THE BEST NEW FICTION

Jack Marilynne Robinson Virago £18.99

The standalone fourth instalment of Robinson’s Gilead cycle is a dazzler. It’s set in St Louis, where Second World War draft-dodger

Jack Boughton, a white preacher’s son whose gifts for thievery and poetry have left him destitute, begins an unlikely romance with a black English teacher named Della Miles. Inter-racial marriage is illegal but they also have against them

Jack’s knack for self-sabotage. At once playful and profound, it’s a work of soul-stirring beauty.

Hephzibah Anderson

Trio

William Boyd Viking £18.99

Three lives loosely connect on a film set in Brighton, 1968: an affable producer at odds with his sexuality, an actress at odds with her allure, and a deluded novelist. Through their perspectives, we see a world with a glamorous surface beneath which neediness turns to seediness. Boyd evokes the porn, prescription drugs and private investigators of the age with grace, an ingenious structure and characters who surprise us almost as much as they surprise themselves.

Tom Payne

Ghosts

Dolly Alderton Fig Tree £14.99

The hit memoirist’s debut novel dissects the millennial female psyche with pinpoint accuracy. Its heroine is Nina, a 32-year-old food writer who falls perilously in love with her first app date, while confronting the reality of her father’s dementia. Alderton balances heartrending emotion with keen-eyed satire, displaying a flair for metaphor and comic set pieces. Madeleine Feeny

The Thursday Murder Club Richard Osman

Viking £14.99 Pointless has made Richard Osman an unlikely TV star and his first thriller has been much hyped. Does it deliver? Mostly yes. A group of pensioners in a Kent retirement community like to investigate cold cases as an armchair exercise. But when bodies start piling up around the village, their skills are put to more practical use. Engaging characters and gentle humour make up for some overly tricky plotting.