When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains
Ariana Neumann
Scribner, £16.99, pp368
Journalist Ariana Neumann grew up in Caracas as the only daughter of a successful businessman. As a child, she had no idea she was Jewish, and knew nothing of her father’s exploits during the second world war. It was only after stumbling upon a box of old papers after his death that she discovered he had escaped deportation from Prague to a concentration camp by assuming a non-Jewish identity and hiding in plain sight in Berlin. A meticulously researched, gripping and poignant memoir.
The Book of Echoes
Rosanna Amaka
Doubleday, £12.99, pp384
Amaka’s impassioned novel is narrated by a woman taken into slavery in the early 19th century whose spirit continues to roam the earth 200 years later. We meet Michael, of Jamaican descent, growing up in south London in 1981 during the Brixton riots. Meanwhile, in a village in Nigeria, a young girl, Ngozi, is desperate to escape the poverty she has been born into as she becomes a maid to a wealthy family in the city. Exploring themes of generational trauma, colonialism, racism and resilience, it’s a lyrical and affecting debut.
The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective: Secrets and Lies in the Golden Age of Crime
Susannah Stapleton
Pan Macmillan, £9.99, pp320
In 1905, Maud West opened a detective agency in London, taking on a variety of disguises, often male, to infiltrate worlds otherwise closed to her. Stapleton skilfully interweaves the story of her quest to uncover West’s true identity with fascinating social history about the changing role of women in the early 20th century, as well as broader cultural shifts, including the rise in the clerical suburban class and the growing popularity of detective fiction. Compelling, tautly plotted and as engaging as the best crime novels.
• To order When Time Stopped, The Book of Echoes or The Adventures of Maud West go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15
