The Peer and the Gangster
Daniel Smith
The History Press, £20, pp256
The story of the gangster Ronnie Kray’s entanglement with the flamboyant politician Lord Boothby, and the subsequent establishment cover-up, is a revelatory and often hilarious tale of sex, class and manipulation, offering an insight into the darker side of 60s permissiveness. Daniel Smith’s well-researched new account of it offers many fascinating details, using new archive material. It brings alive a time when it seemed as if law and order would be overwhelmed by the amoral and unscrupulous forces of organised crime, aided and abetted by the most influential figures in England.
Tennis Lessons
Susannah Dickey
Doubleday, £14.99, pp256
Susannah Dickey’s debut novel is a beautifully written and psychologically incisive bildungsroman that suggests the arrival of a young writer to watch. Her narrative, told entirely in the second person, revolves around the reluctant coming of age of a likable misfit protagonist, who finds herself emerging into a harsh and often unforgiving world and taking solace in escapism. It is by turns witty, poetic and intentionally banal, and Dickey has a real ear for the rhythms of everyday speech, perhaps influenced by her previous and acclaimed poetry.
To Calais, in Ordinary Time
James Meek
Canongate, £9.99, pp392
As the world continues to be fascinated by the spread of coronavirus, James Meek’s novel about the Black Death of 1348 has acquired an entirely unpredictable topicality. Yet this fine, captivating saga about the various journeys of an assortment of citizens – a noblewoman, a serf and a clerical proctor – stands as its own tale. Meek captures the mystery, squalor and occasional beauty of its medieval setting perfectly, and the encroaching horror that awaits all its characters gives the fascinating narrative an awful but compelling momentum.
• To order The Peer and the Gangster, Tennis Lessons or To Calais, in Ordinary Time, go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15
