Portrait of A Spy by Daniel Silva, Harper Collins, $32.99.

Gabriel Allon could have been acknowledged as the world’s greatest art restorer if that occupation hadn’t merely been a cover for his true talent.

This sensitive and loyal man, a lover of Renaissance art, is Israel’s top assassin. The only thing he can’t seem to do is retire.

This is the 11th Gabriel Allon book from author Daniel Silva. No matter how hard Allon tries to lead a quiet life among unsuspecting Cornish villagers, Silva drags him back into the dangerous, high-speed world of international espionage.

In Portrait of a Spy, terrorists are targeting European capitals, and it’s Allon’s bad luck to be the only person to spot the sweaty suicide bomber lumbering in a heavy overcoat through London’s Covent Garden.

Forget James Bond and Jason Bourne! Gabriel Allon is the trained killer you’d want on your side, he’s a cultured killer with a heart of gold.

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The Ridge by Michael Koryta, Arena, $24.99.

Just like Deputy Sheriff Kevin Kimble and local journalist Roy Damus, you’ll ever so slowly be convinced that there’s something not quite human about the dramas unfolding at Blade Ridge.

There are the unexplained car wrecks, drownings and suicides. And they’re made even stranger by the number of survivors who walk away without a scratch.

Beautiful killer Jacqueline Mathis knows what’s there, so do the big cats at the local wildlife preserve, and crazy drunk Wyatt French didn’t build a lighthouse many miles from the sea for no good reason.

This forgotten part of Kentucky has a brutal history, one that’s never quite disappeared. But how can two ordinary men fight an evil they cannot see?

The Ridge starts as a mystery, quickly becomes a thriller, and then descends relentlessly into the realms of horror.

Koryta’s great achievement is in making this supernatural story frighteningly real.

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The Traitor’s Emblem by Juan Gomez-Jurado, Orion, $32.99.

They call Gomez-Jurado the Spanish Ken Follett and it’s not difficult to see why. With characters such as a despicable Nazi, a beautiful Jewish girl and a young patriot haunted by a decades-long mystery, The Traitor’s Emblem is vintage Follett.

It’s 1919, and in a mansion in Munich, Paul Reiner is being bullied by his spoilt cousin Jurgen von Schroeder, an enmity that will last for decades and end in bloodshed.

Jurgen is consumed by hatred, which finds its natural outlet in the burgeoning Nazi party.

While Paul searches for the truth about his long-lost father, his Jewish girlfriend Alys Tannenbaum is vulnerable to his vicious cousin.

Paul stops at nothing to try to rescue her from the now powerful Jurgen.

Trust me, you’ll feel sick at the sacrifice he makes for the lovely Alys.

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The Monsoon Bride by Michelle Aung Thin, Text Publishing, $29.95.

This is a first novel, shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards unpublished manuscript fellowship last year — so why, I kept wondering, does the story seem vaguely familiar?

Then I twigged: it’s (Graham) Greene-land. Meeting place of colonial upheaval, moral ambiguity and tropical sex, usually breaking taboos of class and race.

Of course, Thin’s is an original work, no suggestion otherwise — but an ability to conjure up the steamy, exotic flavour of Greene is something to admire and it hooked me from the start.

It’s the story of a mixed-race girl, Winsome, rattling on a night train towards Rangoon, while the man she’s just married — who picked her out at the convent, whose skin has “a peppery, meaty sweetness” — snores gently beside her.

The year is 1930, Burmese nationalism is on the rise and Rangoon will soon be in flames, though neither the heat, nor the blood on the streets, will penetrate the clubs or consciences of the white masters.

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Lucky Bunnyby Jill Dawson, Sceptre, 29.99.

Queenie Dove was what many would call a wicked girl. Childhood thief, liar and truant.

Her father is carted off to jail, her mother to a mental hospital, so Queenie relies on wit to survive the Depression and the Blitz, while her body blossoms (and she discovers wired brassieres) just in time for the decadence of the post-war years, beating a trail out of East London into the speakeasies of Mayfair, scamming and stealing all the way.

Think Moll Flanders meets the Artful Dodger. Though there’s no-one quite like Queenie, who, for all her spells “inside” and her predictably disastrous taste in men, is — possibly — a young woman more sinned against than sinning, she clearly enjoys the sinning bit best.

Lucky Bunnyis no morality tale but it’s a romping read, saved from sordidness by the skill and energy Jill Dawson puts into her characters, especially Queenie — flinty-hearted minx that she is.

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The Life by Malcolm Knox, Allen & Unwin, $32.99.

The Life is what a famous world champion surfer can expect to enjoy, a magic combination of international trips, adoring fans and the right to raid the hotel mini-bar.

The Life is what poor, parentless Dennis Keith from Coolangatta, Qld, works for, and achieves, and is ultimately destroyed by.

DK RULES, says the spray paint at his local beach, tribute to his freakish understanding of the way waves break and dominance of his sport.

But this demon on a board can’t handle the consequences of his single, consuming skill and becomes a drug-addled, destructive wash-up.

It’s a familiar tale, the troubled genius broken by his own gift, but Knox is a seriously good writer who stretches himself here, giving a choppy, jazzy energy to DK’s character and voice.

We learn about surfing — starting in the ’70s, when surfers were cruisy amateurs, through to the takeover by the professional circuit — but also about fame, self-delusion, and the cost and collapse of hopes.

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Kinglake-350 by Adrian Hyland, Text Publishing, $32.95.

This is an important book, the first to tackle the horror of Black Saturday, February 7, 2009, when the small settlements around Kinglake in Victoria were hit by the worst bushfires in the nation’s recorded history.

We all remember the story but here are the details, writ large and terrifying as the firestorm loomed and ultimately destroyed lives, homes, schools, everything in its path.

The clear heroes of that inferno, and of this account, are the firefighters and police, specifically local Sergeant Roger Wood — radio call sign Kinglake-350 — who was the only officer rostered on that nightmarish morning and who led many to safety, even as his own family was threatened.

But the heroism, and grief, ran deep that day. Hyland tackles broader issues like the historic relationship to our combustible bush but what’s at the heart of this compelling, wrenching tale is how people fought for themselves, their neighbours, and the place they loved against the implacable force of fire. It’s a story of community.

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