STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Crime Fiction with Mat Coward: January 18, 2022
New titles from Seraphina Nova Glass, Hansjorg Schneider, Chris Nickson and Liza Cody
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
MEL lives in a well-to-do Louisiana town, in Such A Good Wife by Seraphina Nova Glass (Titan, £8.99), with her kids, a fine husband and a nice house. She’s not exactly happy, but aware that she has nothing much to be unhappy about, so she shocks herself when she begins an affair with a local author after a writers’ group meeting.
She’s even more shocked to discover hidden within her a woman who is skilled at planning, executing and concealing deceit. When she’s caught up on the edges of a suspicious death, she begins to question whether there is anything she would be incapable of doing to get herself and her family out of danger.
You really won’t be able to put this down; it’s a tense thriller of personality rather than events.
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MAT COWARD picks the jewels, new and old, from the endless crime scenes of fiction