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ONE AUGUST NIGHT by Victoria Hislop (Headline Review £14.99, 240 pp)
ONE AUGUST NIGHT
by Victoria Hislop (Headline Review £14.99, 240 pp)
Fans of The Island will love this Fifties-set sequel which follows some characters in the original blockbuster.
Beautiful but charmless Anna is having an adulterous affair with dishy Manolis, whose first love, Anna’s sister Maria, was sent to the Spinalonga leper colony. A cure has now been found and Maria is returning to Crete. Jealousy sends Anna over the edge, and death and disaster result.
Manolis flees to the mainland, finding work and a new set of friends in Piraeus’s burgeoning shipyards.
Meanwhile, Andreas, Anna’s husband, is sent to a hideous penal colony.
Here he is visited by the saintly Maria, who is determined to be the circuit-breaker in the revenge tragedy. This dramatic, absorbing and good-natured novel abounds with Greek island atmosphere.
THE BOOK OF TWO WAYS by Jodi Picoult (Hodder £16.99, 432 pp)
THE BOOK OF TWO WAYS
by Jodi Picoult (Hodder £16.99, 432 pp)
Dawn is a ‘death doula’ who helps people die, but this is a second career. Her original was as a brilliant Egyptologist.
Poking about the tombs of the pharaohs, she fell for fellow student, sarcopho-guy Wyatt. Forced to leave academia, she married steady Brian and gave birth to Meret, who has weight issues.
But her wild passion for Wyatt has never left her; meeting him again years later, she must choose between her new and old life.
Underpinning the main drama is an echoing theme: a dying client wants Dawn to find a past lover. But at what cost to all concerned?
This complex, time-shifting romance combines moral hazard with Wuthering Heights echoes and degree-level Egyptology. And there aren’t many books you can say that about.
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT by Jeffrey Archer (Macmillan £20, 304 pp)
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
by Jeffrey Archer (Macmillan £20, 304 pp)
THE title could refer to the plot, which seems Byzantine, even given the author’s famous ‘twists’. But as a longstanding Sweeneyphile I’m used to police dramas not making much sense.
Regan and Carter aficionados will enjoy this retro pursuit of a ruthless drugs cartel and an art thief anyway, even if William Warwick, the world’s poshest policeman, has little in common socially with the TV tecs.
His father, Sir Julian, is not just a baronet but an immensely grand QC who, together with William’s sister, Grace, pursues his son’s foes at the Old Bailey.
The insider detail is copious, and, I felt, the best thing. When not staking out Brixton and the Boltons, William gets married and becomes father to Peter, Paul and Artemisia.
One can only imagine what Jack Regan would have said about that.