Kingsley Amis
The Green Man

Maurice Allington's pub is inhabited by the spirit of Dr Thomas Underhill, the 17th-century scholar rumoured to have killed his wife. The local sexton had refused to dig Underhill's grave. And the rector had declined to officiate at his funeral. And there are skeletons in the cupboard of Allington's own domestic affairs - rattling to get out.

Len Deighton
Billion-Dollar Brain

In the shadowland of propaganda and paranoia, a millionaire madman pursues his own private Cold War ­with extreme prejudice. Under the bitter skies of a Finnish winter, across the USA and between the tense worlds of London and Leningrad, Len Deighton's coiled spring of a story shows the master spysmith at his very best.

Margaret Forster
Shadow Baby

Born in 1887, Evie seems a quiet, undemanding child. Shona, born almost seventy years later, is headstrong and striking. The two girls have only one thing in common: both were abandoned as babies by their mothers. Different times, different circumstances, but each sets out to stalk and then haunt her natural mother.

Michael Frayn
Sweet Dreams

This book is the account of a journey to the metropolis at the nerve­centre of the universe. The journey was undertaken not by a mystical reporter like St John, but by Howard Baker, an observer of much more modern outlook. He finds a city that offers opportunities for enjoyment ­but one which also presents a moral and intellectual challenge.