A good book is for life not just for Christmas

Our critics select the best novels to put under the tree

LITERARY FICTION ANTHONY CUMMINS

OLIGARCHY by Scarlett Thomas (Canongate £14.99) nothing I’d previously read by Scarlett Thomas prepared me for the wall- to- wall joy of oligarchy — a wickedly well-turned black comedy centred on an Instagram-fuelled wave of anorexia among teenage girls at a home Counties boarding school favoured by dodgy plutocrats. THE VOLUNTEER by Salvatore Scibona (Cape £16.99)

The Volunteer offered more of a slow-burn pleasure — a big american novel involving a love-starved youth who enlists to serve in afghanistan to try to please his equally screwed-up father, who fought in Vietnam. STARVE ACRE by Andrew Michael Hurley (John Murray £12.99) a spookier take on parental guilt came from hurley’s chiller Starve acre, about a couple mourning the death of their night mare plagued five-year-old in the yorkshire Dales. NOBBER by Oisín Fagan (JM Originals £12.99)

The wildest novel I read all year was easily nobber, an eye-poppingly anarchic tale of greed and gore in a medieval Irish village struck by the Black Death. CHRISTMAS IN AUSTIN by Benjamin Markovits (Faber £16.99) for more seasonal fare, Christmas In austin is a sympathetic portrait of fraught festivities among three generations of one well-to-do Texan family. CLAIRE ALLFREE THE MAN WHO SAW EVERYTHING by Deborah Levy (Hamish Hamilton £14.99) quite why this didn’t make the Booker shortlist, or win it, is this year’s biggest mystery. Deborah levy filters the traumatic history of 20th-century europe through the shattered mind of a delirious man in this extraordinary, tricksy masterpiece. THE PORPOISE by Mark Haddon (Chatto £18.99) feminist revisionist stories have been everywhere lately, but by far the best this year came from mark haddon, with his exquisite retelling of Shakespeare’s Pericles, which refocused attention on the play’s forgotten daughter of the incestuous king antiochus. WHERE REASONS END by Yiyun Li (Hamish Hamilton £12.99) a mother imagines a series of conversations with her dead teenage son in this heart-pummelling philosophical novel, which confronts the limitations of language in the face of unspeakable loss. li’s son committed suicide in 2017, and the courage and humanity on display here is profoundly humbling. GIRL by Edna O’Brien (Faber £16.99) a scorching fever dream of a novel about the 2014 Chibok kidnappings in nigeria, which imagines the abuses committed against the girls through the voice of one of the stolen. edna o’Brien may be 88, but her powers remain undimmed. THE by Virginia FOURTH Baily SHORE (Fleet a Wholly £16.99) enjoyable historical novel about a widow in Tripoli rediscovering during the fascist her lost Italian family, occupation set partly between the wars. STEPHANIE CROSS THE NICKEL BOYS by Colson Whitehead (Fleet £16.99)

In this masterful novel, The underground railroad author draws on actual events to tell the story of two young black boys sent to a brutal florida reform school. a split timeframe is employed to great effect, and the late-arriving twist will floor you. PLATFORM SEVEN by Louise Doughty (Faber £14.99) how did teacher lisa evans come to die on the tracks at Peterborough railway Station? This atmospheric page-turner, narrated by lisa herself, is only partly a whodunnit. It’s also a thought-provoking examination of coercive control and a powerfully moving meditation on the nature of love. THE TOPEKA SCHOOL by Ben Lerner (Granta £16.99)

This is the third in a loose autofictional trilogy by one of america’s coolest young authors. moving between the viewpoints of school debate champion adam and his psychologist parents, it’s an often painful, but consistently brilliant, picking-apart of masculinity in crisis and the breakdown of public speech. LATE IN THE DAY by Tessa Hadley (Jonathan Cape £16.99) Tessa Hadley is one of those rare authors who keep getting better and better. here, she addresses infidelity and ageing, while probing the complex history of two intertwined, arty couples. The themes might be autumnal, but the writing is joyous, and the conclusion will set your heart singing. THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS by Jill Dawson (Sceptre £18.99) Dawson’S fictionalised take on the lord lucan murder case eschews sensation to explore questions of nature and nurture, and celebrate female friendship and desire. It’s fantastic on Seventies london, too.

CRIME & THRILLERS GEOFFREY WANSELL

THE NIGHT FIRE by Michael Connelly (Orion £20) one of the greatest crime writers roars back with a superb story that embraces all three of his major characters, harry Bosch, renee Ballard and lincoln lawyer mickey haller. It opens with a homeless man being burned alive, and never once draws breath. DIE ALONE by Simon Kernick (Century £12.99) a Charming psychopath and serial killer — who’s also a politician with a great chance of becoming prime minister — is pitted against an ex-cop recruited to kill him by a shadowy branch of the security services. This is kernick at his spine-chilling best. THE LONG CALL by Ann Cleeves (Macmillan £16.99) cleeves introduces a fresh new detective, DI matthew Venn, who’s gay and married to his male partner. They live together in the author’s childhood home of north Devon, where Venn investigates a religious cult. DEATH IN THE EAST by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill Secker £12.99)

Calcutta police detective Captain Sam Wyndham is back, but this time, he is fighting his opium addiction, as well a ghostly figure from his past in Twenties India. an absolute delight. AGENT RUNNING IN THE FIELD by John le Carre (Viking £20)

The master of the espionage novel returns with a perfectly nuanced story of a spy on the scrapheap at the age of 47 and uncertain who to trust in the world of Brexit and divided loyalties. he takes refuge in badminton, which brings him his nemesis. an utter joy. CRISS CROSS by James Patterson (Century £20) african-american psychologist Dr alex Cross, Patterson’s favourite character, is being pursued by a master criminal from his past out to frame him for the mistaken conviction of another killer and destroy his reputation. Sensationally plotted, it leaps off the page and grabs you by the throat. WHAT SHE SAW LAST NIGHT by M.J. Cross (Orion £7.99)

Jenny Bowen, on the verge of divorce, is escaping to her childhood home in the highlands on the overnight sleeper when she encounters another young woman with a small girl. By the morning, that woman is dead and the girl is gone, but no one else saw her — was Jenny hallucinating? Gripping stuff.

POPULAR WENDY HOLDEN

THREE LITTLE TRUTHS by Eithne Shortall (Corvus £12.99)

Pine road, a posh residential street in Dublin, is controlled by a Whatsapp group of gossipers. They’re straight on to the trio of new arrivals: desperate-for-friends edie, mysterious, glamorous martha and single mother robin with her car-crash past. how are they connected? unputdownable. THE GIVER OF STARS by Jojo Moyes (Michael Joseph £20) moyes swaps me Before you territory for the Thirties Deep South of america. a horseback lending library, delivering to literature-starved hill-dwellers, gives a group of misfit women the chance of friendship, freedom and love. Inspiring and wildly romantic. FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Wildfire £18.99)

This state- of-america novel is about doctor Toby, married to rachel, an uberagent earning millions. But she’s not such an uber-mother, so they split, and Toby