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
Reviews of Pretty Things by Janelle Brown, How to Kidnap the Rich by Rahul Raina, Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder by TA Willberg and Guilty by Siobhan MacDonald
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
IN PRETTY THINGS by Janelle Brown (Weidenfeld, £8.99) Nina is forced by her con artist mother’s medical bills to abandon her attempt to escape the family trade.
She makes a living stealing from ultra-rich hedonists in Los Angeles but rising hospital bills mean she now needs to devise a more ambitious scam, so she returns to the scene of a teenage humiliation, the Lake Tahoe mansion of billionaire heiress Vanessa.
Nina sees her as a perfect target — rich, vapid and untouched by the vicious unfairness of the class system. But this book warns that when you meet your enemies, you are in danger of discovering that they are human after all and that can cause all manner of complications.
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DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction
Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise