Book 5 - "Rune" by Christopher Fowler

After Harry Buckingham's father is killed in a freak accident, other people that he knows start dying in bizarre ways and pieces of paper bearing undecipherable messages in strange angular characters are found on some of their bodies.

A multinational company has merged ancient magic with a high-tech delivery system and is putting it to sinister use.

Harry has to join forces with a motley group of people including a female truck-driver, the librarian of a collection of books about magic and the occult, a nine-year-old hacker and some rather unusual policemen in order to work out what is going on.

Christopher Fowler has also written some books about the detectives Bryant and May set much earlier in their careers. I think I will see if I can get them out of the library.

Book 6 - "Charlotte's Friends" by Sarah Kennedy

Although the Hon. Charlotte Pierce was brought up in an aristocratic family in a large country home and has the safety net of a large trust fund, her unhappy childhood has shaped her life. On her first day at boarding school she latched onto two girls who became the most important people in her life. Barty and Therese never realised just how important they were to Charlotte, or just how far she would go to ensure that nothing threatened the Family.

A very readable psychological thriller concerning love, obsession and madness.

Surprisingly the author is Sarah Kennedy, the Radio 2 presenter who formerly was one of the presenters of "Game for a Laugh". To me she just doesn't seem like the sort of person who would write a psychological thriller!