THE BEST NEW FICTION

Free Love Tessa Hadley

Jonathan Cape £16.99 Hadley’s resplendent eighth novel opens as the comfortable, suburban world of 40-year-old homemaker Phyllis collides with that of Nicky, a young rake out to make the most of Swinging Sixties London. With one tipsy kiss, an affair begins, and the domestic shenanigans that ensue are part Grecian drama, part (to quote a bystander) ‘cosmic comedy’. Underpinning it all are some poignantly astute observations on class, destiny and the false promises of the sexual revolution.

Hephzibah Anderson

The Sentence Louise Erdrich Corsair £20

A novel that drifts between realism and magical realism, encompassing Covid, Black Lives Matter and the historic wrongs suffered by Native Americans makes for a heady cocktail, but Erdrich gets the mixture spot-on. Centre stage is the maverick Tookie, who is jailed for driving a dead body across state lines, then gets a job at a bookshop, where she is pestered by a ghost. The storyline may be wacky but the writing oozes sophistication.

Max Davidson

Roundabout Of Death Faysal Khartash Apollo £14.99

Syrian author Khartash appears in English for the first time thanks to Max Weiss’s punchy translation of this powerful short novel, which unfolds as a shattered sequence of vignettes from the bombardment of Aleppo early in Syria’s ongoing civil war. Mostly they’re narrated by Jumaa, a teacher whose spirited account of trying to take care of his frail mother and get on with daily life amid spiralling bloodshed makes for a haunting elegy to a devastated city.

Anthony Cummins

The Twyford Code Janice Hallett Viper £14.99

Hallett’s hit debut,

The Appeal, updated the Agatha Christie format for the age of email. The Twyford Code is a similar mix of traditional crime mystery and modern technology. Apparently deciphered from audio files on an iPhone, it’s the story of an ex-con’s obsession with the hidden codes in an old children’s book.

Could they form a treasure map, or something darker? A thoroughly unusual thriller.