LATEST TITLES

BITTER ORANGE by Claire Fuller, Fig Tree, £9.99, ebook £9.99

★★★★★

LONELY singleton Frances and glamorous couple Peter and Cara are thrown together at an abandoned country estate in Hampshire, where Peter is to survey the mansion and Frances those of the gardens for its absent American owner. In the bewitching atmosphere of Lyntons, little work gets done, however, as the unlikely trio picnic amongst the ruins, drain a forgotten wine cellar and rifle through the house’s hidden treasures.

It is clear from the outset that something terrible will happen and Claire Fuller’s third novel is full of dark foreboding, though the exact events are deftly concealed until the ending.

TRENTON MAKES by Tadzio Koelb, Atlantic Books, £12.99, ebook £5.69

★★★★★

THIS takes on the hot topic of gender through the noir-tinged lens of the American dream, questioning the idea of the selfmade man. Opening with factory worker Abe Kunstler meeting drink-sodden dancer Inez, Tadzio Koelb’s debut novel chronicles the factories, bars and dance halls of tough post-war life in Trenton, New Jersey, before steadily revealing Abe’s secrets.

The lugubrious pace in the first section of the novel picks up in the second half. Perserverance is rewarded.

A DOUBLE LIFE by Flynn Berry, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.99, ebook £7.99

★★★★★

LOOSELY based on the fascination of the Lord Lucan case and his disappearance, this starts off as a pageturning thriller, at least for the first two-thirds.

Claire becomes the main suspect in a brutal attack and disappears without a trace. It is in the modern day chapters where Claire’s obsession with finding her father come to a head, in an ending that actually lets down the thrills of the build-up.