Apaches, by Lorenzo Carcaterra (Arrow, £6.99 in UK)

This one is as tough, violent and stomach-turning as they come. Set in the meanest streets of New York in the early Eighties, when crack cocaine was first invading the city like a pestilence, it tells of the formation of a band of renegade cops eager to fight the drug barons on their own terms. Most of these ex-law enforcers have been injured in some way and have had to comply with forcible retirement. Now they are back, nicknamed "The Apaches", and, with little to lose, like a toothless prize-fighter, they become a potent, death-dealing force.