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FUGITIVE
By Phillip Margolin, HarperCollins, 352 pages, $34.99

The chase novel, with pursuers coming from all sides, is Phillip Margolin's métier. Even though I know how it's all going to end, he manages to keep me wide-eyed and reading.

Fugitive, which brings back the brilliant Oregon lawyer Amanda Jaffe, is a great example of the subgenre. It's also a smart and skillfully written murder mystery, with solid characters, a terrific setting and a lot of witty dialogue.

At the centre is Charlie Marsh, con man and petty criminal. The story opens with Charlie facing a very real threat from another criminal, one who has murdered thousands and stolen billions. The dictator of Batanga, Africa, is one vicious, dangerous man. For 10 years, Charlie has managed to stay on his good side. Now it's time to get out, but if Charlie goes back to the United States, he faces a murder charge. That's when his publisher calls in Amanda.

She knows all about Charlie. He was one of her father's cases, and she attended his trial as a child, learning the lawyer's craft. Charlie was a convict who, during a prison riot, rescued the warden. He was paroled and became a guru, collecting money, sex and fame – until he was charged with the murder of a senator, the only son of the richest man in Oregon. Witnesses saw the murder, saw Charlie, saw a gun, but Charlie has always claimed he was innocent. If he is, the real killer is still on the loose. And there is a price to pay for that long stay in Batanga.

Fugitive is Margolin at the absolute top of his game.

TAINTED
By Ross Pennie, ECW Press, 312 pages, $24.95

We live in a remarkably safe spot in the world. Famine, war and pestilence happen somewhere else, far away. But danger can intrude even in Canada. It can be as near as the tap water we drink or the lettuce we eat. That's the scary premise of Ross Pennie's excellent debut novel, Tainted.

Zol Szabo is associate medical officer of health for Hamilton-Lakeshore. His egotistical and publicity-hungry boss is on the countdown for retirement, and Szabo expects to move up to chief medical officer.

When Hamish Wakefield, a specialist in infectious diseases, comes to him with a disturbing finding, Szabo takes it seriously. A cluster of people have died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of mad-cow disease. Wakefield's evidence shows that the patients all died from the same form of the illness. That means there is a source in the community – or was, since CJD strikes years after infectiion.

The hunt for the source of this rare illness is the heart of Pennie's novel. Zol and Hamish face the usual bureaucratic and political blockages, along with uniquely medical backstabbing. What works are the two likeable and convincing doctors and the scary plot. Pennie's message – that no matter how safe our world seems, it's still very fragile – is timely and true.

PYTHAGORAS' REVENGE
By Arturo Sangalli, Princeton University Press, 183 pages, $29.95

Arturo Sangalli, in his preface, says he intends this novel to “introduce an audience … to certain mathematical principles … in an entertaining way.” I presume that audience is me. I have hated all forms of arithmetic since childhood, and considered geometry and algebra to be plagues. But I confess that Sangalli, a science and math journalist, has succeeded. I glossed over a lot of the mathematical explanations in Pythagoras' Revenge, but I loved the cultural and historical plot, and I even learned some math.

Jule Davidson is a professor of mathematics in Indiana, and he's bored. His twin sister, Johanna, jets around the world solving problems for giant computer companies and he's sitting in dull meetings amusing himself by playing math games on computers. Then one night, he answers a questionnaire and finds himself playing a very different type of game.

Meanwhile, in England, Elmer Galway, an expert on ancient Greece, is called to authenticate an ancient Arabic manuscript, and an attractive curator from Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum is in London searching for information that will help her put together an exhibition on Pythagoras.

All this hugger-mugger comes together in the history of Pythagoras' sect and the tantalizing possibility that Pythagoras, who forbade his followers to write down any of his sayings, may just have left something tangible after all. Sangalli builds his story on this, using clues from ancient texts, bits of mathematical lore and interesting arcana, like the puzzle that couldn't be patented because it had no solution. For a total escape, this novel is perfect.

FINGER LICKIN' FIFTEEN
By Janet Evanovich, St. Martin's, 320 pages, $35.95

Formula fiction has usually lost its zest by book 15, but Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series is still going strong. We know just what's going to happen: There will be crime in the Burg, Stephanie will wreck at least one car, big-boned gal Lula will find a new way to wear tight leopard-print outfits, piping hot security chief Ranger and old beau Officer Joe Morelli will both pursue Stephanie (though she will avoid commitment to either) and somehow, Grandma Mazur will end up in the middle of it all.

In Finger Lickin' Fifteen, celebrity chef Stanley Chipotle comes to Trenton for a barbecue cook-off, but literally loses his head. Lula is a witness, Morelli is the cop and Grandma Mazur is in the mix.

Stephanie, meanwhile, is working as a bail bondswoman while also doing a job for Rangeman Security, and she still manages to get herself dragged into the barbecue-basting case. This is one has all Evanovich's trademark touches, and lots of spice.

WICKED PREY
By John Sandford, Putnam, 402 pages, $35

Sandford's Lucas Davenport is one of the finest creations in crime fiction, and even though Davenport has quieted down, he's still one of the funniest and smartest sleuths around.

The setting is Minneapolis-St. Paul, as the Twin Cities await the Republican National Convention. Davenport opposed this convention, but lost his argument because of the local politicians' desire for a national stage. Now they have it, and every nutcase in the lower 48 is in town hunting for a chance to make history – to say nothing of a psychopath who wants to even the score with Davenport personally.

This one is smart and filled with crazy characters and chilling suspense. Sandford keep the tension and the laughs at the highest level in this ideal weekend book.

HERE AFTER
By Sean Costello, Your Scrivener Press, 315 pages, $20

According to his biography, this is Sudbury physician Sean Costello's sixth book. I missed the other five, but Here After is a touching little mystery about loss, grief and renewal.

Dr. Peter Croft loves his profession and his family. When his 10-year-old son dies, Croft's world shatters. Then another child disappears, and Croft's obsession with finding the missing child seems to be just another manifestation of his personal grief.

But there's far more to Croft's quest, and his journey takes him to the ultimate edge of his own sanity as well as face to face with a very real and very vicious evil.

Costello knows his way around the mystery/horror genre, and he keeps the action moving and the suspense ratcheted up tight. He is very much a writer to watch out for.