The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown (Penguin, £7.99)
Beth Underdown’s debut is also based on a historical figure, in this case the 17th century witchfinder general Matthew Hopkins, famously played by Vincent Price. Her narrator is Hopkins’s fictional sister, Alice, who is writing a history of his blood-soaked exploits while herself under lock and key. Widowhood has forced the pregnant Alice back to Essex to live in her brother’s household, where, resenting the loss of her income and independence, she risks discreetly defying his wishes. However, the stakes rise when Hopkins recruits her to help with interrogations, bringing her into the dangerous proximity of the women he is condemning to death. Alice is attempting to understand her brother’s transformation from shy young boy to zealous killer in terms of his psychology rather than his religious convictions, a modern approach which strikes a discordant note in the otherwise faithful period recreation. But the atmosphere is convincingly paranoid and oppressive, Underdown capping it off with a wicked final flourish.
Letters To A Young Muslim by Omar Saif Ghobash (Picador, £8.99)
This book comprises 27 letters written by the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to Russia, directed at his son, Saif, and addressing questions he will face as he enters adulthood. Ghobash’s is a cosmopolitan, highly educated family, but this father still fears radicalisation after hearing some of the attitudes Saif picked up from his schoolteachers. He encourages Saif not to see Islam as a religion driven by rules and punishment but as a spiritual and philosophical tradition that can live peacefully in “a world full of differences and diversity”. The compassionate Ghobash writes in a patient, measured tone, without ever pretending that the issues he raises are anything other than complex questions requiring much soul-searching. It’s a book with a far wider potential readership than its original target. Anyone who wants to understand the pressures on young Muslim men to take up arms, or to get a clear overview of the competing philosophies within Islam, will come away much the wiser.
Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions by Amy Stewart (Scribe, £8.99)
In the third of her enjoyable series about Constance Kopp’s career in New Jersey law enforcement, Amy Stewart has reached 1916. The duties of six-foot deputy sheriff Constance include being matron of the Hackensack jail, and she’s getting ticked off by the number of women being imprisoned on tenuous morality charges. When a meek munitions worker is charged with “waywardness” by her mother for leaving home and getting a job, Constance decides to help the young woman’s defence by finding out the facts. This leads to her lending her support to another woman, not quite as well-behaved as the first, but Constance’s real challenge comes when her own sister runs off to join a travelling show. Constance, and several other characters, really existed, and the plot, like the previous books in the series, is based on real events. As with its predecessors, the appealing central character hooks us in to a lively, absorbing story that happens to be (mostly) true.
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