From a crackling political thriller about Russian espionage to tales of life in the Jim Crow era of the American South, check out our critics picks of the best books this weekend.
Bad historical novelists assume that people always live at the spearhead of their age. Good ones, like Francesca Kay in her fourth book, know that even when the world spins ‘faster than a weathervane in a gale’, most hearts and minds will tarry in the past, behind events. The Book of Days unfolds in a
A biography of the storied director brings revelations, Francesca Kay’s witty fourth novel recalls Iris Murdoch, and Don Paterson’s Dundee memoir is a gripping ride