The Herd – Emily Edwards

Elizabeth Chamberlain and Briony Kohli became friends at university, an attraction of opposites with Elizabeth outgoing and popular, and Briony quiet and content to stay in the background. The friendship survived career moves and marriages, and now they have both settled in well-to-do Farley, in houses opposite on Saints Road.

Elizabeth has the better house, full of designer chic, but husband Jack struggles in his city job to finance the lifestyle. Briony’s house is less showy but there are no money worries as husband Ash sold his business for a packet and still picks up lucrative consultancy work. And now they both have daughters. Elizabeth’s six-year-old Clemmie and Briony’s four-year-old Alba have become fast friends. Perfect. Perfect?

The fly in the Chamberlain ointment is that Clemmie had fits as a baby and as a result is unable to be vaccinated against the usual childhood risks of MMR, polio, and meningitis. No problem; as long as all her friends are vaccinated there’s herd immunity, right? Elizabeth won’t take any risks though. Ahead of Clemmie’s birthday party she e-mails the other parents, please confirm your child is up to date with their vaccinations (subtext: if not don’t come).

The wasp in the Kohli jampot is that Briony is a closet anti-vaxxer. Understandable due to what happened to her older brother, who developed a fever after a jab and has been institutionalised since, a blight on her childhood and a guilt-ridden burden to her mother, who since has campaigned on the issue.

No spoilers, but the plot develops as expected, with tragic consequences that explode the friendship and pitches the families into a legal battle. The story arcs steadily from mundane domestic niceties, through the tension of polite conflict, then harsh recriminations, to end in a dramatic courtroom climax.

It is a page-turner that gives a sympathetic (if not necessarily even) airing to both sides of the vaccination issue. The narrative switches between the parents and is interspersed with anonymous observations from the courthouse. A decent enough read, though maybe one to be avoided (or not) by those who have children due for their jabs.

The Fraud – Zadie Smith

A rich tapestry of a novel set in nineteenth century England; consider the threads, the characters:

Central – Mrs Eliza Touchet, abandoned and quickly widowed at age 24, rescued from penury by her husband’s young literary cousin, William Harrison Ainsworth. Over the coming decades, she rescues him right back.

Adjacent – The same William Ainsworth, would-be literary giant who rubs shoulders with, and hosts dinners for, the likes of Dickens and Thackery, but whose prolific output rarely gains the critical recognition he craves.

Fleeting – Anne Frances Ainsworth the attractive but unappreciated wife of the author and mother of his four children, who calls in Eliza Touchet for help running the house. She introduces Eliza to the Abolitionist cause, and shares her passions, before departing all too soon leaving Eliza holding the fort.

Intrusive – Sarah, ex-housemaid, now the new Mrs Harrison thanks to bearing William’s child. Her obsession with the Tichborne Claimant case draws Eliza into its murky controversy.

Eccentric – The said Claimant, lately returned from Australia to claim a fabulous inheritance. Whether it is the shipwrecked Sir Roger Tichborne (as Sarah believes) or a fraudulent ex-Wapping butcher, Arthur Orton, the courts will decide.

Charismatic – Andrew Bogle, slave in a Jamaican sugar plantation, then servant of the master back in England, who knew the young Sir Roger as a visitor to the big house and supports his candidature, whose dignity and colourful backstory fascinates Eliza Touchet.

Woven together these strands, going backwards and forwards in time, give a vivid picture of Eliza Touchet’s life and times from literary London to exploitative Jamaica. The subject matter is serious, but Smith narrates with a wry humour and a style that whips along using short chapters to keep the 450 pages turning rapidly.

The Twyford Code– Janice Hallett

Here is the set-up. Professor Max Mansfield, an academic, receives a package from Inspector Waliso, containing the transcript of some two hundred audio files retrieved from an old i-phone. The enclosed letter asks if he will assist their murder investigation by reviewing the transcript.

We then get the transcript, garbled in places and with phonetic misinterpretations. As well as phone calls and conversations, many recordings are in diary form, spoken by Steven Smith, an ex-con seeking reconciliation with his estranged son as well as an explanation for a schooldays incident that left him scarred.

As the transcript progresses, both of Smith’s quests unravel in both sense of the word, as events, characters, theories and conspiracies emerge that leave the reader, not to mention Smith, a little bewildered. At least until the denouement sheds more light.

The rat-a-tat of short transcripts makes for quick and compulsive reading, at least to start with. But things don’t quite add up, don’t make complete sense, so there is a temptation to bale out. However, perseverance gives some reward.

That the narrative comes exclusively from Smith makes the novel a tad one-dimensional, over-dependant on one unsavoury character. As such it suffers in comparison with Hallett’s earlier (and better) The Appeal, which presented evidence from multiple sources and an occasional recap by the legal eagles reviewing it.

In conclusion, it is clever, possibly too clever by half, but with little else to recommend it in terms of characterisation, atmosphere, and empathy.