The idealist vs the entrepreneur: Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton, reviewed

I always feel an element of trepidation when approaching a new book by an author whose previous work I have admired. When the novelist in question won the Booker prize in 2013, and I was on the judging panel, the static crackle of anxiety is even more intense. And so the fearful question: is Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood a stinker? No, it isn’t.