Old detectives, and one gothic author, are given new leases of life in James Patterson’s latest novel Holmes, Margaret And Poe, its three protagonists each reimagined as an eccentric P.I. in modern-day New York. They deploy a winning combination of deduction (Holmes), entrapment (Margaret) and good old-fashioned sleuthing (Poe) to outsmart the police and expose the Big Apple’s rotten core.

Margaret is supposed to represent beloved Agatha Christie sleuth Miss Marple. Her first name was actually Jane, but Patterson – the most borrowed adult author from UK libraries for 14 years in a row – has never let something as inconsequential as the truth stand in the way of telling a rip-roaring yarn.

Indeed, it’s his feisty incarnation of Marple that provides the comic highlight of the book, as she sheds her brimmed hat and bus pass to rugby-tackle a suspect to the ground, crying as she goes, “Murder brings out the bitch in me”. Fans of the originals may well despair, but for everyone else this is a slick, entertaining thriller that looks set to become the first instalment of a bestselling series. The game, dear Watson, is afoot once more…