The Imposters is Tom Rachman’s fifth book in just over a decade. It is also his best – full of twists and surprises. Each chapter follows a different individual and captures their life in just a few pages. Many of the characters then weave in and out of other chapters. As the book unfolds there are more and more back-references, adding to what we think we know about the characters, but also contributing to a sense of uncertainty that runs through the book.

It begins simply enough. We meet an elderly couple, Dora Frenhofer, a novelist, and her partner Barry. Dora will become the central character. Her memory is going, and, worse still, her career as an author is coming to an end. ‘She talks of writing another novel. There will be none.’ Her stories don’t ‘quite work anymore’.

It’s a quiet, puzzling opening, but then the book takes off. We hear about Dora’s half-brother Theo, a troubled young man who meets up with two hippies in India in the 1970s; their paths cross that of Mr Bhatt, who is desperately trying to get hold of a crucial piece of paper that he has mislaid. The encounter will prove disastrous.

Next we meet Beck, Dora’s estranged daughter, who is trying to make a successful career as a stand-up comedian in Los Angeles. There are many knowing references to TV comedy in the Covid years. The best chapter of all introduces us to Amir, a young Syrian living in London, who returns home for his father’s funeral and ends up being tortured in a cellar. He is locked in with a stranger, and the two men are told that they will have to fight to the death for the amusement of the guards. 

Whether it’s 1970s India, modern-day LA or Syria, Rachman has a good ear for place and time, and changes gear effortlessly. Each chapter is a short story in its own right, but when key characters turn up again elsewhere, the connection invariably is with Dora, until you start to wonder whether they might be the creations of this novelist, whose memory is perhaps not as bad as we thought.

The Imposters is clever and full of tricks from start to finish. It is also very moving.