Smoking kills – and ending up as a human ashtray isn’t to be recommended either. That’s the fate of Antony Carrington, one of the many corpses littering Observer journalist Jamie Doward’s audacious second thriller, which also sees the return of his marathon-running, financial analyst heroine, Kate Pendragon. Having previously been seconded to MI5, Pendragon is now in the pay of Carrington’s former employers, tobacco giants Smith and Webb. But the deceased’s serial slaying is just the start of it: Doward’s chewy plot – black markets, blackmail and a big, fat, satisfyingly diabolical conspiracy – speeds the reader confidently around the globe from Washington DC to Belize to the Sahara, where an arch terrorist is holding US and British energy workers hostage. The bleak Kent coastline – Pendragon’s adopted patch – is put to neat use, too, with its decaying second world war Maunsell forts serving as more than just atmospheric grace notes.

Hostage is published by Constable (£19.99). Click here to order a copy for £15.99