Nicci French's latest suspense novel is the best crime book you will read this year. It is a cracking read, beautifully written and so scary that you will need the curtains drawn, the light on and a mug of hot chocolate to sip while you turn the pages. It starts with every woman's nightmare, that of being tied up with a hood over one's head, in a cold and silent place. Then the silence is broken by a man's voice, a man who tells you that you are his latest victim to be kept trussed up until he decides to kill you. The book is narrated in the first person, Abbie Devereau's voice, from her first terrified thoughts to the last. She describes in vivid detail all that she can taste and smell, touch and hear. Desperate to survive she recalls sensations from the land of the living: a yellow butterfly on a green leaf, a lake and a silver birch. Nicci French makes this ordeal entirely credible, creating Abbie's character by showing how she tries to survive. Authors usually place their characters in situations which reveal their personality, they give them conversations and tell us what their colleagues and friends think of them. In the opening pages of Land of the Living none of these techniques are available and yet, page by page, Abbie becomes someone the reader knows, admires and prays for. Developments in the plot tighten the suspense to a degree that is almost unbearable and this is done without any hint of the macabre or the gothic. Nicci French is always so good at choosing the authentic details that make narrative come alive: the contents of a fridge, the juggling with money and transport. She has taken real life and made it a fearful place.