Books, Issue 645

Cathi Unsworth - Bad Penny Blues

(Serpent’s Tail) The raw materials of its storyline may sound well-worn, but there’s something about the textured layers of Cathi Unsworth’s third novel that effortlessly draw the reader into the dark and disturbing environment she creates. Using…

The Dreisburg Wunderhorn

In the Middle Ages, Gunther the Quizzer travelled the Holy Roman Empire, leaving copious notes and drawings of the strange sights he encountered. This extraordinary legacy of baffling, incoherent waffle was recently collected by Edinburgh-based artist…

Joe Gores - Spade and Archer

It’s a tall order writing a prequel to one of the greatest American hardboiled crime novels. But if anyone was going to pull off a forerunner to Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon it was Joe Gores, like his predecessor, a war veteran, former private…

Oliver Postgate - Seeing Things: A Memoir

(Canongate) When Charlie Brooker delivered a heartfelt five-minute tribute to Oliver Postgate in his Screenwipe show last year, his trademark acid-tongued sarcasm went right out the window. Instead, Mr Cynical looked like he might tear up as he…

CJ Box - Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

(Corvus) He’s a rising star of crime writing in the States, but it’s only a matter of time before CJ Box explodes onto the UK’s radar, thanks in no small part to this storming British debut. Three Weeks to Say Goodbye is a smart place to start for…

Alan Grant & Simon Bisley - The Dead: Kingdom of Flies

(Berserker) Belfast comics label Berserker has managed to secure three of Britain’s major talents – writer Alan Grant, artist Simon Bisley and Glenn Fabry for covers – for their first title with the first four issues of The Dead collected in this new…

Neil Oliver

With those lovely flowing locks and fruity annunciations, Neil Oliver has left himself wide open to the attentions of crazy satirists (see Only an Excuse and Children in Need), but lest we forget, the guy knows a thing or thousand about the past. A…

A Single to Rome - Sarah Duncan

(Review) A dumped girl goes speed dating and ends up borrowing a guy’s flat in the Italian capital where she falls in love with more than just the ancient city.

Return to Sender - Zoe Barnes

(Piatkus) A woman gets massively broody when she goes to the christening of her sister’s kids, but could time have already run out on Holly Bennett?

More Than Just a Wedding - Nia Pritchard

(Honno Press) In this follow-up to More Than Just a Hairdresser, an undercover sleuth finds it tricky juggling all her balls in the air.

Can I Tell You a Secret? - Evelyn Cosgrave

(Penguin) From the Desperately Seeking author comes this tale of three sisters, each with something to hide, all descending on their gran.

Old School Ties - Kate Harrison

(Orion) A reality TV show about the perfect school reunion gets the green light, but not everything goes according to plan.

Best of a decade: Timeline

1999 July Scottish Parliament opens, with Labour candidate Donald Dewar elected as the first First Minister ahead of SNP rival Alex Salmond. Dewar died suddenly in October 2000, following a fall at his Edinburgh residence. 2000 June Biffy Clyro…

Best of a decade: Books

1. Cormac McCarthy – The Road (2006) 2. Dave Eggers – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) 3. Jonathan Franzen – The Corrections (2001) 4. James Ellroy – The Cold Six Thousand (2001) 5. A L Kennedy – Paradise (2004) 6. Louise…

Best of a decade: Respectable in the Noughties

Much of the most powerful art produced in Scotland in the 1980s–1990s developed in angry reaction to the political situation and tapped into our radical, left-wing and egalitarian traditions – it’s no accident that the most popular works of that period…