Dutch-born Hans van den Broek, narrator of the novel Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill (Fourth Estate, pbk, $29.99), recounts an entertaining story of eccentric characters and happenings in post-9/11 New York.
When his wife and son leave to live in London following the attack on the twin towers, Hans stays behind to continue his banking job, living in a seedy hotel peopled with a very odd collection of inhabitants.
While playing cricket one day, he meets Jamaican-born Chuck Ramkissoon, whose ambition it is to see the Cricket World Cup played in New York.
Hans and Chuck have many discussions on the history of the game in the United States, while they mow the piece of ground allotted to the players, and speculate on the ability of the game to unite many different cultures.
Hans gradually realises there is a less savoury side to Chuck, who eventually ends up as a murder victim.
Although the killer and the motive remain unknown, Hans is not altogether surprised at his friend's demise.
Not really a murder mystery, this is a highly enjoyable and well-written story, set in a part of New York not seen by many visitors, with a vividly described cast of oddballs. - Helen Adams
Like most of her books, Elizabeth George's Careless In Red (Hodder & Stoughton, pbk, $39) is a solid read - all 530 pages.
In continuing the adventures of Inspector Lynley, her police detective hero, this book features efforts to solve a murder but is much more of a study of Lynley's grief after the murder of his wife and his initial reaction of wishing to end his sleuthing career.
The novelist shows a lot of insight into human grief and also into the complex relations between parents and children.
I kept reading it hoping for Lynley to snap out of things and become his old self but that was not to be, not in this book, anyway.
I was disappointed and wished for more sleuthing and a more conclusive and exciting ending to the case. - Geoff Adams
When a character in Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture (Faber & Faber, pbk, $38) describes life as "a cornucopia of grief", it pretty much sums up the character of this typically dour Irish novel.
The entire story, in which a psychiatrist, himself on the verge of retirement, tries to reconstruct the history of a 100-year-old woman who has been a committed patient in his hospital for 60 years, is a study of grief and the many forms it can take.
The Irish seem to have a special talent - and capacity - for grief, and as one of their own, Barry lyrically explores this. - Geoffrey Vine
