NONFICTION
The Disappearance of Émile Zola: Love, Literature and the Dreyfus Case by Michael Rosen
Émile Zola led the campaign to exonerate Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer fitted up on charges of treasonous espionage by the French military high command, press and government. Zola’s defence of the manifestly innocent officer climaxed on January 13, 1898 with his famous newspaper article J’accuse . . . ! Zola named names. He was prosecuted for libel, sentenced to prison and fled to England. “M Pascal” arrived incognito at Victoria station, alone, with only a carry-on bag (he forgot, among other necessaries, clean underpants). Zola thought the country irredeemably ugly; locals doubtless thought him a harmless “loony”. Rosen’s study of the writer’s year in exile poses some thought-provoking observations. John Sutherland
Faber, 302pp, £9.99
The Angry Chef by Anthony Warner
Anthony Warner, a chef and blogger, has decided that the time has come to expose and question the false assertions and bogus science propounded by nutrition experts, dieticians and public-health gurus. What Warner calls “the health and wellness lobby” is an industry worth billions of pounds annually. It is “an enormous monolith constructed on the flimsiest of foundations”. Its “ancient advice is often malarkey”, eg that cucumber nourishes the yin, vinegar raises the yang, and rhino horn cures infertility. Coffee enemas do nothing to abate or cure chronic disease such as cancer. The only thing I disliked about this indignant book was the rather too perky prose style. Roger Lewis
Oneworld, 326pp, £9.99
FICTION
My Name Is Nobody by Matthew Richardson
Matthew Richardson’s debut is a splendid tale of espionage starring an old-fashioned MI6 hero who still relies on lies, betrayals and solving codes rather than looking up everything on computers. Solomon Vine is in trouble with his bosses and has been suspended, but they need him to look into the kidnapping of the MI6 Istanbul bureau chief. Vine’s inquiries lead him into deep waters and he discovers a great threat to Britain’s intelligence services. One of MI6’s most senior officials has turned. But who is it? My Name Is Nobody is an exciting entry into spy literature. Marcel Berlins
Penguin, 323pp, £7.99
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City of Masks by SD Sykes
SD Sykes returns with a new historical mystery that must be solved by her hero, Oswald de Lacy. It is 1358 and the young, melancholic nobleman is in Venice, midway through a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He is staying with an eccentric English family when he finds a dead body on the night before the carnival. During his investigation he crosses paths with the Signori di Notte, Venice’s shadowy secret police and guardians of the city’s peculiar moral codes. Sykes is a master at combining historical setting with mystery. In City of Masks she proves herself thoroughly at home in the shimmering, seductive canals of Venice. Antonia Senior
Hodder, 360pp, £8.99
