YOU DESERVE NOTHING BY ALEXANDER MAKSIK

This debut novel comes garlanded with praise from its editor, Alice Sebold, herself the author of the smash-hit bestseller The Lovely Bones. She knows a page-turning hit when she reads it and has every right to be excited: this is a hugely satisfying and thought-provoking novel.

The story, of a charismatic teacher who becomes overly embroiled in the lives of his students at a Parisian international school, may seem hackneyed. In Maksik’s hands, however, it takes on the quality of a thriller. There are echoes of The Secret History, but You Deserve Nothing may be even more immediately appealing.

It will certainly be a heady nostalgia trip for anyone who remembers with fondness the days when discussing free will seemed like a crucial activity.

OUT OF SIGHT BY ISABELLE GREY

It’s telling that the author of this well-plotted debut novel has a background as a television writer. Isabelle Grey is good at ratcheting up tension but she has an apparently glib approach to psychology, something that may not surprise fans of Midsomer Murders, which she has written scripts for.

Patrick, the protagonist of Out Of Sight, is sketched so lightly that it is hard to engage with him. When his son dies through his negligence, no one blames him and Grey bludgeons the reader with a psychoanalytical interpretation of the issues that led to the tragedy.

One can’t help but feel that the book, as well-crafted as it is, is a wasted opportunity - the subject matter is fascinating but the author herself, at times, seems less than engaged.

The Importance of Being Myrtle by Ulrika Jonsson

This is not the racy first novel we might have expected from Ulrika Jonsson. The Lewis family are rocked by the sudden death of their patriarch Austin and the book follows their attempts to recover from the fallout his death provokes.

Jonsson is keen on jokes: when a wife reflects on her near-estranged husband, the author comments: ‘She’d hardly sent him to Siberia. Coventry, yes, but that was where his mother lived.’

The author maintains a light-hearted approach throughout, even though she has chosen to tackle difficult themes of loneliness, marital discord, mistaken paternity and grief. But anyone looking for an undemanding read will find this pleasingly diverting.

These reviews first appeared in the Daily Mail