On the shelves

Published on Saturday 10 May 2008 20:44

Also published this week...

Non-Fiction

Russia

Jonathan Dimbleby, BBC Books, 25

With the BBC2 tie-in series starting tonight, this mammoth tome has Dimbleby crossing Murmansk to Vladivostok in search of the 'soul' of Russia, from the peasantry through to the socialites of St Petersburg.

Cleopatra: The Woman Behind The Legend

Joann Fletcher, Hodder & Stoughton, 25

Shaw famously remarked that if her nose had been longer, history would have been different, and this well-researched biography looks at the myths, propaganda and political mistakes of the last successor of Alexander the Great.

Torture Team

Philippe Sands, Allen Lane, 20

The Haynes Memo may go down in history as a turning point – and Sands brilliantly analyses the motivations and repercussions of the 15 new and illegal interrogation techniques deployed in Guantanamo Bay.

Fiction

The Good Mayor

Andrew Nicoll, B&W, 10

Set in the quaintly fictitious Baltic town of Dot, this debut novel is aiming for a kind of Captain Corelli feel – love, magic, comedy, sentimentality, lush descriptions of food. The eponymous mayor's unrequited love for his secretary puts the plot in motion.

The Mystery Of The Yellow Room

Gaston Leroux, Dedalus, 8.99

Leroux is more famous for writing The Phantom Of The Opera, but this excellent reissue of his "locked room" mystery shows his ingenuity and surrealism far better. One critic even offered 500 if you could guess the solution.

Novel About My Wife

Emily Perkins, Bloomsbury, 12.99

A literary psychological thriller in which pregnant Anne believes that a homeless man is following her while her husband fixates on the strange changes in their house. Some big names – Esther Freud, Maggie O'Farrell, TC Boyle – are all hyping it up.