Thomas Keneally could be forgiven for taking it easy. In his mid-sixties, with twenty-plus novels, six works of non-fiction, a children's book, a Booker prize and three shortlistings to his credit, he has gathered more than enough laurels upon which to rest. To have written the incomparable Schindler's Ark would in itself be cause for many an author to retire, well satisfied. So, I confess, I came to his new novel seeking signs of complacency, of a once great writer drawing on depleted reserves of ideas, passion and aspiration. What I found was a thumping big book teeming with energy. Not only is Keneally, still a supreme storyteller, but his range seems to be expanding rather than contracting. The characters, settings and plot lines in Bettany's Book could fill three novels. with leftovers for a short-story collection. Even more impressively, the scale of his ambition - the sense of history and of social purpose that typifies much of his output -remains undiminished.

Keneally stretches his latest fictional canvas across two continents and two centuries. The novel opens in his native Australia, where two young women - orphaned sisters Dimp and Prim Bettany - are forging divergent paths for themselves. The charismatic Dimp moves among Sydney's elite after an acclaimed debut