These are the guys we know won’t let us down, their books tightly plotted with tough, likable characters, some romance and a bang at the end.

Take Robert Crais, for example. Chasing Darkness (Orion), Crais’s latest in the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike private eye series, has all the wit, misdirection, violence and brutality that fans enjoy so much, the perfect Californian private eye novel for the holiday pile.

While doing the Los Angeles thing, pull out the new Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict (Allen & Unwin), a Mickey Haller legal thriller with the momentum of a hard-boiled police novel easily leaving the one-dimensional John Grisham in the dust of Haller’s Lincoln town car.

James Lee Burke is always handy, too, another doughty Christmas friend when there’s time for a long read with a glass in hand and everyone in your house is at the beach.

Swan Peak (Orion) has Burke’s quixotic Dave Robicheaux and his ex-partner in the homicide squad, Clete Purcel, heading to Montana to fish, quietly seeking a panacea, escaping the desolate mood of post-Katrina Louisiana. A (more…)