Bigtime by Marc Blake (Flame, £6.99 in UK)

This is ex-stand-up comedian Blake's second comedy thriller, the first one, Sunstroke, having received an amount of exposure …

This is ex-stand-up comedian Blake's second comedy thriller, the first one, Sunstroke, having received an amount of exposure and critical praise. In this one, two rather seedy funnymen, Andy Crowe and his arch-rival, Rob Gillen, get stuck in a service station somewhere on the road to Birmingham after Crowe's car breaks down. Somewhat in the manner of The Petrified Forest, a motley crew soon gathers: three small-time villains on the run after a robbery, a bent councillor and a bunch of browned-off pensioners, to name but a few. Blake mixes the stew expertly, the result being a sometimes hilarious melange of mistaken identities, comic blunders and pratfalls galore. The three crooks are idiots of the first order, with one of them, an 18-stone Filipino named Danny One-Slice, ending up in the chip pan. If your taste runs to comic thrillers on the lines of those penned by Janet Evanovitch or Carl Hiaasen, then this is the one for you.