Box of tricks: The Imposters, by Tom Rachman, reviewed

The Imposters is Tom Rachman’s fifth book in just over a decade. It is also his best – full of twists and surprises. Each chapter follows a different individual and captures their life in just a few pages. Many of the characters then weave in and out of other chapters. As the book unfolds there are more and more back-references, adding to what we think we know about the characters, but also contributing to a sense of uncertainty that runs through the book.

It begins simply enough. We meet an elderly couple, Dora Frenhofer, a novelist, and her partner Barry. Dora will become the central character. Her memory is going, and, worse still, her career as an author is coming to an end. ‘She talks of writing another novel. There will be none.’ Her stories don’t ‘quite work anymore’.

It’s a quiet, puzzling opening, but then the book takes off. We hear about Dora’s half-brother Theo, a troubled young man who meets up with two hippies in India in the 1970s; their paths cross that of Mr Bhatt, who is desperately trying to get hold of a crucial piece of paper that he has mislaid.