Pandora in the Congo by Albert Sánchez Piñol, trans. by Mara Faye Letham
Canongate Books, £14.99 Buy the book here

Here's a wonderful oddity - an adventure yarn that could stand alongside the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, written by a Spanish anthropologist and translated from the Catalan. It's 1914. Tommy Thomson, a ghost-writer of African adventure yarns, is employed to take down the real-life story of Garvey, a British manservant who has staggered out of the jungle carrying two large diamonds. What has happened to his bosses, William and Robert Craven? Why did their African porters flee? Tommy's job is to sort out fact from fiction, and in the process debate the nature of truth itself.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Atlantic Books £12.99 Buy the book here

Balram is the White Tiger of the title: “the creature that comes along only once in a generation”. He's destined to stand out from the other boys in his village, but knows how to give destiny a helping hand. While he's slaving in a teashop, he runs into the landlord from his home, and is hired as chauffeur to his son. Balram's cynical, gleeful voice captures modern India: no nostalgic lyricism here, only exuberant reality.

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes
Michael Joseph £17.99 Buy the book here

Paddy de Courcy is a popular and impossibly sexy politician. Yes, there had to be something wrong with him. He's getting married to Alicia Thornton, and this is momentous news for (at least) three other women. Lola, who thought she was Paddy's girlfriend, takes her broken heart to a seaside cottage. Marnie, Paddy's teenage sweetheart, is destroying herself with alcohol. Her twin, Grace, who is a journalist, knows exactly why. Gradually, the “charming” Paddy is revealed in his true colours.

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