Book reviewer ANNA CREER shares her novel of the year plus four others that stand out from the pack.

Award-winning Robbie Arnott’s latest novel Dusk is the book of the year for this reviewer.

Set in the highlands of Tasmania in the middle of the 19th century, twins iris and Floyd, children of notorious convict parents, are low on money and searching for work. They learn that local graziers have placed a bounty on a sheep-killing puma called Dusk, the last of her kind released in the highlands to control feral deer.

Despite the fact that five men have already died, the twins decide to join the hunt, setting off on a quest into unknown territory .

Arnott’s exquisite prose reflects and celebrates the unique and strange beauty of the Tasmanian wilderness.

ELSEWHERE on my shortlist, in Precipice, Robert Harris retells the story of the tense events, which led to Britain going to war in 1914 and the disastrous decision to expand the war to the Dardanelles in 1915.

At the same time, he reveals the astonishing details of the extraordinary love affair between Britain’s Prime Minister, Asquith, aged 62 and the Hon. Venetia Stanley, aged 27.

Asquith is obsessed with Venetia, writing letters two or three times a day, insisting on replies. (there were twelve postal deliveries a day in London in 1914).

In all, Asquith wrote 560 letters to Venetia, sharing sensitive information about government decisions.

Harris opens a window on a world rushing to war, while Britain’s Prime Minister is constantly distracted by thoughts of his love for Venetia, writing letters to her even during important meetings of the War Cabinet. 

THE Voyage Home is the third novel in Booker Prize winning Pat Barker’s trilogy about the Trojan War,

Barker’s aim in writing her trilogy is to give a powerful voice to the women who are silent in Homer’s The Iliad and yet suffered rape and slavery.

The Voyage Home reimagines the story of Agamemnon returning in triumph to Mycenae with his concubine, Cassandra, daughter of Priam.

Cassandra has already had a vision of Agamemnon’s death, like “a stuck pig on a slaughterhouse floor”, because “what he did in Troy was so horrific, so devoid of humanity, that even the gods were sickened”. She also knows she will die with him.

In Mycenae, Clytemnestra waits for her husband to return. She too hates Agamemnon. The two women, his wife and his concubine, have decided his fate.

The Voyage Home is impressive storytelling. Barker succeeds in reimagining the torment of women whose lives have been changed forever.

DERVLA McTiernan’s standalone novel What happened to Nina?, is a disturbing exploration of crime and punishment in a world dominated by the power of social media.

Nina Fraser and Simon Jordan go away together for a week of trekking and climbing, staying at Simon’s parents’ holiday house, but only Simon returns.

He tells his parents that, as a result of a quarrel, he had returned home and Nina was going to Boston to visit friends.

When Nina doesn’t make contact, her distraught parents report her missing to police and plead with the Jordans to allow the police to search the grounds of their holiday house.

The wealthy Jordans decide to hire a PR firm, who specialise in reputation management, to protect their son from gossip and innuendo. They start an online campaign against Nina’s parents, to distract media attention away from Simon. 

The consequences of their actions lead to a shocking resolution. 

SINCE 2007, using the pseudonym Benjamin Black, Booker Prize winner John Banville has written crime novels about an alcoholic pathologist, Quirke, set in 1950’s Dublin.

In 2020, Banville published Snow under his own name, introducing a new detective, Inspector St John Strafford from the protestant land-owning class. In April in Spain (2021) he brought Strafford and Quirke together.

The Drowned, the fourth in the series begins in rural Wicklow with an expensive car in a field, the engine running and the doors open. A desperate man, emerging from the darkness, claims his wife has drowned herself.

An extensive search on both sea and land finds no sign of the woman. Strafford is sent south to investigate, discovering to his surprise that he knows two of the men involved; Charles Ruddock with whom he was at school and Professor Armitage, whom he interviewed when investigating the death of Rosa Jacobs (The Lock-up, 2023).

Infused with melancholy, The Drowned is a lyrical exploration of both doomed and toxic relationships.