Comic tale of Scots hotel war

TANNADEE

Maurice Gray

(Matador, £8.99)

Tannadee is a Highland spa resort fallen on hard times, but American Gordon Weever promises to turn its fortunes around. A man with “self-belief that was second to none”, the Trumpian property developer has Scottish roots on his mother’s side and likes to think the spirit of the land is calling him. He wants council approval to build an exclusive hotel at Tannadee, but the community is divided over fears he will set himself up as “lord and master”. An amusing, mildly satirical romp, it’s quite lengthy for a comic novel, and one gets the sense at times that Gray is stretching it out. But he keeps it up for the most part, with a cast of underdog misfits who – even Weever, in his own way – are all quite endearing.

DIRTY OLD TRICKS Pat Gray

(Dedalus, £9.99)

Belfast in 1975 provides a gloomy backdrop for this murder mystery, which opens with RUC officer Michael McCann lying awake, half-expecting to be kidnapped and killed, setting the tone for the discovery of 15-year-old Protestant schoolgirl Elizabeth McCann, murdered and dumped in a Catholic area. It’s a grim enough crime as it is, but the constant presence of armoured cars and automatic weapons adds a further layer of bleakness to the oppressive mood. Even the routine business of door-to-door inquiries becomes a military operation with the potential to escalate into violence. McCann has to consider the possibility that the paramilitaries have sunk low enough to sanction tit-for-tat schoolgirl murders, and it’s “not easy to detect clues, in a hard country where men never cried”. Creepily compelling, Gray’s fourth novel probes deeply into darkness, weaving an atmosphere of tension and distrust that permeates every part of McCann’s investigation, including his relationships with colleagues. It’s masterfully done, but chilling and hardhitting stuff.

SPIES AND STARS Charlotte Bingham

(Bloomsbury, £9.99)

Bingham became a best-selling author aged 20 with the semiautobiographical Coronet Among the Weeds, in which an upper-class girl discovered the new freedoms of the 1960s. It took her half a century to write a follow-up, MI5 and Me, but the latest instalment comes after a gap of only a couple of years. Spies and Stars draws on her experiences as a typist for MI5 – her father is said to have been the inspiration for George Smiley – and falling in love with Harry, a young actor tasked with sniffing out Communism in the theatre world. Naturally, she’s played things up for comic effect, her blithe and quirky charm conveying the fun she had as she and Harry became a writing partnership and made it all the way to Hollywood, encountering colourful characters along the way. But its focus on her relationships with Harry and her family does leave one wanting more of a flavour of the 1950s intelligence and showbiz scenes.