Cherchez la femme with the handbag

THE RED NOTEBOOK

By Antoine Laurain

(Gallic Press £8.99)

FIRST, the best of the crop; a wonderful, wry, romantic tale set in Paris. Bookseller Laurent finds a posh handbag in the street but there are no clues within as to whose it is. Only a notebook containing offbeat thoughts, which capture his imagination.

Laurent sets out to find the bag’s owner, who the reader knows is Laure, a mugging victim presently in a coma in hospital. Will she wake up, and will they find each other?

The book sparkles with gentle humour, mostly at the expense of the Parisian bourgeois, artisanal and literary circles in which Laure and Laurent move.

The other joke is on our supposedly all-knowing, all-pervading virtual culture; Laurent sells real books, and is in the grip of a real mystery. Soaked in Parisian atmosphere, this lovely, clever, funny novel will have you rushing to the Eurostar post-haste.

THE GIRL WHO COULDN’T STOP ARGUING

By Melissa Kite

(Corsair £8.99) FROM being a difficult, argumentative little girl, Madison Flight has become Britain’s top divorce lawyer.

Her latest high-profile client is Belinda Bilby, an ageing millionairess who’s stabbed her husband in the buttocks with a cheese knife. In the husband’s corner is Elden John, possibly Britain’s worst divorce lawyer.

He has Tourette’s syndrome, concentration issues and operates from a shopping centre in Croydon.

Melissa Kite’s first novel is a cavalcade of crazy characters doing peculiar things.

It’s like a mixture of Hello! and Seventies sitcoms; colourful, outrageous, satirical and hilarious.

THE ART OF UNPACKING YOUR LIFE

By Shireen Jilla (Bloomsbury, £11.99)

CONNIE is 40 and has invited her old university friends to celebrate on safari. Self-controlled, chippy Sara, scatty fatty Lizzie and gay couple Alan and Dan are among those joining Connie and her unfaithful husband in the Kalahari. Plus Connie’s ex-boyfriend, whom she’s never quite got over.

All the pals bring major problems, including professional disaster, a violent marriage and a problematic surrogate pregnancy. Some slight suspension of disbelief is required — has anyone such neatly varied chums, let alone with such interesting problems?

But the lush descriptions of Africa are lovely, and the story absorbing and thoughtful, with more than one twist in the tail.