BOOKS OF THE WEEK
The Secret Hours by Mick Herron Baskerville, £22 (ebook £12.99) Review by Bridie Pritchard
A break-in followed by an adrenaline-fuelled chase through Devon woods propels this tightly plotted story into action. It then focuses on Monochrome – an inquiry into the secret service which is going nowhere. Suddenly, a file appears and a witness comes in to testify about the goings-on in Berlin just after the fall of the wall. Avoiding plot spoilers, things get even more intricate. Safe to say Herron’s trademark humour from the Slough House series is woven in throughout, and it’s clear who some of the digs are aimed at. Big issues come under the spotlight: who owns your data, identity, loyalty, truth and realpolitik, but all the characters feel human and individual.
The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary Quercus, £16.99 (ebook £8.99) Review by Rachel Howdle
Beth O’Leary, the queen of complicated relationships, is back. The backdrop of this two-handed tale is a formerly popular hotel, failing in the wake of lockdown. Artistic Izzy, grasping at straws to save the hotel and her job, sets herself the mission to return a lost wedding ring and in the process receives a large reward. Stoic Lucas is more methodical, but finds himself in competition with Izzy to return the remaining rings in the lost property box, hoping that another monetary reward will save the hotel from closing. Izzy and Lucas are loyal to the hotel yet somehow rub each other the wrong way. O’Leary keeps the enemies-turned-lovers story fresh by exploring events from both sides.
Edge Of Here: Stories From Near To Now by Kelechi Okafor
Trapeze, £18.99 (ebook £11.49) Review by Yolanthe Fawehinmi
The clues are found in your imagination when it comes to Kelechi Okafor’s debut short story collection. Merging the worlds of Yoruba cosmology and science-fiction, Okafor poses a series of questions to readers about the way we choose to live our lives. Using eight stories – all with thoughtfully written non-prescriptive endings – the book flips contemporary black womanhood on its head through ancient and ultramodern tales that explore the themes of love, mental health, race, grief, and spirituality. Okafor has fun foreseeing the innovation of technology and allows herself to be surprised by the boldness of her imagination, and it shows.
Echoes by Will Sergeant Constable, £22 (ebook £12.99) Review by Duncan Seaman
Echo and the Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant sprang a surprise hit with Bunnyman, his first volume of autobiography charting growing up on Merseyside in the 1960s and 70s and forming a band with Ian McCulloch and Les Pattinson.
His dry wit and shrewd eye for detail is ideally suited to the memoir format, and Echoes, which takes us through an eventful two-and-a-half years in which the Bunnymen replace their drum machine with debonnair drummer Pete De Freitas, leave behind their ‘praccy’ room in a mate’s mum’s basement for their first tours of Britain, Europe and the US, and make their albums Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here, offers wry insights aplenty into a special band on the cusp of stardom.