Pop [antikvár]

?GentIys onspaririglf, with a ciaríty of eye and heart that is perfectty matched by sharply ©vocatiwe prose (the "eersly glad" voices of discjockeys, the !fswinriming lesson bSueff of the sky)f Kitty Áidridge brings to lile a Don Quixote of the West Midlands and the painfuüy befiawable thirteenifear-old Sancho by his side - his sudcfenly srrsotherless granddaughter, Foreed upm each other by tragedy, they mowe from pint to pint through the heatwawe-stricken England of the mid~70s, an England full of echoes of India and, oddiyf of the Mississippi Delta too. Here "nature is afo©tl? and therefs always something worse around the eorrief* lt?s an ancient but als© decrepit England of pub qyizzes, Aston 'Villa Football Ciubf Nschoias Parsons and grand romantic pursuits* Haggse imítates Tommy Cooper and üax Wall and graduaiiy faces up to the truth about her mother's death, while Pop tilts at the windmills of Sution CoSdfield and wildly pSots t© wín the heart of hss chosen Dulcínea, the widow Irls, she of the ??ankles like sand eels" KHty Aldridge is a real discoveryg a writer of precision, delicacy and wit, and her first növel Is a rare delight' SALMAN R US H Dl E