A Shock

Ever since Keith Ridgway published his landmark cult novel Hawthorn & Child, his ardent fans have yearned for more

Finally, Ridgway gives us A Shock, his thrilling and unsparing, slippery and shockingly good new novel.

Formed as a rondel of interlocking stories with a clutch of more or less loosely connected repeating characters, it’s at once deracinated yet potent with place, druggy yet frighteningly shot through with reality. His people appear, disappear, and reappear. They’re on the fring...