Playing Dead, by Lindsay Maracotta (Coronet, £5.99 in UK)

If you like comedy with your crime, then this is the book for you. Maracotta's heroine is Lucy Freers, an innovative Hollywood film animator, wife of a successful director and mother of a street-wise, whip-smart daughter. When her daughter's nanny gets murdered, she decides to investigate, in spite of the fact that she is five months pregnant. Hidden among the victim's belongings she finds a fuzzy videotape showing another murder, this one apparently being carried out by an eight-year-old. Catapulted into the world of precocious child actors and ambition-fuelled parents, she just about keeps her head above water as the waves of conspiracy roll in around her. Delicious one-liners, a frenetic pace and a sympathetic heroine all combine to form a most satisfying read.