From a delightful novel by Jhumpa Lahiri to Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, Elizabeth Macneal’s thrilling tale and Rahul Raina’s debut, this week’s best new fiction
Whereabouts
Jhumpa Lahiri Bloomsbury £14.99
A 46-year-old academic in a southern Italian city reviews her life in a series of 46 vignettes. A trip to buy theatre tickets reminds her of her father’s death; a cash register brings to mind her first boyfriend; walking a friend’s dog dissuades her from starting an affair.
There’s no plot to speak of, and each episode is just a few pages in length, but Lahiri’s elegant style and eye for detail make this a delightful and absorbing read nonetheless.
Anthony Gardner
Great Circle
Maggie Shipstead Doubleday £16.99
This epic novel tops 600 pages, but you’ll still want more. Ambitious, cannily constructed and entertaining, it entwines the destinies of two compelling heroines: Marian Graves, an aviatrix born in New York City in 1914, who vanishes while trying to circumnavigate the globe; and Hadley Baxter, the Hollywood starlet cast as her in a biopic more than a century later.
Its immersive storytelling embraces celebrity scandal, acts of wartime daring and freedom’s eternal promise.
Hephzibah Anderson
Circus Of Wonders
Elizabeth Macneal Picador £14.99
Nell is a flower-picker in a small English village, ostracised because of her birthmarks. When her father sells her to a travelling circus, she finds cruelty and exploitation but also redemption and love.
Set in the same Victorian London as her stunning debut, The Doll Factory, Macneal’s second novel is both thrilling and humane, bringing to life the brutal world of the freak show. Macneal is definitely one to watch.
Simon Humphreys
How To Kidnap The Rich
Rahul Raina Little, Brown £14.99
This is an absolute riot – part thriller, part satire of contemporary urban India. Ramesh Kumar is an ‘examinations consultant’, a smart young man who sits exams on behalf of Delhi’s idle rich kids.
A series of accidents turns him and his latest ‘pupil’, Rudi, into TV stars and kidnapping targets. Ramesh is a wonderfully vivid character and this is an explosively funny, surprisingly moving debut.
John Williams