The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

<p>The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian; Claws Out! by Bella Mackie; Plant Lady by Minyoung Kang;<strong> </strong>Children of Wolves by Lawrence Osborne; Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth</p><p><strong><a href="https://guardianbookshop.com/the-amateur-9781529996555/?utm_source=editoriallink&amp;utm_medium=merch&amp;utm_campaign=article">The Amateur</a> by Chris Bohjalian (Hutchinson Heinemann, £18.99)</strong><br>
American bestseller Bohjalian deserves to be far better known in the UK, although, as the first line of his 26th novel points out, “It is neither virtue nor might that rules the world; it’s luck”. Mira Winston’s luck began early, as she was born into a rich family, clever enough to secure a place at Yale, and a talented enough golfer to consider turning pro, but things change dramatically in 1978 when, at the age of 18, a ball she hits on a driving range smashes the temporal bone of a young caddy, killing him almost instantly. The freak accident turns out to be rather more complicated than first thought, not least because it becomes karmically conflated, in Mira’s mind, with her relationship with a married man twice her age. Told as a memoir, with Mira looking back on the derailment of her life and chronicling society’s changing perceptions of agency and privilege, this literary thriller is a masterfully executed ace.</p><p><strong><a href="https://guardianbookshop.com/claws-out-9780008545581/?utm_source=editoriallink&amp;utm_medium=merch&amp;utm_campaign=article">Claws Out!</a> by Bella Mackie (Borough, £20)</strong><strong><br></strong>Mackie’s third novel centres on Diana, a manipulative grifter whose previous three husbands have died, apparently of natural causes. She’s in the process of getting her feet under the fourth mark’s prosperous Hampstead table when she encounters opposition. David Farrand’s “entitled but