MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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Crime fiction with Mat Coward: January 7, 2025
A late Christmas cornucopia, a Canadian wolf, a dodgy motel and Peter Diamond’s last bow
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
CRIME stories have been a fixture at Christmas for well over a century now, and Death Comes At Christmas (Titan, £19.99), edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, is one of the best anthologies of its type I can remember.
There’s not a single weak entry among the 18 pieces by as many authors, and several real winners, with a good variety of tone and type, from locked rooms reminiscent of the Golden Age to forensic techs wearing bloodstained paper suits.
I won’t try and pick out highlights, for fear of slighting the others, except to say that Alexandra Benedict deserves a Best Punning Title prize for The Midnight Mass Murderer.
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KEN COCKBURN relishes the memoir of a translator, but wonders whether the autobiography underlying the impulse would make a better book
Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise