Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy by Mary Renault
Reviewed by Jenny. Mary Renault has a genius for the past. It’s in all her historical books: the stony, fated world of the Greeks, rushed forward to our softer and…
Facial Justice by LP Hartley
Reviewed by Harriet Devine The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. So, famously, wrote LP Hartley at the beginning of his most famous novel, The Go Between. But what…
Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh by John Lahr
Reviewed by Max Dunbar Perfect Tenn: A Life of Tennessee Williams An inconvenience of biography is that before the interesting stuff is revealed, one first has to wade through chapter…
The Gardens at Brantwood: Evolution of John Ruskin’s Lakeland Paradise by David Ingram
Reviewed by Barb Scharf. “It comes as something of a surprise to most people to consider Ruskin the Gardener. Ruskin has been much written about as an art critic and…
Hotel Alpha by Mark Watson
Reviewed by David Hebblethwaite A hotel is a confluence of stories: a mixture of public and private space; a places where chance encounters are routine; somewhere that plays host to…
Help for the Haunted by John Searles
Reviewed by Victoria Best. Lying in bed, 14-year-old Sylvie Mason hears a telephone call summoning her parents out into the middle of a snowy Baltimore night. This isn’t unusual; her…
Winter Siege by Ariana Franklin and Samantha Norman
Reviewed by Harriet I had not heard of Ariana Franklin until a few months ago, when I was given her Mistress of the Art of Death as an early birthday present. Seeing…
The Buddha’s Return by Gaito Gazdanov
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley Following the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, many of that country’s beleaguered citizens escaped abroad, setting up émigré communities in cities…
Flying Shoes by Lisa Howorth
Reviewed by Victoria Best What do they do to writers down in Mississippi? Is there a school, I wonder, where prospective writers go in order to be marinaded in a bath of…
First Time Solo by Iain Maloney
Reviewed by Andrew Blackman Pick up a book set in World War Two, and you have certain expectations. These expectations are largely frustrated by First Time Solo, and that’s a good…
Problems with People by David Guterson
Reviewed by Victoria Best. Ever since Snow Falling on Cedars came out, I’ve had David Guterson marked as an author I was curious to try. Great to know, then, that it’s only…
Desperate Games by Pierre Boulle
Translated by David Carter Review by Annabel Gaskell While Desperate Games is not a great work of literature, it is a book that is BIG on ideas. This philosophical satire on science,…
In Montmartre: Picasso, Matisse and Modernism in Paris 1900-1910 by Sue Roe
Reviewed by Karen Langley Paris has always had the romantic atmosphere of a city which is a beacon for artists; the image and ambience, the idea of people painting everywhere…
Upstairs at the Party by Linda Grant
Reviewed by Eric Karl Anderson Towards the end of Linda Grant’s new novel, the narrator Adele asks her friend “How do we get people so wrong… when we are so…
He Wants by Alison Moore
Reviewed by Ali Hope. Alison Moore’s debut novel The Lighthouse was a wonderful success for independent publishers Salt, being short-listed for the Man Booker prize; it was a deserved big hit with…
The Disappearance Boy by Neil Bartlett
Reviewed by Annabel Neil Bartlett came to my attention a few years ago when I read his decidedly tense 2008 novel Skin Lane set in London’s fur trade during the…
The Eds Discuss: Book Covers
By the Shiny New Books Editors Never mind the old saw, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’, how important IS cover design, bearing in mind the recent issues over…
Bed Manners by Dr Ralph Hopton and Anne Balliol
Reviewed by Simon Thomas One of the more niche tastes I have, when it comes to books, is for fake etiquette guides (for which I am sure there is a…
Parfums by Philippe Claudel
Translated by Euan Cameron Reviewed by Annabel Gaskell Those unfamiliar with Claudel may have heard of him in association with the BAFTA-winning French film I’ve Loved You So Long, which starred…
Autumn: All the Cats Return by Philippe Georget
Translated by Steven Rendall and Lisa Neal Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is a complex murder mystery set in Perpignan, but its essential Frenchness is augmented and challenged by the…
All Day and a Night by Alafair Burke
Reviewed by Ann NYPD detective, Ellie Hatcher and her partner, JJ Rogan, are not best pleased when Ellie’s boyfriend, Assistant District Attorney Max Donovan, arranges that they should be ‘lent…
A Killing of Angels by Kate Rhodes
Reviewed by Jane Carter Kate Rhodes’ first novel, Crossbones Yard, showed her to be a crime writer to watch; and this, her second novel, certainly lives up to the high expectations…
The Visitors by Rebecca Mascull
Reviewed by Jane Carter When I first read about this book, Rebecca Mascull’s debut novel, I was intrigued. It seemed that the story would bring together so many elements I love…
A Message From Martha by Mark Avery
Reviewed by Terence Jagger This is an important centenary year; on 1 September, 1914, the world’s last Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) died in Cincinnati Zoo. Her name was Martha, and…