Where the Bodies are Buried - Chris Brookmyre

Detective Catherine McLeod was always taught that in Glasgow, they don't do whodunit. They do score-settling. They do vendettas. They do petty revenge. They do can't-miss-whodunit. It's a lesson that has served her well, but Glasgow is also a dangerous place to make assumptions. Either way she looks at it, she recognises that the discovery of a dead drug-dealer in a back alley is merely a portent of further deaths to come. Elsewhere in the city, aspiring actress Jasmine Sharp is reluctantly - and incompetently - earning a crust working for her uncle Jim's private investigation business. When Jim goes missing, Jasmine has to take on the investigator mantle for real, and her only lead points to Glen Fallan, a gangland enforcer and professional assassin whose reputation is rendered only slightly less terrifying by having been dead for twenty years. Cautiously tracing an accomplished killer's footsteps, Jasmine stumbles into a web of corruption and decades-hidden secrets that could tear apart an entire police force - if she can stay alive long enough to tell the tale.

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives - Leonard Mlodinow

I do feel a little sheepish recommending two science books in a row - not to mention surprised at myself, for last week's recommendation, Quantum, contains passages of rather hard science, and I thought that I could do with a break as much as you.

But this book is different. It is in the nature of science books to contain science, and this is no exception; but it is unusual for them to contain humour and highly readable prose - not to mention very useful and practical insights which will help you live your life with a greater understanding of the world about you.

People, as Leonard Mlodinow reminds us, are not always that smart, and in fact our mental processes can lead us to the wrong conclusions. Try this one yourself: ask someone if there are more six-letter words in the English language whose fifth letter is N, or more six-letter words ending in "-ing"? You will discover that most people say there are more words ending in "ing" but just think about it for a bit.

That might not sound like a problem in probability, but it is related to it. And the reach of this book is extraordinary. Read it carefully and you may discover how to start a winning lottery syndicate (you need a mathematically ignorant lottery provider, like the Virginia State lottery in 1992), win with profitable consistency at roulette (and, if you're a casino owner, how to stop someone winning with profitable consistency), evaluate evidence in a criminal trial correctly, detect frauds and bullshitters, not give up when your manuscript has been rejected by 27 publishers, and assess the veracity of Bill Clinton's tax returns for the past 13 years. (I'll spare you the bother of that one: thanks to the careful application of Benford's Law, he's probably honest.) As Mlodinow quotes a Harvard professor: "Our brains are just not wired to do probability problems very well," but this is just the book to help us to do them better.

The charm of the book also resides in the quality of the writing. It is a good idea to use humour to help the mathematical medicine slip down, and Mlodinow does it as well as I've ever seen it done. There are bits that make you laugh out loud, but they never obscure the facts he is trying to convey. "If psychics really existed, you'd see them in places like [Monte Carlo], hooting and dancing and pushing wheelbarrows of cash down the street, and not on websites calling themselves 'Zelda Who Knows All and Sees All' and offering 24-hour free online love advice along with about 1.2 million other web psychics (according to Google)." He has, according to the inside cover of the book, written for MacGyver and Star Trek: The Next Generation, which may have something to do with this.

Another remarkable thing about the book, which may also have something to do with his extra-scientific writing experience, is that he is not simply content to leave it at the maths, and scoff at the scientifically illiterate. He goes on to explain why it is that we often get things wrong - and why it may be advantageous for us to do so. One experiment seemed to prove that if you think you're in control of your environment, you'll live longer - even if you have, in reality, no such control. And this is what gambling is all about: our belief that we can see patterns in chaos. (Actually, the question whether there is in fact such a thing as chaos or true randomness is one tackled by Mlodinow.)

Even given this, the book still manages to surprise and delight until the very end. It is also - and this is something you really don't get in other science books, particularly the mathematically inclined - moving. Bracketed by stories about his parents' survival of the Holocaust, this is a work which goes beyond its brief to tell us how to live our lives in hope and knowledge. I do not exaggerate. When Beckett said that all he could hope to do was "fail better", he was more right than he knew. "Even a coin weighted toward failure will sometimes land on success," says Mlodinow. So don't give up.

Divorced, Beheaded, Died...: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks - Kevin Flude

The tales of the various monarchs of Britain are some of the most interesting in our history. From Henry VIII and his six wives and Edward VIII's abdication to some of our lesser known and mythical monarchs such as King Arthur, "Divorced, Beheaded, Died..." takes you on a gallop through the history of Britain's monarchs from the legendary King Brutus, through the houses of Tudor and Stuart, and up to the Windsors, including the major monarchs of Scotland and Wales. Discover the sticky end that befell Edward II, the story of the teenage queen of England who reigned for less than a fortnight, and find out whether Macbeth really was a king of Scotland. Presented in an accessible, chronological format, "Divorced, Beheaded, Died..." will fill all those gaps in your history knowledge, together with some fascinating and amusing facts that are guaranteed to entertain any history enthusiast.

The Blasphemer - Nigel Farndale

On its way to the Galapagos Islands, a light aircraft ditches into the sea. As the water floods through the cabin, zoologist Daniel Kennedy faces an impossible choice - should he save himself, or Nancy, the woman he loves? In a parallel narrative, it is 1917 and Daniel's great grandfather Andrew is preparing to go over the top at Passchendaele. He, too, will have his courage tested, and must live with the moral consequences of his actions. Back in London, the atheistic Daniel is wrestling with something his 'cold philosophy' cannot explain - something unearthly he thought he saw while swimming for help in the Pacific. But before he can make sense of it, the past must collapse into the present, and both he and Andrew must prove themselves capable of altruism, and deserving of forgiveness. "The Blasphemer" is a story about conditional love, cowardice and the possibility of redemption - and what happens to a man of science when forced to question his certainties. It is a novel of rare depth, empathy and ambition that sweeps from the trenches of the First World War to the terrorist-besieged streets of London today: a novel that will speak to the head as well as the heart of any reader.