Surprisingly, a new Fowler novel so soon after the highly successful Spanky, and a very good novel it is too, among the very best of the high quality stuff reviewed in this issue.

Psychoville starts off as a very funny, black tale of suburban nightmare. Fourteen year old Billy March and his parents are forced out of London (via road-building) to a repulsive new town, Invicta Cross. Sorry (not really, and neither is the book) to be so partisan and unobjective about it, but Invicta Cross is a vile, plasticy kind of place, and Fowler had me mentally cheering every nasty comment made by Billy or the narrative about the town and its inhabitants in the first half of the novel (I was going to quote some, but space doesn’t allow). The first half or so of the book is largely the story of Billy’s doomed struggle to adapt and the destruction of his family. It also contains a chilling rape scene.

In the second half, Psychoville becomes a conventional revenge story - Billy and April (the rape victim/friend of Billy’s adolescence) move back to Invicta ten years later and start killing people in a prankish, horrific, original and precisely described way. So far, so predictable if well-written.

Except that life isn’t that straightforward. Fowler plays a subtle game with our judgements without condoning the pettiness of the town and its people. As much as anything, its a superb novel about how and where we live. There’s a major twist which, barely even hinted at until we’re two thirds into the book, completely changes the plot I described above. It’s ingeniously constructed and ultimately not at all predictable.

Just enough time and space left to mention the quotes that head many of the chapters, culled from Billy’s Red Diary and a variety of interesting sources. Fowler, as usual, is never short of a good quote.

Despite its unusual location (mostly outside London), Psychoville is very much a part of the main body of Fowler’s work (even the stupid Bimsley appears briefly), as subtle and perspicacious as any of his previous novels.