This month's book club choice is The Light of Day, Graham Swift's 2003 account of a day in the life of policeman turned private detective George Webb, in which a deceptively simple prose style is used to uncover a story of obsessive love, infidelity and murder.
In the first of his weekly articles on the novel, UCL professor of English John Mullan examined the subtle techniques at play beneath the book's apparently straightforward and occasionally clichéd language. In his second column, Prof Mullan explored the novel's single-day time frame, and traced the origins of this technique to the novels of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.
Professor Mullan will also be hosting a live discussion of the book with Graham Swift, to be held on Thursday 22 March at the Guardian Newsroom, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER. Doors open at 6.30pm and entry costs £8. To book a ticket call 020 7886 9281 or email book.club@theguardian.com.
In the meantime, we want to know what you think of the book. Does Swift's pared-down style make for an intriguing read? How does the novel compare to his Booker-winning Last Orders (1996), or the ground-breaking Waterland (1983)? A selection of your posts will appear in Prof Mullan's final column on the book in the Guardian Review.
