Book Reviews: 12th August

OUT NOW

BEAST by Paul Kingsnorth (Faber & Faber, £12.99)

The second novel in a projected trilogy, Beast is a book that stands alone in more than one sense. Its central character, Edward Buckmaster, has abandoned his family for a life alone in a derelict moorland farmhouse. The urgent press of his dreams, memories, fantasies and fears is a scantily punctuated tumult that barely allows the reader to draw breath.

It is the modern world that has driven Buckmaster – part mystic, part philosopher, part everyman – to this pass, and in his harsh new surroundings he hopes, as he puts it, to be broken and remade. But he soon finds that he is not alone: although the moor is uncannily empty, it is stalked by a big, black cat.

The questions that the Bookerlonglisted Kingsnorth leaves unanswered only add to the potency of his mesmerising narrative. Is the beast real or a hallucination? Is Buckmaster himself deluded, perhaps even ill? Or, in staring into the void, is he nobly attempting to confront the insanity of 21stcentury life?
Stephanie Cross

---

CHARMED LIFE: The Phenomenal World Of Philip Sassoon by Damian Collins (William Collins, £20)

Darkly handsome and debonair, Sir Philip Sassoon was born into one of the wealthiest Jewish families of the 19th century, who had originally made their fortune in the souks of Baghdad. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he became a politician, art patron and the greatest host of his time, his raucous, lavish parties providing inspiration for Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.

The most fascinating chapters of Collins’s biography deal with ‘the golden interwar years’, when movers and shakers from the worlds of art and politics gathered at Sassoon’s three houses, 25 Park Lane, Trent Park and Port Lympne in Kent. Over long weekends, actors, politicians and writers would mix with royalty and aristocrats. Visitors might see Noël Coward mingling with Lawrence of Arabia, Rex Whistler painting murals, Charlie Chaplin clowning around, Churchill discussing socialism with George Bernard Shaw or the Prince of Wales landing on the private airstrip for a game of tennis.

Though occasionally a little clumsy, and giving little away about the enigmatic Sassoon’sprivate life, this is a compelling debut biography that reads like a historical novel.
Rebecca Wallersteiner

---

BOOK OF THE WEEK

Shifting perspectives
THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S WIFE by Suzanne Joinson (Bloomsbury Circus, £16.99)

Set during the turbulent interwar period, this captivating historical novel follows the story of Prudence, an English girl raised by her widower father in Jerusalem.

It begins in 1920, when Prudence is 11. Her architect father is nurturing the idea of redesigning the Holy City by importing English parks into the desert, and he employs British pilot William Harrington to take aerial photographs. Known as the ‘little witness’, Prudence spies on the British expats, exiled Armenians and German officials, from beneath tables and behind curtains, as they engage in a political game.

The narrative then jumps to 1937. Now an artist, Prudence has escaped Jerusalem and an unhappy marriage, and is living a reclusive life with her young son on the Sussex coast. One day, out of the blue, Harrington appears, and what he reveals leads her to start piecing together her past and the long-buried secrets she left behind in Jerusalem.

Vivid descriptions of exotic landscapes combined with those of Prudence’s solitary life in a cabin by the sea give the story an ethereal quality. Shifting between a child’s perspective of a changing era, her strained, grown-up life in London and her eventual departure from society, the narrative keeps readers on their toes. An engaging read filled with tension and surprises on every page.
Lyndsy Spence

---

COFFEE TABLE BOOK

---

PAPERBACKS

GET EVEN by Martina Cole (Headline, £7.99)
The modern-day queen of crime returns to the fray with a heady mix of high-life domesticity, underworld dealings – and, of course, murder.

Former childhood sweethearts Lenny and Sharon appear to have it all: wealth, love and lovely sons. But their comfortable life is bankrolled by Lenny’s shady occupation, into which his wife doesn’t probe too deeply. Until one night he goes missing – and is found brutally murdered. Sharon goes on the warpath: one of crime fiction’s most memorable avenging widows.

FALLING: A Love Story by Jane Green (Macmillan, £14.99)
Our New York-based columnist’s latest novel is certain to keep you hooked through long journeys and poolside afternoons.

A slow-burning, immersive tale of second chances, self-rediscovery, tragedy and redemption, it follows a woman who leaves first her native upper-crust London life and then a hectic finance job in New York in search of fulfilment. A rented beach cottage in dire need of renovation offers all sorts of possibilities – with life-changing consequences. A lively, conversational style spiced up with a witty turn of phrase, and a hugely relatable central character, make this a winner.

THE WOMAN WHO WALKED IN SUNSHINE by Alexander McCall Smith (Abacus, £8.99)
If you find it difficult to switch off on holiday, you will sympathise with the formidable Mma Ramotswe in the 16th instalment of the No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.

When her colleague Mma Makutsi persuades her to take a break, Precious Ramotswe cannot quite keep her nose out of the agency’s business. Her covert dealings lead her to rummage through a man’s dubious past, and to an encounter with an orphan. Arch-villainess Violet Sephotho puts in an appearance, too.

Another absorbing and humorous tale set in the slow-paced, perpetually sunlit world of McCall Smith’s fictionalised Botswana.
Juanita Coulson