Reviews of A New Kind Of Wilderness, The Marching Band, Good One and Magic Farm by MARIA DUARTE, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA
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Round-up 2016: Crime fiction with Mat Coward
Star columnists run through what’s impressed them this year
SCOTT ALSWORTH foresees the coming of the smaller, leaner, and class conscious indie studio, with art as its guiding star
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
WHEN I reviewed A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny (Sphere) earlier in the year, I suggested that it was “the sort of book you might want to save for Christmas” because this series, set largely in an isolated Quebecois village, is rich in snow, reunions, food and booze, neighbourly conviviality and other such seasonal themes.
Its satisfyingly complex mysteries do not exclusively involve criminal matters and all Penny’s books carry an elusive, haunting air of strangeness without ever quite setting foot outside the real world.
I wouldn’t want to give the impression that this is a “cosy,” however, because, as always, it sees retired Chief Inspector Gamache investigating violent death, corruption and the lasting consequences of cruelty.
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