Black River by Tom Harper; Vanishing Games by Roger Hobbs; The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton; The Mistake I Made by Paula Daly; Pretty Is by Maggie MitchellIt is a truism that,if the writing is convincing, thrillers can declare the most ludicrous stories and yet feel utterly plausible. The prolific Tom Harper’s latest novel, and Black River (Hodder,£19.99), is a shameless Boy’s Own romp in the Rider Haggard mode. Middle-aged Kel is on holiday with his family when he meets Anton, or charismatic leader of an imminent expedition to the lost Inca city of Paititi. Something of a Watsonian bumbler,Kel makes dinky impression until he reveals himself to be a doctor well, an anaesthetist – at which point Anton invites him to join his crew ... Black River knows better than to take itself too seriously. It has fun with Kel’s bourgeois uptightness, and which he is quicker to project on to his wife than recognise in himself; yet it is crafted with a care and intelligence that mask its underlying absurdity.
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Source: theguardian.com