notorious mafia boss and she vows to recover his fortune. Putting faith in her ingenuity and the unusual skills of her new friends—a pickpocket, a trapeze artist and an animal tamer—Vita plots the most audacious heist the city has ever seen. A tale of loyalty, bravery and friendship told with inimitable style, The Good Thieves is storytelling magic. Tamsin Winter’s Jemima


Small Versus the Universe (Usborne, £7.99) features Jemima Small: funny, snarky and super smart. She’s also bigger than the other girls in her class. When she is forced to join the school health club—dubbed “Fat Club”—she feels less special than ever, and is set to abandon her dream of appearing on TV show “Brainiacs”. But she knows that the biggest stars in the universe are the brightest, so could this be her time to shine? A bold, big- hearted and necessary book. Ten years on from Double


become mere passengers in their own lives; their hopes and desires somehow lost, squashed or exploited along the way. You won’t want to stop reading it. Lara Maiklem’s Mudlarking:


Lost and Found on the River Thames (Bloomsbury, £16.99) is an enthralling, evocative history of London and its people, told through objects found on the banks of the Thames. For 15 years, mudlark extraordinaire Maiklem has been walking the Thames foreshore at all times of day and night, and in all seasons, peering into the mud and gravel for items discarded by generations of Londoners— neolithic flints, Roman hair pins, Medieval shoe buckles, Tudor buttons. Beautifully threading her own story through that of the


Thames, she uses such finds to bring the ordinary lives of forgotten Londoners to life.


CHILDREN’S


Katherine Rundell’s The Good Thieves (Bloomsbury, £12.99) is set in New York City, where Vita, fresh off the boat from


England, greets the city “as a boxer greets an opponent before a fight”. Her grandfa- ther has been swindled by a


Cross, Malorie Blackman’s Crossfire (Penguin, £14.99) returns to the world of Noughts & Crosses. The series, widely acknowledged to be a modern YA classic, was originally conceived as a trilogy but this fifth book is, Blackman says, written in response to our turbulent times. Echoes of Brexit, the rise of the far right, political corruption and press bias ring through the pages: this is a book about politics and how it affects all of our lives. An exhilarating thriller and astute social commentary.


UPCOMING EVENTS


AN EVENING WITH CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS


Waterstones Gower Street, London


In Candice Carty- Williams’ début, the eponymous Queenie careers from one questionable decision to another. The writer will be in conversation with with Tobi Oredein, co-founder of lifestyle platform Black Ballad. 17th June, 18:30, £7–£10


MY SCOTLAND WITH VAL MCDERMID Kirkcaldy Galleries, Fife Val McDermid returns


to her home town to launch My Scotland, a tour with photographer Alan McCredie of the landscapes of her life and the


places where


her stories unfold. 25th June, 19:00, Free


AUTHOR SIGNING: ELIZABETH MACNEAL Deal Bookshop, Deal Meet a rising star in


the UK literary scene and snap up a signed copy of Elizabeth MacNeal’s thriller The Doll Factory. 29th June, 16:30, Free


+ For details of all the UK, visit BookGig.com


events with authors you love across the


39


NATHAN FILER


MALORIE BLACKMAN


KATHERINE RUNDELL


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