ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
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Captivating: Nina Allan
[Diana Patient/United Agents]
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GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
The Bard pays homage to Hull’s finest promoter and venue, and awards Douze Points to Laibach
KEVIN DONNELLY outlines how the bourgeois institutions inhibit our ability to to view art in revolutionary ways, and suggests some tactics to overturn it
WE’VE all heard of the ultra-conservative, secret societies based at Yale University such as Skull and Bones. But what we didn’t know is that each of the eight “houses” specialises in a different type of sorcery, like using the entrails of homeless people to foretell movements on the stock market.
That at least is the premise of Leigh Bardugo’s fabulous fantasy novel Ninth House (Gollancz, £16.99).
In her version, the ninth of the societies polices a code of conduct intended to prevent the young aristos from getting completely out of control.
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