LATEST TITLES
IN A HOUSE OF LIES
by Ian Rankin, Orion Fiction, £20, ebook £10.99
JOHN Rebus clings on, lungs rattling, body raddled. Spinning another Edinburgh tale with the ex-cop as lynch-pin isn’t easy, but Rankin succeeds. His latest isn’t his best but the familiar elements line up: sidekicks Siobhan and Malcolm, arch nemesis Cafferty, a sort of grizzled, villainous half-brother to Rebus, and Brillo the dog.
A skeleton in an abandoned Polo turns out to belong to a missing gay private investigator. Drugs and cheap exploitation films are involved. A different case sees Rebus sniffing out a young man jailed for inexplicably murdering his girlfriend. A good rattling read, let down only by too many unnecessary dialogue modifiers.
ENIGMA VARIATIONS
by Andre Aciman, Faber & Faber, £12.99, ebook £7.99
HEARTBREAK, desire and loss are at the core of this novel, which charts a man’s great loves and affairs in five stories.
After reading the first of those stories I was slightly worried Enigma Variations would simply revisit the ground Aciman already covered in his hugely successful debut, Call Me By Your Name. However, the novel then takes the reader on a journey to New York, where the protagonist pursues relationships with both men and women that take a few rather unexpected turns.
MELMOTH
by Sarah Perry, Serpent’s Tail, £16.99, ebook £16.99
GOTHIC and full of uneasiness, this book combines many stories in the form of letters, manuscripts, diary entries and testimonies, all anchored by Helen, a translator, whose life is deliberately small and full of self-imposed restrictions.
An atmospheric tale that will have you examining your own morality, but not having too many nightmares, hopefully...