Tallis is exploring serious themes here — among them, the political and religious climate that made the rise of fascism possible, and the conflict between secular and religious ethical systems. There’s fascinating material on the early history of psychoanalysis. All this occasionally gets in the way of the plot, but it’s a price worth paying.

M. R. Hall’s The Coroner (Macmillan, £10) is a first novel, billed as the first of a series. Considerable legal powers are attached to the coroner’s office, whose quirky independence makes it something of an anomaly in a 21st-century legal system dominated by a streamlined Ministry of Justice. Hall’s central character, Jenny Cooper, is in her early forties, divorced and in the throes of a nervous breakdown. With trepidation that proves all too well-founded, she takes up the coroner’s job in the Bristol-based ‘Severn Vale’ district. Soon she is investigating a complex case involving drugs, teenage prostitution and local government corruption, which makes her extremely unpopular, not least with her employers and colleagues. Meanwhile her understandably confused teenage son flirts with cannabis, and her ex-husband blights her attempts to rebuild her private life with a philandering, dope-smoking boyfriend in the Wye Valley.

There’s much to like here, including the unusual viewpoint, the strong narrative, and the solidly researched background. Hall has written scripts for TV crime dramas, and this has clearly influenced his approach to the book. Indeed, the novel sometimes reads like an extended treatment for a planned series.

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