n Execution Plan by Patrick Thompson (Harper Collins, £6.99)

SOME places are simply funnier than others. Just try stifling a snigger when someone tells you they come from Grimsby, Scunthorpe... or Dudley.

So it bodes well for the comedy credentials of this slick technological thriller that writer Patrick Thompson has rejected the glamour of a Silicon Valley setting and gone for a backdrop of Black Country grime instead. A case of goodbye Sacramento, hello Sedgley.

But the milieu is more than just a cheap gag. Thompson is Dudley-born and bred, and he uses that knowledge of the area to weave a rich thread of affectionate local colour into the story.

The central character is videogame nerd Mick - who you'll identify with at once if you spent your teenage years in your bedroom bashing BASIC into your Sinclair Spectrum, or down the arcade jabbing the buttons on classic shoot-'em-ups like Asteroids and Defender.

Mick is quite happy with his computer geek lifestyle, spent almost exclusively in front of his monitor - until real life suddenly begins looking like a videogame and things become decidedly weird. Just who is messing with his mind?

Execution Plan is something like a down-home answer to William Gibson's sci-fi classic Neuromancer - a digital dystopia riddled with conspiracies, where organised criminals vie with corporations for the control of futuristic technology and those caught in the middle have to learn to live on their wits.

But this psychological rollercoaster ride is no sci-fi pastiche - somehow you can't imagine Gibson setting one of his novels in the heart of the West Midlands. Pacy, naturalistic, tense and funny, it's a genuine original.

Oh, and you'll find it even more enjoyable if you read it aloud in a Black Country - sorry, Black Countraaay - accent.

Ceri Vines