The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams (Chatto & Windus £14.99)
In spring 2020 this novel became the word-of-mouth bestseller of Australia’s lockdown. Its London-born author lives in Adelaide, but her novel begins in 1886 in the “Scriptorium” of James Murray, primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. In this glorified garden shed Murray and his assistants sort words and meanings. This is historical fact, though Esme, the novel’s narrator, is invented. A motherless child, she enjoys an unorthodox infancy in “the Scrippy”, sitting at the feet of her lexicographer father. When discarded words on scraps of paper flutter from “the sorting table”, she hides them in a trunk. The first word she rescues is “bondmaid”, genuinely discovered as missing from the OED in 1901.
Williams’s satisfying novel animates a fascinating history and imbues it with a feminist slant, asking how words mean different things to men and women. A relevant inquiry: last year the OED updated classifications of dozens of words including “woman”. While the novel flags a little in its final quarter, this is a captivating debut with a memorable heroine.
Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner (Raven Books £12.99)
Faulkner offers a clever spin on an expanding subcategory of psychological thrillers set during maternity leave. Helen, her husband, brother and sister-in-law are a gilded foursome: couples since Cambridge, now colleagues and expectant parents. They live in enviable houses — inherited, or bought with inherited cash — bordering Greenwich Park. At an antenatal class gabby working-class Rachel latches on to Helen, then insinuates her way into their lives. But why? And who should get their comeuppance? A twisty, fast-paced read, though at more than 400 pages, less could have been more.
The Summer Job by Lizzy Dent (Viking £12.99)
This novel offers a sunny caper set in the Scottish Highlands. Birdy is jobless and soon to be homeless. Her friend Heather has just baled on a placement at a hotel offering funds, food and board. Could Birdy pretend to be Heather? True, Heather is a promising sommelier, but the hotel appears run-down. Yet when Birdy arrives she discovers Heather’s appointment is part of a radical revamp by a Michelin-starred chef. Some of the plotting joins here (the business of getting rid of the real Heather, for example) are unconvincing, but never the descriptions of food, wine and scenery. A real spritz.
Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd by Jonas Jonasson (HarperVia £8.99)
This new novel by Jonasson, whose The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared was a hit, makes zero pretence at plausibility. It begins in Kenya with a Masai witch doctor, then moves to Stockholm, where scoundrel Victor marries his late boss’s daughter, Jenny, and defrauds her. When a prostitute presents Victor with a son, Kevin, he takes the boy to Kenya and dumps him in the Masai Mara. Kevin survives to meet Jenny, all by page 50. The depiction of Africa felt more in the realms of Evelyn Waugh’s Black Mischief than National Geographic, but this novel certainly zips along.
