PSYCHO THRILLERS   | Daily Mail Online

INVISIBLE GIRL

by Lisa Jewell (Century £14.99, 416 pp)

Apart from anything else, this book is an instant education about Incels — the new breed of men who identify as Involuntary Celibates.

They are unable to form sexual relationships with women and meet on internet sites to share their frustrations and misogyny.

But that’s just one of several profoundly disturbing themes that Jewell tackles with typical frankness in one of her most powerful books to date.

Saffyre, a pretty, disturbed, 17-year-old teenager, sits in the middle of this mystery that plays out in London’s posh Hampstead. When Saffyre disappears, the suspicion immediately falls on Owen Pick, a teacher and a bit of a misfit who happens to live in the same road as Saffyre’s therapist and his unhappy wife. Meanwhile, their two children are keeping their own secrets . . .

PLAYING NICE

by J.P. Delaney (Quercus £12.99, 432 pp)

There is a precision about Delaney’s characters that propels his twisty plots into unexpected and utterly convincing scenarios. It’s also unusual for a male author to excel in the domestic noir, an area too often dominated by women.

Maybe that’s why the male characters are particularly convincing in this subtle, nightmarish story of how two couples cope when they discover their babies were accidentally swapped at birth in hospital.

At first they seem to arrive at a civilised and enlightened solution, but the situation slowly becomes creepier and more macabre as we watch with fascination the charm of the high-functioning psychopaths and exactly who is controlling whom.

SISTERS

by Michelle Frances (Pan £7.99, 432 pp)

Two sisters who don’t get on with one another is a familiar plotline, but Michelle Frances manages to bring fresh energy to this age-old theme of sibling rivalry and family secrets.

Abby, who has married an Italian, has invited her more glamorous sister, Ellie, to stay at her beautiful house on Elba. But when Susanna, their very tricky mother, turns up, old family tensions resurface.

Then something truly shocking happens and the sisters are forced to challenge their views of themselves and each other.

The plot propels the pair on a road trip across Europe and prompts some of the book’s best writing.

Along the way there are flashbacks to the women’s childhoods and clues to the sinister reasons that lie behind their fraught relationship.

The finale doesn’t disappoint.