LEA

(Atlantic £12.99) TWO men meet by chance at a Provence cafe. One, a Dutchman called Martijn van Vliet, is still reeling from the death of his daughter, Lea; the other, Adrian, who narrates, is estranged from his.

Over the following three days van Vliet unburdens himself of the story of Lea — a supremely talented violinist who discovered music after the death of her mother. But her emotional instability always threatened to overwhelm her success, driving her devoted father to risk his career in a desperate, and ultimately futile, attempt to save her.

Swiss author Pascal Mercier, best known for his international bestseller Night Train to Lisbon, handles the blossoming friendship between the two men with great subtlety. Yet he has arguably written himself into a corner.

In immersing the reader so powerfully in the obsessive mindset of a loving father who sacrifices himself for his daughter, the novel has sacrificed the character of Lea, from whom we never hear directly. Instead she is presented always as a semi-idealised tragic female figure, robbed of her own voice.