FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Rare Singles Benjamin Myers, Bloomsbury, $32.99 This novel features an unlikely friendship forged through music. Benjamin Myers has enviable range as a writer.
His last novel, Cuddy , was experimental and poetic in tone, its Yorkshire stories echoing across time, each tangentially linked to the life of St Cuthbert, an insular seventh-century monk. Rare Singles is also set in Yorkshire, but there the similarities end. This one features an unlikely friendship forged through music.
A forgotten soul singer on the skids, Bucky Bronco, travels from Chicago to Scarborough to headline a soul-music festival. He isn’t sure he can; Bucky hasn’t performed in decades. His taste of success came 40 years ago and now he’s addicted to opioids, avoiding his past, scrambling to make ends meet.
Unfortunately, he leaves his drugs on the plane, but when middle-aged Dinah agrees to chaperone Bucky (soul music being a respite from her boring job, awful husband and stoner son) they become a source of inspiration to the other. It’s a charming literary pick-me-up, deftly told. The Crag Claire Sutherland, Affirm Press, $34.
99 Claire Sutherland’s debut novel is a literal cliffhanger. With the rise of parkour and indoor climbing venues, rock climbing has experienced something of a renaissance. Claire Sutherland draws upon the vertiginous power of climbing in the natural world for her debut thriller.
Experienced climber Skye finds the body of a young woman with injuries s.