Enter Mickey Haller who, if he is never entirely convinced of his client’s innocence, can still put a compelling defence case together.

The result is a gripping courtroom drama well told by Connelly who knows the value of a killer twist in the tail.

This is a master at the top of his game.

The Fifth Witness is out now in hardback from Orion at £18.99, and on audiobook and e-book at £14.99.

Another star of the quality page-turner genre is Harlan Coben. Like Connelly he has regular heroes. In his latest novel, Live Wire, it is sports agent Myron Bolitar. Bolitar, regular readers will know, is the basketball star who wasn’t. He was the one on the verge of breaking into the big time when he suffered a crippling injury which destroyed his ambitions at a stroke. Instead of making the sporting headlines he turned then to representing those who did. Bolitar comes from the Sam Spade school of wise guy. Nobody has ever done it better than Raymond Chandler’s legendary detective but Bolitar is no slouch at the witty one-liner. In Live Wire the action gets personal as he is hired to trace a missing basketball player who was his fiercest rival back in the day when he was a contender. Inevitably all is not as it seems and Bolitar’s enquiries lead him to deceit a little too close to home. Coben operates at a fluid pace even if his plots get a little bit too convoluted for me in the final reckoning. Still, part of Bolitar’s attraction is his winning cast of support players. There is his feisty business partner Esperanza, a stunning beauty who used to be a wrestler, and her one-time tag team partner Big Cyndi, proud owner of a dress sense to make your eyes bleed. And, last but never least, there is Bolitar’s psychopathic sidekick Windsor Horne Lockwood III, the dapper financial genius with a sideline in debauchery and personal mayhem. Who could resist? Live Wire by Harlan Coben is out in hardback from Orion on May 12 at £18.99.