A spy thriller, a sci-fi novel and an obsessive infatuation feature in the best Retros
THE UNTOUCHABLE by John Banville (Picador £9.99, 405pp)
The Untouchable is out now
Aged 72, Sir Victor Maskell, disgraced art historian and Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, is writing his memoir of years as a Soviet spy at the heart of the British establishment.
A thinly disguised portrait of Anthony Blunt, exposed in 1979, this intriguing glimpse into the secretive world of the often homosexual, Cambridge-educated elite swirls a blend of real- life double agents (Guy Burgess, Kim Philby and Donald Maclean under pseudonyms) with fictionalised wives and colleagues.
The detached, ironic style begs the question: how reliable is a spy’s memoir? (And how did anyone operate with the vast quantities of alcohol they drank?). Scalpel sharp yet underpinned by humanity.
THE ILLUSTRATED MAN by Ray Bradbury (Harper Voyager £9.99, 296pp)
The Illustrated Man is out now
In rural Wisconsin, a traveller meets a traumatised stranger covered in beautiful tattoos that come alive at night, foretelling the future.
The traveller watches as a series of often terrifying tales unfold: The Veld, in which a house controlled by technology becomes a trap; The Other Foot, where black people, escaping lynching and prejudice by settling on Mars, dread the arrival of white people who have destroyed the world; and the brutality of childhood in The Playground.
Written in 1952, many of the sci-fi and AI warnings seem prescient, but it is the themes of class, racism and sexism that prove timeless in this superb collection with a chilling final twist.
DEATH IN VENICE by Thomas Mann Translated by Lesley Chamberlain (Pushkin Classic £9.99, 112pp)
Death in Venice is out now
Long-widowed Gustav Aschenbach, a renowned and scholarly author in his 50s, travels to Venice as the First World War looms.
There he sees a classically beautiful, teenage Polish boy, Tadzio, who awakes in him an unfamiliar paedophilic desire.
Abandoning caution, he descends into a passion-fuelled obsession, following the youth daily.
Despite cholera sweeping Venice, Gustav ignores advice to leave, instead dying his hair and rouging his cheeks to look younger.
His inevitable downfall and death, as his intellectual rigour battles physical passion, reflects the interest in Freudian psychoanalysis of the time, interspersed with Greek mythology and symbolism.
And all in 112 pages . . .