Perhaps the best and most reassuring comment I can make about Deadly Game, the debut novel from legendary actor (and national treasure) Michael Caine, is that you soon forget it's by legendary actor (and national treasure) Michael Caine. I'm not really a fan of thrillers in general, considering them to a literary diet what a microwaveable hamburger is to a regular diet, and on the initial press release of Deadly Game I feared the worst. A 'pulsating' thriller. 'Globetrotting'. A Met detective who plays by his own rules – and he's an 'ex-SAS soldier' at that… It all sounded so cliché.

And, well, it is. But what is a relief – given my admiration for Michael Caine – is that it's not bad. It can't be scoffed at as a vanity project, at least not without being a tad churlish. It's tidy, it's honest, the pages turn easily, and the characters aren't irritating. There's no stodginess in the writing, though the plot itself does lose steam as it becomes more removed from reality. By the end, it tries to do too much and ends up providing little satisfaction on some pretty key questions the reader will be having.

Caine's name no doubt draws a lot more eyes to it than its objective value deserves, but reading Deadly Game quickly ceased to be a novelty and it can be recognised as a pretty decent, if unremarkable, thriller. It was probably too much to expect him to blow the bloody doors off, but Michael Caine's provided a perfectly respectable drop into a saturated market. ( )