INDEPENDENT London florist Amy is thrilled to catch a wealthy, fashionable young couple as private clients, in The Florist by CL Pattison (Headline, £9.99).

This could be the breakthrough into smart society that she’s long dreamt of — not just professionally, but personally.

When a violent death takes place in her new friends’ circle, however, all eyes turn on the odd outsider, Amy.

Suddenly, her eccentricities take on a sinister aspect and her carefully hidden past looks fishy rather than tragic.

She thinks she’s been set up — but why would anyone, including the already suspicious reader, believe her?

Very creepy, with plenty of surprises, this mystery thriller is as hard to predict as it is to put aside.

Amateur sleuths Stella and Jack — she’s a cleaner and he’s a Tube driver — rent a house for the summer in a quiet Sussex village, at the start of The Mystery Of Yew Tree House by Lesley Thomson (Head of Zeus, £20).

They’re supposed to be having a holiday with his kids which will decide whether they can all stand living together, but to no-one’s great surprise a murdered body turns up.

This particular skeleton died in the 1940s, when Yew Tree House was used by the secret Auxiliary Units preparing to fight a guerilla war if the Germans invaded.

It all happened a long time ago, but in this village people have long, if imperfect, memories.

A well-crafted and emotionally convincing whodunnit was particularly lifted for me by the unusually realistic and hilarious dialogue given to Jack’s seven-year-old twins.

There’s more for history fans in Chasing The Dragon by Mark Wightman (Hobeck, £9.99).

It’s set in Singapore, in 1940, where Inspector Betancourt investigates the death of a seemingly harmless American archaeologist, fished from the sea with two balls of opium stuffed down his gullet.

An interesting plot involves imperial Britain’s government monopoly on the supply of recreational drugs, and the entrepreneurs who prefer a more free-market approach.

The book’s two greatest attractions, though, are its graphic recreation of pre-invasion Singapore, which seems to involve all the senses, along with the character of the detective himself.

As a Eurasian he can never be sure whether he counts as “their lot” or “ours,” and as a Eurasian with a warrant card he makes plenty of people uncomfortable wherever he goes.

This is the second volume in what has all the makings of a long run.

Tell Me Your Secrets by Mel McGrath (HQ, £14.99) starts with Meg and Marc leaving London for a country cottage, to try and find a new life following a terrible bereavement.

Unfortunately, their new house turns out to have an unburied past which threatens their future.

This is a “She’s behind you!” suspense story, alternately thrilling and frustrating, as the reader begs the characters to notice the clues that are staring them in the face.

They never do, of course, until it’s almost too late, which ensures that the tension never flags.