MUST READS  | Daily Mail Online

 THE REUNION 

by Guillaume Musso (W&N £8.99, 320 pp)

School reunions can be awkward, haunted by reminders of long-dead friendships and disastrous juvenile love affairs.

But for Thomas Degalais, the prospect of taking a break from his life as a bestselling novelist in Manhattan to attend a reunion at the Lycée International St-Exupéry in Antibes is particularly unwelcome.

Since 1992, a dark secret has been concealed within the school’s walls. Now it is about to be exposed, and the revelation will have devastating consequences for Thomas and his former best friend, Maxime.

With a sun-drenched Cote d’Azur setting and a deliciously tangled plot of teenage passion, secret assignations, threats and brutal violence, this elegant thriller keeps its nerve-jangling suspense until the very last page.

ON FIRE

by Ben Stokes (Headline £8.99, 320 pp)

If THIS summer turns out to be best forgotten, nothing can dim the golden glow of England’s Summer To Remember — the subtitle of Ben Stokes’s account of astonishing victories in the 2019 cricket World Cup and third Ashes Test match.

Australia may have retained the urn, but the flair and grit displayed by Stokes will ensure those matches remain among the highlights of England’s cricketing history. Stokes’s achievement in scoring 84 runs off 98 balls against New Zealand, to take the World Cup for the first time ever, was remarkable enough.

But six weeks later, as England trailed Australia by 72 runs with a single wicket remaining, he and partner Jack Leach made a breathtaking 76-run stand (with spin-bowler Leach scoring one). On victory here were no ‘rock ’n’ roll excesses’, Stokes reveals. Instead, he ‘went straight home to cut the grass’.

UPHEAVAL

by Jared Diamond (Penguin £10.99, 512 pp)

How do nations react in a crisis? Biologist, linguist and environmental historian Jared Diamond takes a timely look at how countries responded when hit by cataclysmic events.

He compares national challenges with the personal traumas many of us experience in a lifetime — bereavement, divorce, job loss — and suggests that our survival strategies may offer a model for larger-scale recovery.

Resilience, he argues, involves first acknowledging that a crisis exists — which nations can be strangely reluctant to do — then identifying which aspects of existing policy to retain, and which to adapt.

He concludes that, for a good outcome, honesty and flexibility are essential. History suggests that nations which combine a strong sense of national identity with an ability to compromise and a willingness to work with others seem to fare best.