Amazingly delightful dark and whimsical fairy-tale.

Dave has lost another wife and is sinking into grief and despair and has even taken to the demon drink again. When the man who killed Molly turns up dead on the same night Dave has a drunken blackout and wakes up with bloody knuckles, things start to get even more uncomfortable for him. There's also a New Orleans gangster looking to make a film, a rich and venal local character on the rise, a novelist and his wife, and a nasty lowlife with an abused son, a set of characters firing around the place in a complex web of connections Dave has to chart, willingly or no, helped by the steadfast but volatile Clete Purcell.

If mortality starts to weigh any heavier on these books they'll turn into Ingmar Bergman films, but the thriller element never flags, the strange twists of fate and design and personality that have to be explored to plumb the various mysteries are Burke's absolute stock in trade, and never less than riveting.

A powerful and poignant YA non-fiction narrative about the composition of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony during, and partly inside, the siege of Leningrad. Tracing Shostakovich's early life during the Bolshevik revolution, then the slow tightening of totalitarianism and the rise to power of Stalin and the terror of the purges, taking its toll on artists and the intelligentsia, Shostakovitch himself only surviving partly by cruel luck and partly through his international fame, not a long-term survival strategy with the jealous Stalin.

The sudden brutal onslaught of Operation Barbarossa convulses Russia as German armies drive across the countryside, slaughtering the population of hated Slavs as they go. The siege of Leningrad is a long, ugly torment of military might and official incompetence and the grinding down of humanity as starvation reduces the population to near savagery.

Shostakovich composes the most of his symphony in the heart of the siege until he is evacuated with his immediate family. Once completed, it becomes an important cultural object of Russian spirit and defiance, a way of humanising the new Russian allies to the US, and even if it doesn't prompt them to open the second front, it contributes to reducing opposition to vital aid and increasing support.

It's an amazing, heartrending story of art surviving war, and helping people survive war. Theories of art and music and political philosophy and the strategies of war and the broad stretches of history are explained with simplicity and clarity, and the character of Shostakovich is explored through the murkiness of a society where people had to hide their true selves to survive and the secret police scrutinised everything.

A brilliant, riveting, passionate, big-hearted and heart-breaking book.

The great duel winds to a close, not as sharp as it was, less ingenious. The games of logic don't seem as inspired - the loss of L was a dramatic coup but it did hamstring the book and require a reset and a new clutch of characters to carry the L load. It didn't quite work and the whole thing feels drawn out, and the conclusion comes as a bit of a relief to see it finally over and wound down, though the final unmasking is satisfying. The whole thing could probably have done with being one Black Edition shorter at least.

I love everything about Giant Days, the writing, the art and the stories but most of all I love the characters - Daisy, Esther and Susan, a trio of the best and brightest humanity has to offer, or at least the gothest, angriest and wettest humanity has to offer. New found friends in their first year at university, they deal with the high drama and low comedy of life in their own inimitable way. Finishing this first volume I realised what it reminded me of most was Alan Plater's Beiderbecke TV series, lots of deadpan wit and common human decency in a funny old world, and in our dark and dodgy times it does us all some good to know someone's keeping that flag flying.

Quite possibly the most adorable and hilarious comedy about three girls in college you are ever likely to read. Esther, Susan and Daisy so wonderfully human and lovable, the dialogue is sharp and thoughtful and clever and the stories are a pure delight. Good comedy is hard to do, but when it's done this well it's joyous and uplifting and deeply satisfying.

Beautifully written, exquisitely crafted, a tale of books and reading, and the wisdom that lies somewhere between the written word and lived experience. A callow young islander travels to a rich and distant empire, his head filled with vibrant visions thanks to the book of his exile tutor. Immersing himself in this new world, he becomes haunted by an angel, the ghost of a sick girl he met briefly on his voyage. Tormented by her visitations, he becomes part of a power struggle between religious factions that are slowly leading to civil war.

Vivid descriptions, a lush atmosphere and a rich and varied world brought to life in the same manner that so enchants our young protagonist - a brilliant and gorgeous and profound book.

Esther has quit college, but Daisy and Susan are on the case as she works retails and encounters some old friends. Once that's been sorted out, there's house-hunting and film-making and speed-dating and fresher-touring to keep life interesting and challenging for our three heroines and their circle of friends and acquaintances. Blissfully wonderful.

Susan is not dealing with the break-up well and McGraw's new girlfriend is sending her over the edge. Esther and Ed get roped into something extremely dodgy! Daisy goes on an archaeological dig that results in her having to get all Dark Phoenix on a fool. It's the end of first year at college, and they hae to take the bitter with the sweet, but there's a music festival to go to before the new year starts and the new house has to be sorted. Endlessly wonderful.

The girls are robbed, much to Daisy's distress in particular. Daisy's love-life takes a wild turn. Esther goes looking for a job. Susan gets real sick and her father comes to help her out. Look, just read the darn books, they're great.