Reasons to be fearful

THE KNOW-IT-ALLS Noam Cohen

Oneworld, £10.99

The political influence of tech billionaires has been a cause for concern for some time, and here the former New York Times journalist Noam Cohen sets out the reasons we should be worried. In 10 chapters, each devoted to a figure like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg, he tells the story of Silicon Valley, examining how a libertarian political climate evolved there, alongside the conviction that its entrepreneurs’ success was evidence that governments should move aside and let private companies take on their responsibilities.

For the rest of us, Cohen foresees a “hypercompetitive” market, “without unions, government regulations or social welfare programs to protect us”.

Of the people he covers, only Paypal founder Peter Thiel identifies as libertarian, and Cohen may be overstating the political stances of the others, but he throws up many warning signs of the potential damage their power, self-absorption, fixation with the tech sector and belief in unfettered markets could have on democracy.

SONG OF THE DEAD Douglas Lindsay

Mulholland, £8.99

In the wake of his Barney Thomson series, the prolific Scottish crime writer introduces us to DI Ben Westphall, a cop with a background in the intelligence services. Worn out and living in Dingwall, he is brought back for an unusual case. A British man who was declared dead in Estonia has apparently turned up at a police station claiming to have been held captive for 12 years, during which parts of his body were harvested by organ traffickers. The investigation takes Westphall deep into an Estonian forest and back to Aberdeen, and when suspects start dying he knows he’s on the right track.

The dour but interesting Westphall is an intuitive guy with something of an affinity with the dead, and a supernatural subplot rocks the narrative a bit, a wobble compounded by the slowing of the action to accommodate his refusal to travel by plane. But the novel’s immersive and compelling dark mood whets the appetite for future instalments.

THE MADONNA OF THE MOUNTAINS Elise Valmorbida

Faber, £8.99

At 25, Maria is at a comparatively advanced age still to be unwed in rural Italy in the 1920s. But she knows marriage is expected of her, and when her father finds handsome but scarred war veteran Achille she marries him and sticks with him, despite his abusiveness. They raise five children and start a grocery business but, when the Second World War begins and Achille is arrested for being a black marketeer, Maria has to make tough decisions to survive. Valmorbida’s novel is a stirring tale of adversity and endurance spanning a quarter of a century, over which the power in Maria’s family passes from one generation to another and she is sustained by her faith in her little Madonna statue, her confidante throughout her married life. Reflecting the hard times, Maria is quite a hardened person herself, but fans of historical novels will be charmed by the carefully researched details of rustic Italian life.