Shelf Portraits
Lethal White
by Robert Gailbraith is published in hardback by Sphere, priced £20 (ebook £9.99)
The fourth novel in The Cormoran Strike series, under JK Rowling’s Robert Galbraith pseudonym, picks up where Career Of Evil left off - Robin’s wedding to the infuriating Matthew. As always with Rowling’s writing, the plot is bursting with vivid characters and unnerving plot twists. Set throughout the summer of 2012 in London, two gruesome mysteries are entwined in Strike’s latest investigation. Delving into the corridors of Parliament, Strike and Robin follow twists and turns on a journey that meets a myriad complex characters, including corrupt politicians, political activists and an aristocratic family who all have ridiculous public-school nicknames. Unlike the previous three novels, the main plot in Lethal White is a pretty slow burn. But the fourth instalment does give us more details of Strike and Robin’s personal lives, which only add to the captivating storytelling. 9/10 Review by Rebecca wilcock
Running upon the Wires
by Kate tempest is published in hardback by Picador, priced £9.99 (ebook £6.49)
Londoner Kate Tempest is well known as a performance poet, and her boundary-crossing work so far has seen her both nominated for a Costa Book Award and the Mercury Music Prize. Running Upon The Wires, however, is poetry designed to stand alone and its theme turns from the wider world towards the personal, charting the journey from the end of one relationship to the beginning of another. Most of all, though, it deals with the grey area of mixed feelings that lies in between, or overlaps ‘the end’ and ‘the beginning’. Tempest’s distinctive voice is still here, in the urgent rhythms, unexpected shifts of tone and pace, emotional intensity and wellobserved images - “Forget that your heart is a piece of brown meat/feel nothing but love for those that have love” - but reading from the page, without accompaniment, allows the London poet’s wordcraft to shine. 9/10 Review by lucy whetman
KILL ‘em ALL
by John niven is published in hardback by william heinemann, priced £16.99 (ebook £9.99)
In every alcove within the British arts scene, shock value pervades. The potter in drag. The Turner Prize nominee stained with bodily fluids. So too the relentless vulgarity that reeks on almost every page of Kill ‘Em All, the triumphant sequel to former A&R man John Niven’s groundbreaking expose of the Britpop scene in Kill Your Friends. This time, the stinking rich pop impresario Steven Stelfox is parachuted in to mastermind an on-the-wane star’s money spinning comeback tour. A tough gig until a revelation that threatens to sink both monkey and organ grinder (Stelfox). The tale is full of cultural signposts that make it ‘of the time’ - the chance meeting with President Trump is particularly enjoyable. But Niven has skillfully mastered splicing themes of vanity, excess and nihilisim with laugh-outloud humour. Suspend your disbelief and gorge on this. Don’t stop til you get enough. 9/10 Review by Ryan hooper
Wasted Calories and Ruined nights: a Journey deeper into dining hell
by Jay Rayner is published in paperback by Guardian Faber, priced £5 (ebook £4.07)
Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner brings together 20 of his most damning reviews in one slimline stocking filler. Proving that being paid to eat is not an unending rollercoaster of joy, he shares some of his worst experiences from the past seven years in a second compendium of woe. Not all the eateries have merely inedible food; some are condemned for a combination of failures including poor value for money, lack of tasteful decor or targeting/attracting a rich yet stupid clientele. Each review has a useful note explaining what happened after it ran. Many - but not all - suffered little or no ill effect, suggesting a limit to the critic’s power or a ready supply of less discerning diners. This book is destined to sit on many a coffee table, but for me the reviews perhaps suffer from a lack of rancour. What comes through in the end feels more like an aggravated sadness rather than the blinding fury, vitriol and spite some of them probably deserve. 6/10 Review by David wilcock
and the ocean Was our sky
by patrick ness, illustrated by Rovina Cai is published in hardback by walker books, priced £12.99
The always wonderful Patrick Ness has turned his attention to the ocean in this pared back, mysterious and, at times, sinister re-imagining of Moby Dick. A pod of hunting whales, harpoons strapped to their hulking bodies, come across the much-mythologised trail of killer Toby Wick - a murderous figure with a white-hulled boat who massacres all in his wake. Captain Alexandria and her pod of apprentices set off in pursuit, but it’s a topsy-turvy world where whales and men (who live in the oxygen-filled ‘abyss’) are locked in an ongoing war, each hunting the other. Bathsheba, Captain Alexandria’s youngest apprentice, begins to question the way of things, asking whether war makes devils of us all in the end. It is a touch confusing at first, working out how the whales operate - although Rovina Cai’s darkly powerful and shadowy illustrations shot through with blood-red (her sharks are particularly terrifying), do help you get a grip on the whales’ underwater civilisation. Atmospheric, violent, dripping with grief and laced with an ever-present sense of dread, All The Ocean Was Our Sky is also peppered with kernels of hope and encourages us to always query the status quo. 8/10 Review by ella walker