Joanna Trollope, Colum McCann and Aravind Adiga: This week’s best new fiction

From Joanna Trollope’s classy Mum & Dad to Apeirogon by Colum McCann and Aravind Adiga’s gripping Amnesty, this week’s best new fiction

Mum & Dad

Joanna Trollope                                                                                Macmillan £18.99

Trollope’s classy new novel is set in Spain, to where Gus and Monica fled from his overbearing father in their 40s. 

In the decades since, they’ve established a successful vineyard but their idyll has come at a cost: their two eldest children, damaged Sebastian and unhappy Katie, were left behind at an English boarding school, while their sunny youngest, Jake, grew up feeling Spanish. 

When Gus, now a septuagenarian, has a stroke, all three return to the fold with conflicting ideas about what’s best for their parents. A meticulous family drama, bristling with resentment and regret.

Hephzibah Anderson

 

Amnesty

Aravind Adiga                                                                                          Picador £16.99

Danny is a bright, Sri Lankan immigrant in Sydney, working as a cleaner but determined to better himself. There’s just one problem: he doesn’t have a visa, and the Australian government is cracking down on illegal aliens. 

When one of his employers is murdered, he realises that he alone knows the probable killer – and that his own life may be in danger as a result. But how can he persuade the police without risking deportation? 

Cramming its events into 11 hours, this is both a gripping thriller and an eye-opening account of an illegal worker’s paranoid existence.

Anthony Gardner

 

Apeirogon

Colum McCann                                                                             Bloomsbury £18.99

Rami is Israeli. Bassam is Palestinian. Both men have seen their daughters violently killed but, instead of revenge, seek reconciliation. 

Their blossoming friendship, under the aegis of a cross-communal organisation called the Parents Circle, forms the basis of this moving, if frustratingly bitty, novel. McCann is a discursive storyteller, darting hither and thither from migratory birds to François Mitterrand and the Old Testament. 

Nevertheless, there are passages of great eloquence and humanity, as well as much food for thought.

Max Davidson