Dunbar

Edward St Aubyn Hogarth €21

In St Aubyn’s retelling of King Lear, the deranged monarch is Henry Dunbar, a global-media tycoon who has been drugged and confined to a private clinic by his two older daughters, intent on taking over his empire. Only their half-sister, the unworldly Florence, remains loyal. When Dunbar escapes on to the wintry fells of northwest England, the race is on to track him down before a board meeting crucial to the family’s fortunes. St Aubyn is excellent on the characters’ psychology and, though his tale is often facetious, it has a powerful and moving end.