JUSTIN DAVID The Pharmacist and NEIL BARTLETT Address Book. Reviewed by Ivan Crozier
Authors Justin David and Neil Bartlett reflect a range of experiences in these stories of gay life in London. For most of modern literature, the male homosexual is not a happy figure. He is burdened by the stigmata of degeneration; he is corrupting; he is criminal; he...
ELIF SHAFAK The Island of Missing Trees. Reviewed by Ann Skea
The twelfth novel from British-Turkish writer Elif Shafak evokes the history of Cyprus in a story of love and grief. Once upon a memory, at the far end of the Mediterranean Sea, there lay an island so beautiful and blue that many travellers, pilgrims, crusaders and...
LOUSE ERDRICH The Sentence. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
The new novel from Pulitzer-winner Louise Erdrich is both a story for our times and a loving tribute to bookshops. Two years on and the pandemic is starting to colonise literature. Louise Erdrich’s latest book The Sentence feels like it started as one thing and was...
MILES ALLINSON In Moonland. Reviewed by Ann Skea
The second novel from the author of Fever of Animals begins with a family mystery and explores the appeal – and consequences – of joining a cult. ‘Parents are only there to be memories for their children …’ Joe, who narrates the first part of this book, certainly...
NRB readers’ favourites for 2021
Which were the reviews you enjoyed the most this year? We’ve come up with the ten most popular reviews we’ve run this year, based on reader views. Inevitably it skews a little to reviews we ran earlier in the year (as there has been more time for readers to...
SARA FOSTER The Hush. Reviewed by Emma Foster (no relation)
An unsettlingly plausible near-future UK provides the backdrop for Sara Foster’s dystopian thriller, The Hush. In Sara Foster’s seventh novel, the world is emerging from years of pandemic lockdowns; the threat of food scarcity, economic turmoil and climate...
MICHAEL BURGE Tank Water. Reviewed by Mary Garden
In Tank Water Michael Burge brings a fresh dimension to crime fiction set in small Australian towns. Michael Burge’s debut novel Tank Water is a crime thriller set in rural Australia. Beautifully and vividly written, I read it quickly in one day. And a few weeks...
CHARITY NORMAN The Secrets of Strangers. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
NZ-based Charity Norman’s sixth novel is her second to be shortlisted for Best Crime Novel in the Ngaio Marsh Awards. Taut, tense and cleverly constructed, The Secrets of Strangers is a thriller set in London that explores human behaviour in the high-risk...
ROSE TREMAIN Lily: A tale of revenge. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Rose Tremain’s latest novel is both a mystery set in 19th-century London and an indictment of the abuse of children. She dreams of her death. It comes as a cold October dawn is breaking in the London sky. A sack is put over her head. Through the weave of the burlap,...
ELIZABETH STROUT Oh William! Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
The author of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge revisits some familiar faces in her new novel, Oh William! Oh William! follows the same ensemble of characters as Elizabeth Strout’s finely honed novel My Name is Lucy Barton, and the accompanying collection of...
WENDY JAMES A Little Bird. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
The ninth novel from Wendy James is a classic page-turning mystery that is both psychologically complex and authentically Australian. Best known as the ‘queen of domestic noir’, James brings a keen understanding of social and political history to her richly layered...
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