CATHERINE STEEL relishes a compelling novel about Augustus’s right hand man, but misses the politics, the cultural shifts, and more detail about his restoration of Rome
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Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man by Edward Wilson
Outstanding espionage series draws to a memorable close
TONY BURKE speaks to JOEL McIVER, co-author of the biography of bluesman John Mayall
A misfit couple unhappily ever after, a dead man walking, dodgy journos, and trench art trucking
New releases from Javon Jackson, IZE Trio, and Mal Waldron Trio
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an intriguing multi-layered depiction, dominated by a stunning impersonation of Marilyn herself
EWAN CAMERON marvels at the impossible ambition, realised with dreamlike finesse of translating Italo Calvino to the stage
FOR those fans who’ve followed the career of William Catesby across the previous seven novels centred around Edward Wilson’s extraordinarily grounded, cultured and left-wing British spy, his latest makes for a most satisfying read.
Loose ends are, at least in part, neatly tidied up but the first-time Catesby reader shouldn’t be fazed either, as Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man is a compelling standalone experience.
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CAL McBRIDE relishes the lyrical truth of an unstable identity in an over-tidy and conventional social realist treatment
RITA DI SANTO takes us through the prize winners, and takes the temperature of a festival that prioritised narratives of exile, state violence and class division
JULIA THOMAS unpicks the mental processes that explain why book-to-film adaptations so often disappoint
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying