From Kerry Andrew’s emotive novel to A Net For Small Fishes by Lucy Jago, an entertaining read by Nick Kent and Mick Herron’s latest, this week’s best new fiction
Skin
Kerry Andrew Jonathan Cape £16.99
There’s a great deal going on in this emotive novel, and some of its plot pivots on whopping coincidences. Stick with it, however, and you’ll be rewarded with a sweeping coming-of-age narrative whose on-point themes of gender and sexuality are embedded in evocative descriptions of London during the 1980s, and of boomtime Ireland a decade later.
Its central mystery is the whereabouts of one Joe Ronan, whose child, Matty, becomes a protagonist to root for.
Hephzibah Anderson
A Net For Small Fishes
Lucy Jago Bloomsbury £16.99
Based on a real Jacobean court scandal, Jago’s thrilling debut is a sumptuous feast of plotting and intrigue at the court of King James, with a feminist slant. Through its central story of the unlikely friendship between a countess and a humble doctor’s wife, it brings to life both the privations of ordinary people and the grandeur of court.
A classic historical novel, classily executed.
Simon Humphreys
The Unstable Boys
Nick Kent Constable £16.99
Back in the 1960s, before tragedy and hubris intervened, fictional band The Unstable Boys were a byword for rock ’n’ roll excess and unpredictability. Fifty years later, a crime writer reveals his adolescent infatuation with the band, and becomes embroiled in a comic and cautionary tale of greed.
This debut novel from the noted music journalist is an entertaining read, and its knowing wit makes up for occasionally predictable twists.
Rufus Flynn
Slough House
Mick Herron John Murray £14.99
Jackson Lamb has little but contempt for the ragbag selection of failed spies he oversees at Slough House. But that doesn’t mean he’s happy to let a Russian assassination squad start picking them off.
And woe betide whichever establishment traitor has allowed this to happen. Herron’s seventh instalment in the Slough House series (soon to be seen on TV) is among his best – seamlessly plotted and darkly humorous as ever, but also surprisingly moving.
John Williams