Past and present collide in Banville’s thriller - review

Fiction

John Banville

Faber & Faber, £16.99 (ebook £9.99). 

Part of the Strafford and Quirke series, The Lock-Up is set in 1950s Dublin, where the body of an apparent suicide is discovered. The unlikely, and often at odds, duo of Detective Inspector Strafford and pathologist Dr Quirke suspect foul play. The victim’s sister, Molly Jacobs, a reporter from London, joins the duo to uncover the truth. At the heart of the deepening mystery is a wealthy German family with ties to Israel. As the body count increases, the relationship between Strafford and Quirke becomes strained, as it becomes apparent there are bigger issues at play. You feel intrigued from the start, and the only way forward is to finish the book. The flawed characters of Strafford and Quirke become intertwined with past and present colliding – while they can be difficult to like at some points, they are believable and their individual life histories are elegantly included in the larger story.

8/10

The Five Sorrowful Mysteries Of Andy Africa

Stephen Buoro

Bloomsbury Publishing, £16.99 (ebook £11.89)

The Five Sorrowful Mysteries Of Andy Africa (Image: PA)

Combining a coming-of-age tale of a 15-year-old boy in Nigeria with an examination of the legacy of colonialism and relations between Africa and the West, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries Of Andy Africa is an assured debut from Stephen Buoro. The titular Andy Africa – a resented nickname of protagonist Andrew Aziza – agonises over his teenage obsession with blonde girls in a way reminiscent of Adrian Mole, and borrows terms from A Clockwork Orange in hanging out with his “droogs” (friends). He falls in love with a blonde girl from England visiting his church, but his adolescent concerns are soon overtaken by a wave of religious violence as his family implodes, leaving him with stark choices. A major twist is heavily signalled in advance, but this can be forgiven as Buoro, who was born in Nigeria but now lives in the UK, brings Andy’s world to life with such immediacy.

7/10

Pineapple Street (Image: PA)

Jenny Jackson

Hutchinson Heinemann, £14.99 (ebook £9.99). 

Pineapple Street is the story of the Stocktons – a rich family in New York. What matters most – money or love? And can the two be separated? Two bound by blood, one by marriage, the story follows three women as they are shaped by sacrifice and love in New York’s elite. Darley sacrifices her wealth for love, risking her inheritance. Sasha is branded ‘gold digger’ for marrying into the family from a lower standing and moving into Pineapple Street. And Georgiana is followed around by her wealthy status despite actively rejecting her wealth. This funny, but sometimes challenging novel is a constant conversation about love over money. It balances on the edge of being overly descriptive and the story at times becomes a little stilted due to this. However, ultimately Jenny Jackson creates a clever narrative on what could have been an unrelatable subject.

7/10

The Forgotten Girls: An American Story (Image: PA)

Non-fiction

Monica Potts

Allen Lane, £20 (ebook £9.99).

Part-memoir, part-social commentary, The Forgotten Girls traces the divergent paths of journalist Monica Potts and her childhood best friend Darci, who stayed in their impoverished Arkansas hometown. Reminiscent of Tara Westover’s Educated, it is the latest addition to the catalogue of books seeking to explain poor, rural America to the outside world. Where it differs is that, while also charting Potts’ quest to escape and her friend’s decline into addiction, it takes a broader view of struggles faced by young women in conservative, religious parts of America, where they can too often be written off. It is a bleak account and avoids easy conclusions, but contains important lessons about the interaction of poverty, religion, drugs and educational aspiration.

8/10

Children’s book of the week

Global (Image: PA)

Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Giovanni Rigano

Hodder Children’s Books, £14.99 (ebook £8.49).

Global is a moving and powerful take on the climate change issues we are currently experiencing in different parts of the world. The graphic novel sets you up for a scary adventure with Canadian Yuki in the Arctic wilderness, who encounters a hungry grolar bear – a cross between a grizzly and a polar bear – after their territories collide. Global warming makes her journey dangerous as ice melts and collapses around her. Meanwhile, in the Bay of Bengal on the edge of the Indian Ocean, Sami and his grandfather fight every day to survive due to the rising sea level and severe storms, washing away homes. Yuki and Sami both find the struggle real due to the changing world around them. You won’t want to put this book down – it’s a great read with brilliant illustrations, bringing the catastrophes our world faces to reality. It will leave you asking: what can we do to help?

9/10