BOOK OF THE WEEK
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is published in hardback by Pan Macmillan, £16.99 (ebook £6.59)
AT THE opening of A Little Life, Malcolm, Willem, JB and Jude, all in their early twenties, have arrived in New York, and are attempting to translate the ambitions and friendships formed at college into a harsher world.
Each are wrestling with their own dilemmas: privilege and pennilessness, parents too doting or too absent, but it is Jude, already on his way to becoming a ruthlessly effective lawyer, who appears truly unable to escape the events of a horrifically traumatic past.
Their lives unwind over the next three decades and more than seven hundred pages, and as their relationships deepen and complexify, Jude comes to dominate the narrative, battling his past as the other characters buoy him up.
As we learn, piece by piece, about the abuse to which he was subjected, Yanagihara deftly explores how the experiences of childhood unfold inexorably down the years, and whether individuals have the capacity to ever truly overcome them.
This is no simple redemption story, and she continues to plunge Jude back into the pit from which others are trying to free him.
The characters' unswerving devotion to each other can feel unrealistic, their success in their respective fields – Willem a movie star, Malcolm an international architect, JB exhibiting at MoMA – improbable.
The New York they inhabit appears divorced of any historical happening: no AIDS, no 9/11, no Obama.
Yanagihara has created a fairytale, but the novel's ultimate accomplishment is in failing to provide us with a fairytale ending.
In the suspension of our disbelief, she is able to utterly immerse us in her characters, and it is rare and refreshing to see male emotions given so nuanced a portrayal.
Above all, it is a novel in praise of friendship, of how it endures and how it sustains us through the big events of little lives.
9/10
(Adam Weymouth)
The Sunshine Cruise Company by John Niven is published in hardback by William Heinemann, £14.99 (ebook £6.64)
WHAT do you do when you're a 60-year-old middle-class housewife and your comfortable suburban lifestyle is destroyed by your husband's eye-watering death in a secret sex dungeon?
If you're Susan Frobisher, you recruit your down-at-heel best friend; a wheelchair-bound, obese, octogenarian nymphomaniac from a care home and a straight-laced amateur dramatics fan to rob the local bank.
John Niven's sharp satire on modern British life follows the quartet as they scarper to the south of France with millions in loot, trying to keep ahead of blundering British detectives and the Russian Mafia.
It is profane, raucous and at times makes you wince, yet comes with an undercurrent of tenderness that steers it away from slapstick.
The pace is unrelentingly fast like a film script, something the Scots writer and screenwriter perhaps has planned. If you like your humour dark and your jokes filthy, it should definitely be in the bag for a late holiday.
8/10
(David Wilcock)
The Sisters by Claire Douglas is published in paperback by Harper, £7.99 (ebook £4.99)
DEBUT authors seem to have dominated the fiction charts this year; from The Miniaturist to the success of The Girl On The Train, fresh voices seem to have caught the public's imagination.
Douglas won the Marie Claire Debut Novel Award with this psychological thriller about a girl named Abi, who is making a fresh start in Bath after the death of her twin sister, Lucy.
One day she meets free spirit Bea and her brother Ben, who she is immediately drawn to. She is welcomed into their circle of friends but relationships quickly sour and weird things start to happen.
The plot is very tight, with tension oozing from every page and the different narrative perspectives (from Abi and Bea) keep you guessing until the end about the characters' motives. This is hugely enjoyable and a very addictive read that will leave you at the edge of your seat.
8/10
(Georgina Rodgers)
Every Night I Dream Of Hell by Malcolm Mackay is published in hardback by Mantle, £12.99 (ebook £6.47)
WHEN Nate Colgan accepts the job of 'security consultant' with the Jamieson organisation, one of Glasgow's most feared gangs, he doesn't realise what he's getting into.
Times are tough for the firm, what with their leader and his sidekick both safely locked up in Barlinnie. Matters are not helped by the fact Nate's appointment coincides with the execution of a minor, yet key, member of the enterprise. Someone wants to send them a message.
A new gang has arrived in town, from Birmingham of all places. Seeing an opportunity to move in on the Jamieson's turf, they threaten to annihilate the Glasgow firm's power.
And Nate has other troubles to contend with, in the shape of Zara Cope, ex-lover and mother of his child, who mysteriously wants to re-enter his life.
This is Malcolm Mackay's fifth novel and if you like your crime fiction boiled to within an inch of its life, this morally complex, twisty-turny tale won't disappoint.
6/10
(Anita Chaudhuri)
