The Sex Lives Of Siamese Twins by Irvine Welsh (Jonathan Cape, 12.99) ****

IN his latest novel, The Sex Lives Of Siamese Twins, Irvine Welsh weaves the lives of two superficially different women in the image-obsessed Miami Beach. Lucy Brennan is an aggressive personal trainer whose life becomes entangled with that of insecure overweight artist Lena Sorensen when Lena witnesses Lucy disarming a gunman, films the incident on her phone and then sends the clip to the local news network.

Impressed with her gall, straight-talking Lucy becomes an overnight celebrity in her community when the clips are broadcast, but quickly loses her golden girl appeal when she makes an off-the-cuff comment to a journalist. Undeterred by her brash opinions, Lena, who has become obsessed with Lucy, tracks her down and hires her as a personal trainer. While at first, Lena is needy, soon the relationship between the two women becomes symbiotic, with Lucy going to great lengths to get Lena to shed her excess weight.

With Welsh's distinctive flair for dialogue and slang, The Sex Lives Of Siamese Twins is a darkly funny novel with well-drawn characters, which offers more redemption than Welsh usually allows in his work.

Keeley Bolger

The Adventures of Olivia Ozanne by Wendy Robertson (Room to Write 7.50) ****

BEING the many and varied adventures of a children's writer in post-Glasnost Moscow where nothing is as it seems. Olivia is middle-aged but not middle-minded and enjoys sexual romps with a friendly stranger Volodya, mysterious, athletic but not threatening. Olivia's daughter Caitlin, who writes on Russian affairs and who prides herself on being Liberal is anything but when she finds Olivia in flagrante with Volodya in her own flat. A Russian "granny" in Volodya's apartment block turns out to be a lass from a Durham pit village who took service with a Russian countess just as the Revolution. And even the secret police are not what they once were as is the case with Piotr, who acts as Olivia's driver in Moscow, but who makes his report to Caitlin. Wendy Robertson may come from South-West Durham (Bishop Auckland) but she knows how to weave a bit of magic in Moscow. 4 stars.

Buried in the Past by Bill Kitson (Hale, 19.99) ***

YORKSHIRE detective Mike Nash is a country copper but he is just as smart as any big city sleuth. When a wave of violence hits his patch of Helmsdale, with a skeleton found in woodland and a rapidly rising "real" body county, he spots a link to crimes committed in London 25 years ago, crimes which still pack a bloody punch. Scarborough writer Kitson wastes no time in cutting to the chase in a hard-hitting crime caper that never runs out of steam.

Steve Craggs

Family Life is Akhil Sharma (Faber & Faber, 14.99) *****

ITS 1978 when eight-year-old Ajay Mishra moves with his parents and older brother Birju from Dehli to Queens, New York. Ajay struggles to find his footing in this brave new world of automatic doors and comic books, unlike Birju who immediately makes friends, excels at school and wins a place at a prestigious school.

But when Birju has an accident in a swimming pool that leaves him brain dead, Ajay and his parents are pushed to the extremes of love, sacrifice and physical exhaustion that caring for a terminally ill family member involves.

Sharma's autobiographical novel is essentially an exploration of how a family copes with devastating adversity. That he is able to do so with emotional intelligence and great flashes of humour makes this a poignant and a compelling read.

Anita Chaudhuri