4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster
Reviewed by Harriet All along, from the beginning of his conscious life, the persistent feeling that the forks and parallels of the roads taken and not taken were all being…
Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries, ed. Martin Edwards
Reviewed by Harriet The British Library Crime Classics editions started a successful trend in 2014 with their publication of J. Jefferson Farjeon’s Mystery in White, which became a runaway best-seller….
William and Dorothy Wordsworth: All in Each Other by Lucy Newlyn
Reviewed by Harriet She who dwells with me, with whom I’ve livedWith such communion, that no place on earthCan ever seem a solitude to me. So wrote William Wordsworth in…
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Reviewed by Harriet It’s one thing to read about detectives, but quite another trying to be one. I’ve always loved whodunits – I’ve not just edited them, I’ve read them…
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Reviewed by Harriet Time was not something then we thought of as an item that possessed an ending, but something that would go on forever, all rested and stopped in…
The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley
Reviewed by Harriet In the pantheon of detective fiction there is nothing quite like it. So writes Martin Edwards in his introduction to the British Library’s new edition of this…
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
Reviewed by Harriet Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid…
The Methods of Sergeant Cluff by Gil North
Reviewed by Harriet The rain wept on him from the eyes of the trees. The winter afternoon waned to its close. He withdrew into himself, stifling thought, powerless to guide…
Q&A with Samantha Norman
Samantha was interviewed by Harriet H: Hi Samantha – thanks for agreeing to answer some questions. I very much enjoyed Winter Siege, and wondered if you could say something about the…
Paris Street Tales edited by Helen Constantine
Reviewed by Harriet I live in rural France, and visit Paris from time to time, generally rather briefly. I’m beginning to get the hang of the city and to appreciate…
The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor by Cameron McCabe
Reviewed by Harriet I saw the ships in the water and the lights of the stars in the water and the reflections under the bridges. The pubs were about to…
The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit
Reviewed by Harriet There surely won’t be many people reading this who haven’t seen the film or the TV series, even if they haven’t read the original book, which has…
The Long Weekend by Adrian Tinniswood
Reviewed by Harriet This gorgeous book is subtitled ‘Life in the English Country House Between the Wars’, and certainly that is part of its subject. But it’s a book with…
The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain
Reviewed by Harriet ‘You have to be like Switzerland,’ Gustav’s mother tells him. ‘You have to hold yourself together and be courageous, stay separate and strong.’ The Gustav Sonata is Rose…
The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson
Reviewed by Harriet Is there no end to these amazing novelists who appeared to have sunk without trace and are now being revived for our pleasure and instruction? Lionel Davidson…
In the Month of the Midnight Sun by Cecilia Ekbäck
Reviewed by Harriet Last year I read and loved Cecila Ekbäck’s debut novel, Wolf Winter – you can see my review here and my interview with Cecilia here. So I was thrilled to…
Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm by Gil North
Reviewed by Harriet Cluff did not stir. Nor did Wright. Wright gripped the curtain, his arm raised, frozen in the beginning of motion. The afternoon began to fade. The pilot…
Passage of Arms by Eric Ambler
Reviewed by Harriet This is the third of Eric Ambler’s newly reissued novels I have read in the past few months, the other two being The Light of Day and A Kind of…
The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson
Reviewed by Harriet Liana was not simply an ex-girlfriend who had once upon a time broken George’s heart; she was also, as far as George still knew, a wanted criminal….
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell
Reviewed by Harriet World is crazier and more of it than we think / Incorrigibly plural. The epigraph to this novel is by Louis MacNeice, from his poem Snow, and beautifully…
A Kind of Anger by Eric Ambler
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Unquestionably the best thriller writer ever’, says Graham Greene on the cover of this new British Library Crime Classics title, one of three they have recently published…
Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marías
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa Reviewed by Harriet As a couple, they had spotted me like one of those distant shapes on the ocean that can’t be ignored and had…
The Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor
Reviewed by Harriet The noise was the worst. Not the crackling of the flames, not the explosions and the clatter of falling buildings, not the shouting and the endless beating…
Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey by Frances Wilson
Reviewed by Harriet The sense of space, and in the end, the sense of time, were both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, &c. were exhibited in proportions so vast as the…