Books of the Year II – further recommendations from our regular reviewers
Philip Hensher I have a theory that Mick Herron’s Slow Horses novels are an ingenious variation on Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays. If, in a future episode, River Cartwright ascends to his kingdom renouncing Jackson Lamb, and if Catherine tells us of Jackson/Falstaff’s death offstage, don’t be surprised. In any case, Clown Town (Baskerville, £22) is a magisterially accomplished novel and Herron a master of vivid voice, showing himself in a plot of shining, machine-like efficiency. The other novel I adored was Tash Aw’s The South (4th Estate, £16.99) – a ravishingly written account of a brief, obsessive passion between two teenagers during a boiling hot Malaysian summer. The Guardian tried
