SATIRE

IDENTITY CRISIS by Ben Elton (Bantam £20, 384 pp)

DCI Matlock wants to relocate — back to the 20th century, when life was so much simpler. Alas, DCI Matlock is trapped in the present, ‘out of his depth in an age of outrage’, with a knack for causing offence rather than catching offenders.

And now he has been given two awfully tricky cases — the murder of a non-binary person and a cold case involving a celebrity’s past sex crimes. The latest celeb to be accused? Er, Samuel Pepys.

Meanwhile, there could be a serial killer on the loose, Love Island has gone toxic and there’s an upcoming English referendum, with the threat of the interestingly initialled Bunter Jolly becoming PM.

Ben Elton’s 16th novel proves yet again what a genuinely talented comic novelist he is — it’s expertly crafted, very clever and really funny.

ONLY AMERICANS BURN IN HELL by Jarett Kobek (Serpent’s Tail £12.99, 304 pp)

THERE is a bit of storytelling in this novel — one deliberately silly plot about the Fairy Queen and her companion, a supernatural assassin called Rose Byrne; another set in New York, where a Saudi prince is on an expensive quest for degradation.

But the main business of this novel is the authorial narrator taking the chance to tell us some home truths about, for example, the U.S. military-industrial complex and the global elite.

he also spills details about the Nazi links of his previous publishers, and about this book itself, with its shameless thefts from Kurt Vonnegut. And, lastly, he is honest about us the readers, the schmucks who are reading this ‘turgid work’.

Fair enough, it is turgid at times, but, thanks to the (yes, Vonnegut-influenced) style, this feat of relentless hypercynicism is also a real tour de force.

#ZERO by Neil McCormick (Unbound £8.99, 432 pp)

YOU’D have thought Zero would have little to complain about — he’s young, beautiful, talented and a sudden global superstar, dubbed ‘the Irish Elvis’. But Zero’s a cokedup mess.

Still stricken by the death of his mother, and with a relationship on the rocks, Zero cracks. he runs out of an awards show in New York, finds himself in Times Square beneath a billboard of himself, orders his driver to hand over the car keys and zooms off.

But it’s not so easy to go on the run when half the country is looking for you and yours is the most recognisable face in the world.

A lively satire of today’s music industry from a rock critic with an insider’s knowledge of its daftest excesses.