Violence
Vigilante justice: Pure Men, by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, reviewed
The grotesque posthumous lynching of a homosexual by a frenzied mob prompts Sarr’s protagonist to investigate the shadow world of gay life in Senegal
It’s grim up north: Malc’s Boy, by Shaun Wilson, reviewed
In this work of autofiction, shocking violence is meted out to a small boy by his father in Wigton - leaving one wondering how the two are getting along these days
Love and loneliness in the Outer Hebrides: John of John, by Douglas Stuart, reviewed
Summoned home to his dying grandmother in Harris, a gay young man is treated with both violence and tenderness by his father, a Calvinist precentor with a guilty secret
They shoot horses: Boyhood, by David Keenan, reviewed
Two young Glaswegians revenge themselves on the men who assaulted them at a nightclub by murdering one of them and killing their herd of horses
Dark days in Kolkata: A Guardian and a Thief, by Megha Majumdar, reviewed
As the city descends into chaos and starvation, a ‘manager madam’ and desperate intruder clash in their efforts to keep their respective families alive
We have to stop looking away
I learnt not to intervene on a late summer’s afternoon nine years ago. My son was still a baby and…
The disturbing allure of sex robots
Kathleen Richardson reveals how certain men now seem to prefer the idea of ‘socially interactive companions’, first pioneered at MIT, to human girlfriends
The trials of ‘the sexiest man alive’
Johnny Depp dismissed the idea a prenup before marrying Amber Heard – only to spend the next decade embroiled in litigation
An explosion of toxic masculinity: The Fathers, by John Niven, reviewed
The lives of two men who meet in a Glasgow maternity unit soon spiral out of control, exposing heartbreaking vulnerabilities, in this wry portrait of modern fatherhood
Maoist China in microcosm: Old Kiln, by Jia Pingwa, reviewed
Smouldering resentment flares to self-destructive violence in a remote village as the Cultural Revolution serves as a pretext for vengeance and exploitation
One of the boys: From Scenes Like These, by Gordon M. Williams, reviewed
An accident on the football pitch ends young Dunky Logan’s dreams of playing professionally – leaving him trapped with the lads in the ‘lair of their ordinary world’
No place is safe: The Brittle Age, by Donatella di Pietrantonio, reviewed
When her daughter, a student in Milan, is left traumatised after being mugged, Lucia is reminded of her own violent introduction to adulthood at a similar ‘brittle age’
I’ve reached zero tolerance on zero tolerance
I know an astonishing 89-year-old who climbs mountains, uses a chainsaw and has the muscular, vice-like grip of a gym-built…
Not for the faint-hearted: She’s Always Hungry, by Eliza Clark, reviewed
An unsettling collection of stories loosely connected by the theme of hunger contains graphic descriptions of violence and cannibalism – as the publishers see fit to warn us
Mysteries and misogyny: The Empusium, by Olga Tokarczuk, reviewed
Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann’s masterpiece The Magic Mountain in this ‘health resort horror story’ set in a Silesian guesthouse on the eve of the first world war
A world history of morality is maddeningly optimistic
Peaceful co-operation is essential for human survival, and our present ‘feast of feverish discord and hatred’ is bound to be replaced by one of ‘calm and community’, says Hanno Saur
Caught in a Venus flytrap: Red Pyramid, by Vladimir Sorokin, reviewed
Sorokin’s satirical stories are not for the fainthearted, but there are few more dedicated critics of Russia's infinite bureaucracy writing fiction today
Thugs in drape jackets: when the Teddy Boys ruled the roost
Bleak 1950s Britain saw the birth of the first working-class youth counterculture, but the Teds were a surprisingly short-lived – if violent – phenomenon
Gang warfare in the west of Ireland: Wild Houses, by Colin Barrett, reviewed
The brother of a small-time drugs dealer is kidnapped, and his family and girlfriend set off to find him over the course of one violent, hectic weekend
Mystery in everyday objects
Household gadgets take on a sense of wonder or menace for Lara Pawson, who sees a porpoise’s dorsal fin in the dial of a toaster and a hand grenade in a pepper mill
A multicultural microcosm: Brooklyn Crime Novel, by Jonathan Lethem, reviewed
Lethem returns to the borough with a tale of violence, neglect and demographic change over the decades, tinged with nostalgia but far from sentimental
Hell on Earth
More than 100 interviews with surviving detainees and former prison workers reveal how profoundly shocking President Assad’s regime continues to be
The changing face of Ireland
A dead poet’s dangerous aura continues to haunt his daughter and 23-year old granddaughter in this story of an unhappy family set in rapidly changing Ireland
Tales to tell
Despite the seediness and threat of violence, Littlehampton was a place of neighbourly camaraderie, fondly evoked in Sally Bayley’s latest memoir
Let there be blood
Between his return from exile and his death, Lenin launched – and perverted – the revolution that shapes world politics today
