The Sign Of Fear by Robert Ryan (Simon & Schuster, £7.99)
Sherlock Holmes’s amanuensis is given a convincing central role in this latest Dr Watson thriller. The good doctor will always work in the shadow of his superior, but Ryan uses this to enhance Watson’s character, not diminish him. In autumn, 1917, London is under threat from a new sort of warfare, falling from the skies. Holmes is having a rest, tending to his bees. Watson – forever the romantic – hears that an old flame, Nurse Jennings, was aboard an ambulance ship sunk in the channel, but it seems unlikely the Germans are to blame. Then his friend Sir Gilbert Hardy is kidnapped and subject to torture. With some help from an old enemy, the spy Miss Pillbody, Watson starts to unravel a complex criminal underworld involving aggrieved veterans, Ernest Shackleton’s brother, and a mass murder the British government might be responsible for. An entertaining spy thriller with a labyrinthine plot and even a dash of literary style here and there.
Granta: Issue 137 edited by Sigrid Rausing (Granta Publications, £12.99)
The working title for this issue of the Magazine of New Writing was Followers; the first four essays are about writers who grew up in religious sects. Ken Follet’s recollection, called Faith, is about living under the strictures of the Plymouth Brethren, who forbade “worldly pleasures” like playing the piano for entertainment. Follet became a hard-line atheist in adulthood. He has since regained a religious sensibility, but hasn’t renounced scepticism. Along with these four tales of indoctrination, there are two excellent and sobering photographic essays about living close to death. One of them, To Live And Die In South Korea, documents a rehabilitation clinic for sufferers of depression in South Korea, a country that has a high rate of suicide among the young. The stand-out piece is Aatish Taseer’s The Interpreters, an elegant evocation of the clash between tradition and modernity in India. He writes with a deep knowledge of the paradoxes and schisms that plague his country’s past and present.
Brexit: What The Hell Happens Now? by Ian Dunt
(Canbury Press, £7.99)
This is short and pragmatic guide to some of the options on the table for Britain as it prepares to leave the European Union. The introduction – a “worst case scenario” – is a silly economic scare story about what could, but won’t, happen. After this, however, the book gives a straightforward overview of the relationship countries like Norway and Switzerland already have with the EU, and how Britain could learn from them. There are also interesting sections on how the Government’s negotiators might approach talks, and the book covers the sticky entanglements of law, immigration and finance. Dunt is the editor of Politics.co.uk and enjoys the company of experts. He writes from a position of an angry Remain voter but he is not blind to some of the benefits of leaving the EU. Scotland could, for example, gain complete control over agriculture and fisheries. Overall, however, this book suggests the whole ride will be chaotic and deeply unpleasant.
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