Anyone familiar with Nicola Barker’s work will know to expect something different, not just from her own previous books but from everyone else’s. The very title of her latest novel suggests a wilful anachronism – I mean, in these days of email and texting and online banking, who in their right mind would steal a postbox? And why – what on earth could be in it of any value? Who even writes letters in the twenty-first century?

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