Ask the average reader to name five crime writers, and it’s a safe bet they will come up with the current bestsellers – especially if their work has been televised. Not surprising, and many of the top earners deserve their favoured positions on the tables and in the window displays of the book chains.

The quorum of Val McDermid, Reginald Hill, Minette Walters and Ian Rankin feature regularly in the bestseller lists, and their books can be found on the tables of every self-respecting bookseller in the UK – and why not? Between them, they have enough awards to set several mantleshelves groaning under the weight.

The ebullient Lindsay Gordon and Kate Brannigan PI novels made Val McDermid popular with readers long before The Mermaid’s Singing won her the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger. What began as a stand-alone became an international bestselling series, featuring emotionally damaged psychologist, Tony Hill. Quite unlike her earlier novels, their disturbing and often ultra-violent content demonstrates McDermid’s versatility as well as her eerie ability to tap into the darker side of human desire and fantasy.

Before it became fashionable, Minette Walters eschewed the easy route of the series, winning a hatful of awards along the way. The subject matter of her highly acclaimed novels ranges from a modern twist on the classic country house mystery, to the edgier territory of inner city housing estates.

Walters and McDermid vie for the title of reigning queen of the British psychological thriller, in the Sunday supplements, but their writing is so distinctive, so individualistic that any such comparison is odious. Read them, enjoy them – leave empty comparisons to the reviewers.

The attraction of Ian Rankin’s writing is as much about the character of Edinburgh as it is about the tormented soul of his creation, DI Rebus. In descriptions of an Edinburgh winter, you can practically feel the north-easterlies tugging at your coat collar like a Burdihouse Bobby wading into brawl on a Saturday night. In 2005, Rankin received the CWA Diamond Dagger lifetime achievement award at the indecently young age of forty-five. His prose is understated, yet compelling, his plots complex, intelligent and layered with topical social issues, from the inauguration of the Scottish Parliament to the incarceration of asylum seekers in the UK.

Though best known for his Dalziel and Pascoe novels, Diamond Dagger winner Reginald Hill never tires of repeating that this series represents less than half his output. He has crossed genres to write science fiction and historical novels as well as short stories, and his PI series featuring ex-lathe operator Joe Sixmith, has a loyal readership. Hill has a tremendous facility for inhabiting the minds of his characters, whether it’s a seven year-old Yorkshire lass or an old copper who has seen more than he ever wanted or expected to. He can evoke both setting and character in a single, deceptively simple, sentence. There is erudition in his writing, but borne lightly, there is wit, but never flippancy, and this fine balance amounts to a richly rewarding reading experience.

Ruth Rendell is the éminence noire of crime fiction. Her psychological suspense novels have both provided inspiration, and presented a challenge to fellow crime writers for over thirty years. Her understanding of the damaged psyche is unparalleled in British writing. Only a true master of this or any other genre could reveal the outcome of a novel at the outset, and not only retain the reader’s interest, but build an unrelenting and almost unbearable tension in subsequent chapters.

Whether you opt for her gentler Inspector Wexford novels, or for the often bizarre and off-kilter worlds she creates as Barbara Vine, you will be guaranteed a wonderful ride; sometimes despairing, often bleak, but always enthralling.

But these are probably names you have known, and whose books you’ve been reading for years. What of the lesser known authors? Those who don’t have entire book cases in Waterstones or Borders dedicated to their work? For me, finding a new talent – someone whose work speaks to me both as a writer and a reader – is a very special delight, a guiltless pleasure that makes me want to hug myself with glee. Such was my excitement when I first read Mo Hayder’s debut novel, Birdman. What struck me about her earlier work was the raw energy and intensity of her prose, so I was unprepared for the change in style of her third novel, Tokyo. More elegiac in tone than the previous two, the narrative voice in this novel has a lyrical quality that is both haunting and moving. But don’t be fooled: Hayder describes the brutalities we enact upon each other with an unflinching eye for detail, and Tokyo builds inexorably to one of the most terrifying scenes I’ve read. And as a fan of Stephen King, I’ve read a few.

Denise Mina’s novels are typified by their social commentary; they burn with passion for the injustices in society. Though frequently intense and claustrophobic, sometimes as bleak as a dreich November night on a Glasgow housing project, her writing has heart and soul, and her prose an elegance that lingers in the mind.

Readers new to Laura Wilson’s work are in for a treat. Distinctive, literate, fluid prose is the mainstay of her novels. She frequently writes from multiple viewpoints, inhabiting her characters body, mind and soul. The historical detail of her novels is precise but never heavy-handed, capturing the ambience of her chosen period and weaving it cleverly into the structure and plotlines.

Andrew Taylor is no newcomer. His first novel was published in the 1980s, and he has been a full-time writer since then. His writing is beautifully crafted, from his Lydmouth series to his stand-alone psychological fiction. Taylor moved up an notch with his Roth Trilogy; told in reverse, this Time’s Arrow penetrates the psyche of a female serial killer. With The American Boy, Taylor reached a bigger readership than for any of his previous novels. Deservedly selected by the Richard and Judy book club, and short-listed for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, The American Boy won him his second CWA Ellis Peters Award for historical fiction. The phrasing and cadence of this Victorian mystery is flawless, his evocation of the injustices caused by the disparity between rich and poor, and the virtual enslavement of women through marriage or dependency, give this fine novel an extra layer of significance, whilst never compromising its power to entertain.

If I had another thousand words, I’d give you at least as many names again as listed in this article, but if you’d like to explore for yourself, visit the members page of the Crime Writers’ Association website on www.thecwa.co.uk

Now You See Me, by Margaret Murphy, is published by Hodder