CONVICTED murderer Jamey returns to the run-down Mississippi town of Jericho where his victim’s family still live in The Broken Places by Ace Atkins (Corsair, £7.99). 

Now an ordained Christian minister, he’s been given early release from prison. 

But, as he sets up a local church for poor people, some see him as a perfect example of the redemptive power of religion. 

To others, he’s just an unrepentant conman, sure to reoffend. 

But Sherriff Quinn Colson begins to wonder, are people’s motives ever really so clear-cut?

Meanwhile, two escaped convicts are looking for Jamey, convinced he’s stolen the money from their last robbery. 

And, just to make things more fun for Sherriff Colson, a once-in-a-generation tornado is heading right for Jericho.

Atkins gives us lots of action but there’s plenty going on behind it too.

In 1891 the world is shocked to hear of the disappearance, and apparent death, of Sherlock Holmes and his arch-enemy Professor Moriarty, following a final struggle at the Reichenbach Falls. 

But the professor’s place as mastermind of all London’s crime is quickly filled, by a US gangster who exceeds even his predecessor in ruthlessness. 

Can Scotland Yard’s Inspector Athelney Jones — once dismissed in the writings of Dr Watson as “an imbecile” — bring this new Napoleon of crime to justice?

It’s impossible to say any more about the plot of Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz (Orion, £19.99) without giving too much away. 

But fans of Arthur Conan Doyle’s London will surely adore this fine addition to the literature, being fast-paced but at the same time fully stocked with proper “fair play” clues.

Millionaire ex-hippie Betty Morse buys a huge parcel of land in the wild woods of Maine in Massacre Pond by Paul Doiron (Constable, £8.99) and bans all hunting and logging. 

In an area where people’s ability to feed their children depends on the timber and game industries, she makes few friends.

Even so, when seven moose are found brutally killed on “Queen Elizabeth’s” land, game warden Mike Bowditch is shocked. 

In that bizarrely sentimental way hunters have, everyone agrees that these particular animals have been “murdered” rather than “harvested.” It’s Maine’s biggest-ever wildlife crime and it’s making national headlines. 

The motive is obvious enough. Unfortunately, the suspect list is as long as the phone book.

The author’s approach to the morality of killing for sport comes across as subtle and sincere and he successfully brings a sense of the great outdoors into his pages.

Chief Inspector Gamache of Quebec investigates the seemingly pointless murder of an elderly woman who was once world-famous in Louise Penny’s How The Light Gets In (Sphere, £7.99). At the same time he struggles to unmask the terrible conspiracy at the heart of the Surete du Quebec — the provincial police — itself, which we have glimpsed throughout this impressive series.

The Quebecois winter is so vivid, the characters so alive, and the action so breathtaking that it’s hard to care that this is not Penny’s most convincing plot.