THE THIRTEENTH TALE
by Diane Setterfield
Orion, £12.99
Vida Winter is a famous novelist (far more famous than novelists are in boring old real life), but her past is shrouded in mystery. Every tale that she tells about it is just that — a fabulous fiction. But the time has come to tell the truth, and for this she chooses a bookish biographer named Margaret Lea. Why has Margaret been selected? And what was in the mysterious, unprinted “Thirteenth Tale” of Winter’s first book? This is a glorious piece of posh tosh, beautifully written and highly intelligent. Blissful escapism for literate (and literary) females who love an old-fashioned story.
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ZOLI
by Colum McCann
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £12.99
This Irish author’s previous novel was a fictionalised life of Rudolf Nureyev. His latest subject is a Gypsy poet named Papsuza, who was cast out by her fellow Roma when the postwar Polish government decided to love her. We begin in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. The six-year-old Zoli’s family are killed and she takes to the road with her grandfather. She learns from the Gypsy women the songs that are their collective memory. Secretly she also learns to read and write. This is a haunting and lyrical story, well written and researched, but smelling a little too strongly of the library.
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THE DARK PAINTINGS
by Hugh Fleetwood
BIGfib Books, £8.99
The hero of this pitch black (often fiendishly funny) tale is a very nasty piece of work. Luigi Teramo is a gifted artist who has forsaken painting to make loads of money. He spends the money on young men and drugs. As the years pass, however, this prince of debauchery cannot shake off the power of his old paintings. Could they be the cause of the tragedies that have overtaken his life? He returns to his remote old family home, to the only constant companion that he has been able to keep — Caterina, the mad old witch next door. Somewhat disgusting — but in a good way.