8pm, 9th May – His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet

The great surprise on this year’s Man Booker Prize shortlist. Published by tiny Scottish imprint Saraband, the novel initially attracted little attention and no mainstream reviews. It reads “as if Umberto Eco has been resurrected in the 19th-century Scottish Highlands.”

Brilliantly unputdownable, it should have won the Man Booker. Which is probably why it didn’t.

Goodreads page