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There are quite a few surprises in store for the reader of The Secret Purposes . It’s not so much the fact that David Baddiel confounds any expectations you might have of him from his TV comedian persona or that he shows himself here to be a first-class writer and storyteller – what’s more surprising is that, barring one or two concessions to modernity, this book remains so resolutely old-fashioned with the kind of storyline that would not be out of place in an old 1930’s or 1940’s black and white movie melodrama like ‘Waterloo Bridge’. The novel is set against the background of the forced internment of German nationals to the Isle of Man in 1940. Most of the German nationals resident in the UK just happen to be Jewish refugees fleeing from the persecution that is beginning to escalate against them in Europe. At this stage however, the scale of the Nazis’ genocidal activities is not yet fully comprehended and it’s deemed more important to minimise risks and just lock-up anyone who migh...

Fassin Taak is a slow seer, who undertakes delves, explorations of Dweller culture and knowledge. The Dwellers are inhabitants of gas giant planets and are among the most ancient and long-living creatures in the galaxy. While investigating some of their library materials, Taak unwittingly uncovers a clue to a legendary network of wormholes, rumoured to be secretly used by the Dwellers in their incredibly long excursions through the universe. It’s immensely valuable information that is in danger of being misused if it gets into the wrong hands, but word of its existence has leaked out. The whole system is on the brink of war, with attacks already being launched by troublesome Beyonder and E-5 Disconnect factions and a particularly bloodthirsty character, the Archimandrite Luseferous. Taak is charged with finding out the key to the conflict that his clue has uncovered, taking him on a journey to the far reaches of the galaxy. The plot of Iain Banks’ new novel is fairly straightforward an...

As the title of the book makes quite clear, The Food of Love  not very originally ties love of food with sex and gives the term ‘fancying an Italian’ a double meaning. Laura is an America student who has won a scholarship to spend a year studying art history in Rome. Having had enough of fresh, hot-blooded, yet romantically-challenged Italian men, she decides she needs someone more considerate, who can look after her palette as well as her heart – someone who can cook slow instead of burning hot. She promises her friend that in future she is only going to date men who know their Bearnaise from their Béchamel. That line kind of sets the tone for the book and if that's not to your taste, you’re not going to appreciate the …er, subtleties of this book. Tomasso overhears her make this comment and, while he may know good food when he tastes it, just as he recognises an easy tourist conquest when he sees one, he’s no cook, but he manages to pass himself off to Laura as a master-chef. The...

A novel set in 1930s Russia might seem a bit of a leap for Gillian Slovo after her detective fiction and her powerful depictions of growing up in South Africa as the daughter of Joe Slovo, the South African Communist Party activist and journalist and activist Ruth First. But Ice Road is surprisingly consistent with her themes and experiences - political dissidents struggling to make a difference over the leaders who hold powerful authority over a country and at the same time trying to balance political activism with personal and family life. The impact of historical upheaval on individuals is nothing new in novelistic fiction - particularly in Russian fiction, with War and Peace  obviously being the summit to aspire to - so Slovo takes on quite a challenge here and could easily be well out of her depth, but her characters and their personal conflicts of interest are well depicted and quite authentic. There is the desire of Kolya to survive imprisonment for his wife and child, even...

The Breathtaker is a pretty fast moving, serial-killer murder thriller set in the town of Promise, Oklahoma in the tornado belt of middle America. At the height of tornado season, a family is found mutilated in a house on the edge of the tornado’s path, bodies torn apart by debris. But the deaths look more elaborate than the random impalements of flying debris and someone has extracted a tooth from each of the victims, replacing it with another. Police Chief Charlie Grover investigates further and finds a pattern with similar deaths that were thought to be simple storm deaths. Someone with an incredible skill for predicting the path of a tornado is using the storm as cover for a series of bizarre, gruesome, almost ritualistic killings. The killer appears to be both defying the storm and challenging it by demonstrating his own devastating power. As the killings continue, they become less covered-up, more elaborate, and are starting to look like a personal challenge or message to the Po...

The Argonos is a huge starship travelling from star system to star system. It hasn’t made land in 14 years and the crew are getting restless. We are not sure why they are travelling – background details sketchy or non-existent – but we soon find that the crew themselves have no idea either where they are going or why. There are two main powers on the ship – the Captain Nikos Costa and the Bishop. The ship is built around a huge cathedral, so there is some sort of religious element to their mission – attempting to convert settlements they come across, preaching to the inhabitants.  When they receive a signal from a planet they name Antioch, a team is sent down to investigate. This may be a chance to change the fortunes of the wandering ship. Mutiny is brewing, not just potentially from the bishop’s forces, but also from the service crew, lead by a dwarf Pär who recruits Bartolomeo, the captain’s aide and narrator of the story. On the planet there is a gruesome discovery which leads ...

Easter Island is told in three almost distinct sections in (tri-?)alternate chapters that don't immediately reveal their intent. The first section deals with Graf von Spee (from a presumably fictional biography called Graf von Spee and the Impossible Journey Home), a German naval commander during the First World War whose fleet is being pursued by British forces in East Asia, particularly of interest for a stop that the fleet made at Easter Island. Part two of the book is set slightly before the war. In 1912, when her father dies, Elsa Pendleton has no choice but to marry Edward Beazley, an anthropologist and colleague of her father, who is more than 30 years older than her. She has to care for her younger sister Alice, who is simple-minded and requires constant supervision. Elsa accepts a proposal to go with Edward on a field trip to Easter Island. 1,500 miles from the nearest landmass and taking a year of travel, she thinks it might be easier for them all to adjust to their new ...