The Turning Tide by Brooke Magnanti
Brooke Magnanti has a PhD in forensic pathology, and has studied the decomposition of human remains. But she is by no means your average research scientist. While she was swotting for her doctorate, she supplemented her student’s income by going on the game (please don’t try this at home) and writing a witty, saucy blog under the pseudonym Belle de Jour. The success of this led to Secret Diary of a Call Girl, a series of books that became a TV series. She has now turned her skilful hand to crime, and what a great idea — The Turning Tide is a thriller packed with grisly notes from her professional experiences in the mortuary. We begin with a dead body, washed up on an island in the Hebrides. Then we meet the mysterious Erykah Macdonald, on the day she’s planned to leave her unloved husband Rab, which is also their 20th wedding anniversary. This is a terrible couple for keeping secrets from each other — Rab has no idea that she is gay, or that she knows he has lost his job and is only pretending to go to work. Magnanti’s writing is lively and entertaining. When her victims are laid out on that slab, her unspeakably detailed descriptions are good enough to put the wind up Patricia Cornwell.
Orion, 298pp; £12.99. To buy this book for £10.99, visit thetimes.co.uk/bookshop or call 0845 2712134
Aeneid Book VI by Seamus Heaney
One of the most delightful parts of this book is Seamus Heaney’s translator’s note, in which he pays tribute to his old Latin teacher, Father Michael McGlinchey. “The set text for our A-level exam in 1957 wasAeneid IX but McGlinchey was forever sighing, ‘Och, boys, I wish it wereBook VI.’ ” Aeneas has left Troy and broken the heart of Dido, Queen of Carthage. He travels to Cumae in Italy and consults the Cumaean Sibyl (every town kept a sibyl in those days). She leads him through the gloomy regions of the underworld, where he meets the spirit of his father, Anchises, and learns of the future glory of Rome. This powerful and alarming section of the story (I remember thinking it very creepy when I was at school) took on a special meaning for Heaney when his own father died; though he began the work back in the 1980s, he was still fine-tuning it when he died in 2013. It is a beautiful book — not a loose “version” nor a straightforward “crib”, but “more like Classics homework”, as Heaney says, and the finest possible tribute to Father McGlinchey. Two great poets, separated by 2,000 years, come together so that you can barely see the join, and we’re reminded how much we miss the genial Irish genius. Ave atque vale.
Faber, 53pp; £14.99 To buy this book for £12.99, visit thetimes.co.uk/bookshop or call 0845 2712134