HarperCollins £10.99 pp266

Novels involving multiple murder, second-chance love affairs and birdwatching come along as rarely as the ivory gull that the three twitcher protagonists of Pelican Blood are keen to glimpse. They drive together to Scotland to see it; one of the trio, however, already has the blood of a rare-egg collector on his hands and, by the end of the book, he will have dispatched another menace to the avian population. Freddi could easily have zeroed in on these anoraked obsessives as soft targets for satire and neglected the human dynamic, but his sensitive treatment of the rekindled romance between artist Stevie and the trigger-happy narrator reveals subtle emotional shadings. Bill Oddie is unlikely to approve of a novel with such a wonky moral compass, which is just one of the many good reasons for reading it.

WHAT I KNOW
by Andrew Cowan

Sceptre £14.99 pp278

Mike Hannah is a private eye, albeit one whose stultifying suburban existence with his wife and children is a world away from Raymond Chandler’s gumshoes, and whose humdrum assignments rarely extend further than insurance scams. When he hits 40, however, his line of inquiry suddenly gravitates inwards and he takes on his most personal case to date — his own life. Would things have been different if he had stayed with Sarah, his student love? Could he have become a writer like Will, the neighbour he envies? While the narrative limitations of Cowan’s novel are implicit in its title, he paints a patient, exact and quietly powerful portrait of lives slowly being stripped of their secrets and delusions.

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