Ian Rankin, author
Simon Mason is an author new to me but I saw his novel Missing Person: Alice in a bookshop and noticed that both Mick Herron and David Peace had praised it. That was good enough for me. It is a short, elegant novel about an enigmatic investigator and his search for Alice. A real find.
Louise Minchin, in her first novel, Isolation Island, brings intrigue and murder to reality television. A group of celebrities must live as monks on a Scottish island while cameras track their every move. But there are secrets to be unlocked and motives to be uncovered. Gripping and filled with memorable characters, this updates Agatha Christie with contemporary ingenuity.
• Midnight and Blue by Ian Rankin is published by Orion (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
***
Marianne, Guardian reader
I’ve been reading Booker shortlisted novel The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, about a woman living in her late mother’s country home in the Netherlands, 15 years after the second world war. The characters are well-drawn, including the house, which is an important character itself. The twist at end is clever and not obvious.
***
John Self, critic
I was shocked by the recent news of the death of Paul Bailey, as I’ve been spending a lot of time with his books in recent months. His early novels such as Trespasses and Peter Smart’s Confessions have a great line in grotesque, larger-than-life characters – mean mothers, grumpy dads, miserable landladies, camp uncles – while his later books (Uncle Rudolf, Chapman’s Odyssey) are more restrained but no less distinguished. He can make me laugh and make me sad, always in the same book and often on the same page. He will be missed.
I also this month discovered the novels of AL Barker, who was once shortlisted for the Booker prize but now seems almost forgotten. Her 1969 novel John Brown’s Body is about a woman who thinks the man living upstairs is a murderer – though he has enough problems of his own to contend with. It’s eccentric, engaging and surprising. The formidable Rebecca West said “you should ask your vet to put you down” if you don’t like Barker’s novels. I wouldn’t go that far, but they’re certainly worth trying – as are her short stories.
As for new books, I was delighted by Jonathan Coe’s The Proof of My Innocence. It’s clever and political – while also being very funny.
***
Tessa, Guardian reader
Anyone who reads this book is in for an absolute treat, as Kate Atkinson takes the murder mystery format and gleefully subverts it in her latest Jackson Brodie novel, Death at the Sign of the Rook.
You root for all the characters, and Atkinson weaves all the plot strands together into a fantastic page-turning ending. This would make a brilliant Christmas present – but make sure you read it first before you give it away.
