Oxford and Cambridge have many rivalries, but espionage has always been a one-sided contest between the two. Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt and Cairncross were all Cambridge men. If this were put in Boat Race terms, Cambridge would have rowed halfway to Hammersmith Bridge before the dark blues had their blades in the water.

Charles Beaumont’s excellent A Spy Alone (Canelo, £9.99) tries to redress the imbalance with its depiction of a richly imagined Oxford-based spy ring. His protagonist, Simon Sharman, is a former agent turned private security consultant. An Oxford man, he is approached when a Russian oligarch decides to donate some of his millions to the university. Sharman is tasked with investigating just how dirty the money on offer is.

Almost immediately he uncovers evidence of something far worse: a group of Oxford-educated politicians and businessmen in secret thrall to Russian intelligence. In addition to sharing this warped fealty, the members were all recruited while undergraduates more than 20 years earlier by an Oxford don. Professor Peter Mackenzie was then a fellow of Jesus College, ‘adviser to the prime minister, controversial newspaper columnist, and scourge of “woolly leftist historians”’ – also a drunk, with mildly anti-Semitic views. Though Mackenzie is now dead, his role as a talent spotter, seen through a series of flashbacks, is central to the book’s considerable drama, as well as a prolonged if unflattering appreciation of the late Norman Stone.

Central to the drama is Professor Peter Mackenzie – an unflattering appreciation of the late Norman Stone

As Sharman uncovers increasing evidence of the ring, known as ‘Costello’ to its members and their Russian masters, he finds his erstwhile colleagues in the British security services oddly uninterested. He seeks help from a former college girlfriend who now doubles as a Christ Church-based professor and senior government strategist. Crisp, intense and quick, she helps steer Sharman through a minefield of threats and some actual attempts on his life.

His investigation takes him to, among other places, Vienna, Switzerland, Cumbria and the Home Counties, and his escapades are vividly reported. Beaumont is an excellent writer of action scenes, and his descriptions of settings and even minor characters are also first-rate. He has filled the lacuna of an Oxford spy ring with aplomb.

Celia Walden writes a popular column in the Daily Telegraph and is the wife of Piers Morgan. There is another string to her bow which is less well known: she has published two thrillers, both of which show a talent for characterisation (perhaps unsurprising in a profile writer) and are notable for their refreshing inventiveness.

In the second of these, The Square (Sphere, £20), Colette is a middle-aged IT consultant who, through professional competence and word of mouth, helps with the computer problems of most of the residents of a west London square. Thanks to her intimate vantage point, she learns a great deal about her clients’ private lives as well. It’s an interesting, plausible conceit and is used convincingly to move the story along, especially when the affluent enclave’s equilibrium is disrupted by the arrival of Leila Mercheri. She is an exotic young dancer and ‘influencer’, who appeals to the husbands in the square while arousing the suspicions of their wives.

The writing is well-paced, and some startling similes (‘a squat horse chestnut, its crown low slung and threadbare, like the centre parting of a cheap wig’) show an aptitude Walden should indulge more often. With its multiple characters and viewpoints, thisis a complicated novel, but Walden manages to stay just on the creative side of confusion. 

No spoiler alert is needed for Anna O (HarperCollins, £16.99), a powerful thriller by Matthew Blake, since we know from the start that the eponymous Anna has murdered her two best friends. None of this comes from the horse’s mouth, however, since the horse in this case has been asleep for four years. It seems that the unconscious Anna O is suffering from ‘resignation syndrome’, a coma-like state usually induced by a traumatic reaction to a violent incident.

As public pressure mounts, Dr Benedict Prince, a psychologist called in on occasion by government agencies, is charged with bringing the slumbering Anna back to life to stand trial. Prince sees himself as ‘a detective of the mind’ and believes that ‘flooding’ afflicted patients with auditory cues from their past may awaken them – a process which eventually works with Anna.

Prince expects fame and fortune to come from this clinical success, only to find his ambitions stymied when his own role in the murders comes under suspicion. Well into the book, we learn of another murderer from the past, a Myra Hindley-like figure, whose associations return to play a part in Prince’s investigations. Dual identities abound, sometimes convolutedly, but, lengthy as it is at 432 pages, the novel moves along at a punchy pace. There is nothing sleepy here, and though condensed revelations threaten to become confusing, a final brilliantly imaginative twist provides a satisfying finale.

Crime and espionage, always a staple of Penguin, are being reintroduced in a new series appearing as part of Penguin Modern Classics. The titles have been well received by the trade but have had some brickbats thrown their way for their lack of women authors. The criticism is unarguable, though it would be a shame if the series went unappreciated as a result.

The programme is at its best when giving new life to forgotten titles – or, in many cases, titles barely known at all. The calibre of some of the greatest oddities is remarkable. Beast in the Shadows by Edogawa Ranpo (Penguin, £9.99) recounts the disappearance of a celebrated Japanese author who operates under a pseudonym. When a married woman tells him that an ex-lover is stalking her, he agrees to help, unwittingly entering a world of concocted fake identities and deception. At times the characters end up chasing their own tales. ‘Edogawa Ranpo’ is, of course, a pseudonym as well (the Japanese transliteration of Edgar Allen Poe). His story has the spare resonance of Dashiell Hammett’s work, and his playful narrative strategies recall Paul Auster in early detective mode.

Another surprise comes from a short, intensely psychological novel by C.S. Forrester, chiefly known today as the creator of Horatio Hornblower. Payment Deferred (Penguin, £9.99) was originally published in 1926, and eloquently evokes the pinched dreariness of London’s grimmer suburbs between the wars.

The protagonist is William Marble, a bank clerk who grows increasingly desperate as his indebtedness becomes irretrievable. When an unknown nephew shows up fresh off a boat from Australia laden with cash, Marble murders him and buries the body in his garden. Now solvent, he cannily plays the market, soon making enough money to retire, but finds himself tormented by guilt and the fear of being caught. His psychic agonising is so well described that, despite the lack of mystery about the murder, our interest never flags.

Finally, if, Jesuit-like, you want to steer the young – in this case towards sharing an adult’s love of crime reading – there can be no better way than to present them with a new graphic novel series by a French duo, Jean-Luc Fromental and Joëlle Jolivet. Miss Cat: The Case of the Curious Canary (Thames & Hudson, £9.99) introduces the detective Miss Cat and a client known as Mixus the Magnificent, as well as a cast of delightfully crooked characters. It is beautifully illustrated throughout and translated naturally enough to disguise its origins in France. Utterly charmant.