Madness Is Better Than Defeat

Ned Beauman Sceptre €21

The discovery of an ancient temple in Spanish Honduras inspires two expeditions in 1938: a California film crew that wants the temple as scenery and a New York group seeking to relocate the edifice to a US billionaire’s back yard. They pitch their camps and bizarrely foil each other for nearly 20 years, embodying the title’s dictum. Beauman’s fourth novel provides his usual humour, oddities, convolutions and impressive writing. Jeffrey Burke