Mawer, Simon. The Glass Room. Abacus London. F; 12/10.

There were moments in this one where I thought it was going to cohere in a wonderful way, and it almost does. It takes place in Brno, close to where my dad was born, and does a fresh job of reflecting the historic realities of the war (available points of view on which must be pretty close to populated in fiction by now). But the central metaphor of this beautiful house (which exists in reality) doesn’t quite levitate. I’m not sure what I want it to feel like, but it isn’t human, and it’s not really a spirit of much of anything either. The people, however, are pretty interesting. And there’s a lovely twist at the end. Brave effort by a talented writer, I’d say, that came close to succeeding. 7.7