Novel 19 in as many years from one of the most intelligent - and increasingly underrated - of writers is, as expected, rigorously intelligent, disciplined and precise. It is also one of her strongest psychological exposes in years. Often criticised for the narrowness of her theme - that of the sexual tensions and disappointments of solitary, middle-class Londoners who are invariably cool, intellectually self-assured, well-groomed and utterly miserable - Brookner, an internationally respected art historian, has an unusually shrewd, almost clinical understanding of emotional vulnerabilities. She is sufficiently self-critical to have managed to relax her previously epigrammatic prose style while also refining and updating it.
At first meeting, narrator Claire Pitt might seem yet another preternaturally observant, calmly intense Brookner heroine. The only child of ageing and/or dead parents, she works in an antiquarian bookshop run by a pair of ancient, unworldly maiden sisters. Having concentrated on avoiding "the hapless resignation" which marked her dead mother's life, "one of almost pious simplicity", Claire is candid about her desires, and when a handsome man enters the shop, she has mentally written his biography - which includes the burden of an invalid sister - within minutes. Not quite: his burden is a dangerously alluring, tyrannically petulant older and now bedridden wife. Martin's almost servile deference contributes not only to the atmosphere of lethargic claustrophobia, but also to an aura of bizarre mystery.
Although the eventual twist is obvious from about halfway, with Claire's insights proving faulty, the honesty and suppressed sense of outrage filtering through this clever, dogged novel convince. Brookner also earns our sympathy for the sharp-tongued, determined survivor Claire, whose humiliation includes discovering she is not quite as clever as she had previously suspected.
Eileen Battersby
Infidelity. By Paul Ferris. HarperCollins. 266pp. £16.99 in UK
Based on a true story, Paul Ferris's most recent novel demonstrates once again his penchant for investigating and revealing the most unsavoury aspects of his subjects. In this case, the self-seeking bigamist, George Shotton, is portrayed as a punctilious man, a man with a compulsion for timetables and schedules, and yet a man capable of chilling indifference and, for his own ends, even the murder of a woman he allegedly loves.
A marine superintendent by profession, George has evaded active service in the first World War, no small wonder since "he has no loyalty to places". Nor has George any apparent loyalty to people. He perceives his wife, May, as being "churchy" and frigid and their darling, curly-haired son, Arthur, as "not a very interesting child". So, as he travels from port to port on business, he picks up women.
Amy (Mamie) Stuart, however, is the particular focus of George's affections. In her, he finds the risque sexual prowess lacking in May, and they, too, marry. For years, the intricate weave of lies necessary to maintain his double life is as satisfying to George as the train timetables. However, as he later tells Sergeant Jenkins, "I was fond of her. She was a girl I picked up in the streets." Mamie's disappearance puts a stop to George's roving eye, but the mystery surrounding it isn't fully solved until almost fifty years later.
Ferris's craft is unusually good. Being character-centred, without any heavyhanded historical underlay, the novel absolutely gallops, leaving the reader breathless at the very notion that such an ordinary, logical man could be so patently villainous.
Ellen Beardsley