Enjoy Life

March 2025 book reviews

The pick of the latest hardbacks and paperbacks, reviewed by Simon Evans

Anyone who fears for the future of our democracy will take little succour from Get In (Bodley Head, £25), Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund’s account of how Keir Starmer, a lawyer with no fixed principles, rose, seemingly without trace, to become Prime Minister on the back of a landslide that may have been the biggest in living memory but was based on the smallest share of the vote ever recorded for an incoming government.

As with the duo’s previous book, Left Out, the definitive account of the rise and fall of Jeremy Corbyn, the book is rich in political revelation and anecdote, and what is apparent from the start is the breath-taking cynicism with which Starmer, or more particularly, his Svengali chief advisor, Morgan McSweeney, sort to undermine Corbyn from within, parasitically beavering way until the opportunity to remould Labour presented itself. Overweaningly ambitious Starmer, it appears, was the perfect political empty vessel into which McSweeney could project his vision of a Labour Party that could win back the red wall but few men have many friends at the top of the movement, and that could ultimately prove their doing.

The authors start their book by, tellingly, quoting Jeremy Thorpe’s famous epigram, responding to Harold Macmillan’s infamous ‘night of the long knives’ purging of his cabinet, “greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life.”

It may well prove to be Sir Keir Starmer’s epitaph, too. 

From Carmel Harrington, author of The Girl From Donegal and The Lighthouse Secret, comes The Stolen Child (Headline Review £22), the absorbing story of a boy who goes missing from a cruise ship and the appearance, 40 years later, of someone who may hold the key to his disappearance. History repeats itself for a retired detective when a case from 30 years ago comes back to haunt her in Amy Jordan’s gripping novel The Dark Hours (HQ, £16.99), and London Uncanny, by Clive Bloom (Bloomsbury, £20) is a fascinating journey through the stranger byways of the capital, as depicted through literature, and embodied in many of its most fascinating inhabitants, from David Bowie and Alesteir Crowley to TS Eliot and even the ‘ghosts’ of ABBA. It’s an engrossing, sometimes dizzying, ride, full of hidden surprises and insights…

A Foundling at the Wartime Bookshop (Penguin, £8.99) is the fifth in Lesley Eames’ series of novels centred on a shop in the fictional Hertfordshire village of Churchwood, and it finds the team faced with trying to identify a new-born that is left on their doorstep along with a note begging them to ‘take care of little Rose’. And The Pearl Button Girl (Pan, £9.99) is the first in Annie Murray’s new Children of Birmingham series, set in Victorian times and following the tribulations of the Fletcher family. It’s an involving read that perfectly evokes the hardship of life at the time in the Second City…

Newly reissued by August Books, both priced at £12.99, Lost Voices of the Battle of Britain, by Max Arthur, tells the remarkable story of The Few in the words of the pilots who survived and Stirling’s Men, by Gavin Mortimer, is the story of the SAS during the Second World War based on interviews with more than 60 veterans. Gavin Mortimer is the historical consultant for the TV series SAS: Rogue Heroes.

The disappearance of an expectant mother leads to a dark past being uncovered in The Mother’s Secret, by Karen Clarke (HQ, £9.99), and A Secret In The Family, by Nancy Revell (Penguin, £8.99) is the follow-up to the Shipyard Girls series, and tells the story of Ida, who leaves her five children in Sunderland as she leaves her husband for a new life in London. Eight years later she returns to find her family with a story that can no longer be kept hidden…

Pagans (Moonflower, £16.99), is the debut novel from Bafta-winning writer James Alistair Henry, who has worked on shows including Green Wing and Smack The Pony. His first novel is a very different beast, however, a clever, engrossing 21-st century set alternative history, where the Industrial Revolution, Christianity and The Norman Conquest never happened. When a diplomat is murdered, two detectives with very different backgrounds are called on to investigate a serial killer hell-bent on sowing unrest…

On the Grid, by Luke Smith (Simon and Schuster, £22), goes behind the scenes of Formula One, telling its story through the eyes of the people who have made it special – from the superstar drivers and team principals, to the pit crews, engineers, strategists and fans – while also considering what the future holds for the sport. Adventurer Phoebe Smith tells how she found peace and tranquillity walking Britain’s ancient paths in Wayfarer (HarperNorth, £9.99), and Tom Quinn reveals the secrets of the Royal Family’s servants in Yes Ma’am (Biteback, £20)…

The King’s Witches (Pan, £9.99) is the second novel from Kate Foster, set during the reign of King James VI of Scotland and focussing on three women whose lives become wrapped up in the witchcraft mania gripping Edinburgh at the time. When a bridesmaid is murdered on the night before a glitzy wedding on a private tropical island, secrets from the bride’s past come tumbling out with deadly consequences in Cate Quinn’s The Bridesmaid (Orion, £22), and there are more secrets waiting to be uncovered in The Inheritance, by Trisha Sakhlecha (Century, £14.99), when the billionaire Agarwal family gather for a long-awaited reunion on a remote Scottish island…

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