Philip Womack

Tryst & Joust

The Ruby in Her Navel

By

Hamish Hamilton 327pp £17.99 order from our bookshop

Barry Unsworth’s last novel, The Songs of the Kings, was an enchanting and vivid retelling of the myth of Iphigenia at Aulis, which, as all good refashionings should, added new layers of understanding. It suggested a world seething with conspiracy in which everything was deceptive. Living flesh was added to the bones of myth, making something startling and convincing. 

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