This is a fine collection of short stories, sometimes brutal and shocking, but written with a sort of underground tenderness. I particularly liked On the Roundabout, in which a blameless family tangles with sectarian violence, and The Trojan Sofa, in which 11-year-

old Niall helps his father in the burglary business by hiding inside a sofa. In The Clinic, a middle-aged man reads Chekhov while being tested for diabetes, meditating on his mortality in a way that is outwardly prosaic yet unexpectedly moving. MacLaverty isolates the things that truly matter in a so-called ordinary life.

PLOTTING FOR BEGINNERS
by Sue Hepworth and Jane Linfoot
Snowbooks £7.99

It’s not chick-lit, and it’s not even hen-lit. This unpretentious and amusing novel belongs to a new category that could be called old-boiler-lit. Sally Howe is struggling with the menopause and trying to write a bestseller. She has lots of time, because her husband of donkey’s years has gone to live in a log cabin in the Rockies. Is this the end of their marriage? Does Sally care? And how does she fend off the interest of various priapic neighbours? Think of The Diary of a Provincial Lady updated and transferred to the Peak District.

MY LUCKY STAR
by Joe Keenan
Heinemann, £10.99

As well as writing novels, Keenan has collected a shelf of awards for writing and producing Frasier. So his comedy is of a high order — he has been described as “a gay P. G. Wodehouse”. This is sophisticated, deliciously camp entertainment. Phil and Claire are playwrights down on their luck. Phil’s shifty mate Gilbert lures them to Hollywood with the promise of a superb screenwriting job. Unfortunately ghastly Gilbert is the least trustworthy person in a city packed with sharks, and Phil and Claire are in hot water as soon as they step off the plane.

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