Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson (Transworld, $37)
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It's 1926, the Jazz Age, and we're in London, sitting outside HM Prison Holloway with a dour policeman and a chipper young woman awaiting the release of London's most notorious purveyor of night-time debauchery, the infamous Nellie Coker.
Right from the start, this novel promises shenanigans, a mystery, a bit of fun, and the best kind of baddie – one that is either devastatingly attractive or poetically flawed. Nellie Coker is the latter, stalked by a phantom dancer she once had cast into a river who personifies the deeply buried guilt she holds as a consequence of her chosen life.
Nellie's children run her numerous clubs (enticingly named things like The Crystal Cup and The Amethyst), some more shady than others, and are just as full of character as she: handsome Niven, steely Edith, neglected Kitty, the interchangeable, beautiful and clever Shirley and Betty, and sweet Ramsay, who just wants to write a novel. The siblings have the best bits of dialogue, constantly bickering and unaware of how bizarre their upbringing has been.
