DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
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Crime fiction
New books from Oscar de Muriel, Louise Penny and Amer Anwar
'OWNING' ASIAN WEST LONDON: Amer Anwar
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
THE DANCE OF THE SERPENTS by Oscar de Muriel (Orion, £18.99) chronicles the further adventures of the two Victorian detectives who comprise the Commission for the Elucidation of Unsolved Cases Presumably Related to the Odd and Ghostly, a clandestine unit within the Edinburgh constabulary.
A sceptic and a believer, they are English toff Inspector Frey and his hard-as-girders Scots colleague, Inspector Nine-Nails McGray.
In this episode, they are commissioned, very much against their will and with threats hanging over their heads, to serve the hated prime minister Lord Salisbury. He needs their help in tracking down a long-lived criminal conspiracy of self-styled witches who have a mysterious hold over the increasingly erratic and bloated Queen Victoria.
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DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
CAL McBRIDE relishes the lyrical truth of an unstable identity in an over-tidy and conventional social realist treatment
Do frozen colonists carry the virus of empire? Why is monstrosity a great way to describe capital? Was God a dustman?
Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise