Thomas Mogford recalls in an afterword to his excellent new thriller Sleeping Dogs how his father once described him, during a conversation in France, as a crayfish.

The mistake is perhaps understandable, given that dad is the celebrated Oxford hotelier and restaurateur Jeremy Mogford. "Ecrevisse" would probably come more easily to his lips than the correct word "ecrivain" when asked about Thomas’s occupation.

A writer is what he has been throughout his working life, becoming steadily better – known through a successful series of novels featuring the Gibraltar-based lawyer and sleuth Spike Sanguinetti (his name reflecting the Genoese background of many on the Rock).

The books are notable for taut action described in fluent, polished prose, with a vivid sense of place and shrewd psychological observation, particularly where the love life of the strapping, blue-eyed thirty-something hero is concerned.

Sleeping Dogs (Bloomsbury, £12.99) is the fourth in the series and, in my view, the best to date. In it, Spike continues his fictional odyssey that has ranged from Gibraltar through Tangier, Malta, Genoa and now to Corfu.

Amid the olive groves and sandy beaches of the holiday island – specifically those of the north-east corner where mighty magnates dwell –, Spike becomes involved in a murder case that brings bloody repercussions with the mafia drug barons of neighbouring Albania.

As one familiar with the places described, in Corfu at least, I read with admiration a fine evocation of the scenery I first encountered in 1973, so very different then in the case of tourist hells like Ipsos and Kavos.

That my reading was being done in Greece, on an island some way distant from the Ionian group, brought added enjoyment.

Thomas excels, not surprisingly, when he moves to the subject of food. And so, appetite whetted by what he says of the varied appetisers, the rich stews, the sticky puddings, I was lucky enough to go straight out to eat some.