Simon Ritchie looks at some of the latest thrillers on the market.

FOR YEARS John Grisham has been the courtroom king - but now the big guns of the thriller writing world are fighting to get his crown.

First it was crime writer Michael Connelly, who is better known for his tough and gritty detective tales set in Los Angeles. His excellent Lincoln Lawyer got rave reviews when it was published last year.

Now bestselling authors James Patterson (The Fifth Horseman and Mary, Mary) and Greg Iles (24 Hours and Sleep No More) have dipped their toes into the legal ocean to great effect.

In Turning Angel, (Hodder & Stoughton, £12.99) Iles has produced one of the best reads of the year. It's an explosive thriller set in Mississippi - classic John Grisham territory.

Penn Cage had already given up being a lawyer when he went back to live in his home town of Natchez.

At first glance, the city is an idyllic place to bring up a child. Beneath the surface, however, the community is stretched to breaking point by racial tension, civic corruption and a huge drugs problem.

Single parent Penn is at his daughter's school board meeting when the news breaks that a beautiful and brilliant 17-year-old student has been found murdered and raped.

That same evening, Penn's best friend Drew Elliott, the town's respected doctor, confesses to Penn that he has been having an affair with the girl and was planning to leave his wife for her.

When Drew is accused of the murder he asks Penn to defend him - it's the most explosive case the town has ever seen.

James Patterson's Beach Road (Headline, £17.99), his third novel of the year, is equally as good.

Tom Dunleavy has a one-man law firm in legendary East Hampton, home of billionaires and celebrities, but his job barely keeps him in paper clips.

Then a friend of Tom's is arrested for a triple murder near a movie star's mansion. Tom knows in his gut that Dante Halleyville is innocent. Dante asks him to represent him in what could be the trial of the century.

Tom recruits Manhattan superlawyer and former girlfriend Kate Costello to help. In their search to find who really killed three locals, the pair uncover a truth that shocks the community - and the readers.

Another cracking read is The Righteous Men, by debutant British author Sam Bourne (HarperCollins, £10).

Someone is murdering good people. Why? A pimp is found dead in a rough New York neighbourhood. A far-right extremist is fatally shot at his remote log cabin outside Seattle. An 18-year-old computer hacker is murdered on his way home from working at a call centre in India. One thing unites these victims.

They all had, at some point in their lives, performed an act of exceptional goodness.

For rookie journalist Will Monroe, in his first week on the New York Times, the story is a gift.

But then his wife, Beth, is kidnapped, and the riddle becomes personal.

When he starts receiving cryptic messages from the kidnappers, who warn him not to involve the police, Will realizes he needs serious help.

TC, his rebellious ex-girlfriend who he hasn't seen for five years, might be the person to help.

If anyone can break the kidnappers' code, it's her.

As Will and TC piece together the clues, it becomes apparent that the kidnappers are motivated by a far higher calling than simple greed. If you loved the Da Vinci Code, you'll love this.

Former art thief Tom Kirk makes a return in The Black Sun by James Twining (HarperCollins, £12.99).

Kirk investigates after an Auschwitz survivor is murdered in his hospital bed, his killers making off with a macabre trophy - his severed left arm.

In Fort Mead, Maryland, a gang breaks into a museum and steals a second world war Enigma machine, lynching the guard who happens to cross their path.

While in Prague, a mindless anti-Semitic attack on a Synagogue culminates in the theft of a seemingly worthless painting by a little known Czech artist. Something links them, but what and why?

The Black Sun has all the ingredients for a blockbuster - Nazis, hidden treasure, conspiracies and codes.

A Game Of Soldiers by Steven Miller (Harper Collins, £14.99) is a conspiracy story with a difference.

It's set in 1913 where the Russian people (especially its rich tycoons) are steadily growing impatient with the ruling Romanovs.

Pyotr Ryzkhov, a government agent, is providing a bodyguard for Rasputin, when he witnesses the death of a child prostitute.

The immediate cover up by the police drives him to probe into what he is sure is murder. But he suddenly finds his enquiries deliberately hampered. As the investigation widens, financiers, policemen, government officers, foreign diplomats, even the Minister of Justice, seem to be involved in an ever larger circle of fraud and violence.

Then another brutal killing; this time of a leading banker - gives him the final clue and leads him to Serbia and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Updated: 16:22 Friday, May 12, 2006