John Grisham had the formula for an airport best seller way before Brown started seeing Mary Magdalene in Da Vinci paintings.

The author of legal thrillers including A Time to Kill and The Pelican Brief had his biggest chart topper with the 2005 novel The Broker.

Unusually for Grisham, it doesn't focus on a plucky young lawyer, although by making its protagonist a disgraced Washington lobbyist, it dipped from the same murky well.

The rest of the book, involving assassins, state secrets and the Italian city of Bologna, ensures there will be enough close calls and exotic locales to keep you flipping pages

until the drink cart comes through.