Crime fiction from the world's hot spots, from Beijing to Sedalia, Mo.

Crime pops up in all the world's hot spots this month: China, England, India, Greece, D.C., and Sedalia, Mo.

In "Rock Paper Tiger" (Soho, 345 pp., $25) — a remarkable debut by Lisa Brackmann — Ellie, a wounded medic and Iraq War vet, is scraping by in a low-rent corner of Beijing. Her friends, scrappy artists with dissident connections, attract the attention of Chinese and American authorities, forcing blunt-speaking Ellie and others into hiding.

The group communicates by playing a virtual-fantasy game, and their online quests mirror real-life predicaments. Although a subplot involving Ellie's estranged husband is distracting, Brackmann paints a mesmerizing picture of life in jittery modern Beijing.

Alan Furst, a ruling king of espionage writers, mines a rich vein: Europe just before or during WWII. In "Spies of the Balkans" (Random House, 268 pp., $26), northern Greece is preparing for imminent Nazi invasion. Police detective Costa Zannis establishes an "escape line" through his country for desperate Jews — a route that a British agent hopes to exploit for his own nation's purposes.

Furst's deeply addictive books share certain traits: rugged, melancholy male protagonists; slowly unfolding plots; abundant atmosphere and vivid characters; and unexpected romantic sweetness in the midst of danger. These similarities don't hurt a bit; some stories are worth telling over and over.

Front and center in Tarquin Hall's "The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing" (Simon & Schuster, 308 pp., $24) is Vish Puri, India's Most Private Investigator: stately, plump, nattily dressed — and very sure of himself.

In this, his delightful second case, Puri hunts whoever staged a wondrous deception: the apparently supernatural murder of a "Guru Buster" famed for exposing just such "occult" tricks. Hall, a British journalist who lives part-time in India, splendidly evokes the color and bustle of Delhi streets and the tang of contemporary India's charmingly old-fashioned use of the English language.

What are the odds of two Northwest legal-thriller writers simultaneously plotting threats to the Supreme Court? And yet:

Portlander Philip Margolin's "Supreme Justice" (HarperCollins,320pp.,$25.99) — a sequel to "Executive Privilege" — finds an ex-cop, convicted of murder, appealing her case to the Supremes. Doing so would expose a dark government plot, however, and the filling of an open seat on the Court could determine the case's outcome.

Bellingham author Steve Martini's "The Rule of Nine" (Morrow, 400 pp., $26.99) starts with a bang — the murder by overdose of a Congressional page — and then follows attorney Paul Madriani as he races to stop a former radical apparently bent on killing off the Court.

Also on the local front:

Seattle thriller writer Mike Lawson, writing with a twinkle in his eye (and an eye for colorful characters), continues his outstanding series about Joe DeMarco in "House Justice" (Atlantic, 388 pp., $24); here, the Congressional fixer wades into an intra-agency battle over a reporter whose story caused the death of a spy — and is then jailed for refusing to divulge her source.

Mike Lawson signs "House Justice" at noon July 10 at Seattle Mystery Bookshop (206-587-5737; www.seattlemystery.com).

In "The Ragtime Fool" (Poisoned Pen, 303 pp., $14.95 paperback), the last in a clever trilogy, Seattleite Larry Karp mixes real-life and fictional figures. Against a backdrop of racism and violence in 1950s Missouri, the pupil of the brilliant ragtime pioneer Scott Joplin hunts for a lost journal.

And Eugene, Ore., resident Carola Dunn draws on her childhood in Cornwall, England, for her charming "A Colourful Death" (St.Martin's,337pp.,$34.99), which finds a feisty small-town widower involved in a deadly rivalry between local artists.

Carola Dunn signs "A Colourful Death" at noon Friday at Seattle Mystery Bookshop, (206-587-5737; www.seattlemystery.com).

Seattle writer Adam Woog's column on crime fiction appears on the second Sunday of the month

in The Seattle Times.