Tag Archives: fiction

Dead Point by Peter Temple (Quercus)

Posted on October 10, 2025 by drewsmith28

“On a grey whipped Wednesday in early winter, men in long coats came out and shot Renoir where he stood, noble, unbalanced, a foreleg dangling. In the terminating jolt of the bolt, dreams died.” Have a round on Jack Irish, … Continue reading →

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The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Sceptre)

Posted on September 5, 2025 by drewsmith28

“He was lying on a varnished wooden board, the top of a boxed-in radiator.” The opening is slow, Andrew Miller has just turned on the fire to boil a kettle, like an episode of the Archers, quite a lot of … Continue reading →

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Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Penguin/Viking)

Posted on August 29, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Thomas Flett relies upon the ebb tide for a living, but he knows the end is nigh” THE flap quotes the Sunday Times as saying that Benjamin Wood is ‘Britain’s answer to Donna Tart’. Except he writes better and Seascape … Continue reading →

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An Island of Suspects by Jean-Luc Bannalec (Minotaur)

Posted on June 4, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Commissaire Georges Dupin had made a new friend.” The first few pages dispel any notion that this investigation will just be another cosy crime. It is literature. It is blue. The sea, the sky, the Bretons even have their own … Continue reading →

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A Life in Fifty Books by Anthony Cheetham (Head of Zeus)

Posted on June 4, 2025 by drewsmith28

I am not inclined usually to fall for this kind of congratulatory memoir. But this is Anthony Cheetham, publisher extraordinaire. He has brought many books to market down the years from Frank Herbet’s Dune to Michael Connelly’s Bosch detective series. … Continue reading →

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The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Posted on October 10, 2024 by drewsmith28

The trigger for this exhilarating romp through literary Victoriana was a sale at the auction house of Sotheby’s. A first edition of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol sold for a record sum. The inscription was to a Mrs Touchet. Meet Eliza. … Continue reading →

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