A great story in a small package

THE Miniaturist is among the biggest debuts this year, such is its page-turning beauty. However, the reader is left wanting in terms of story. “There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed,” we’re promised – yet this novel leaves much unexplained.

It opens with Nella, our young heroine, arriving in 17th-century Amsterdam at the house of trader Johannes – her new husband. Inattentive as he is, Nella finds herself more in the company of the household: Marin, Johannes’s supercilious sister; Cornelia, ever-present maid; and Otto, ex-slave saved by Johannes.

Nella is gifted a replica of her new home in cabinet size, and enlists a miniaturist to furnish it.

However, when they arrive, there is more in the package than asked for.

It is from Nella’s uncovering of the secrets that the compelling quality of this novel comes. There is a wonderful sense of place and time, and you cannot fault Burton’s skilled way with words; but such a hotly hyped debut leaves the reader hoping for more than we are given.

Emma Herdman

The Darkest Heart by Dan Smith (Orion £20, ebook £4.35) 4/5 stars 

THE World Cup has brought Brazil to our screens in a non-stop loop of sunshine, samba and soccer – Dan Smith’s new novel puts a stop to that straight away.

His Brazil is a country of small towns surrounded by sweltering jungle where life is cheap and likely to end in violence.

The novel, whose title is seemingly a nod to Joseph Conrad’s Congoset Heart Of Darkness, follows Zico, a reluctant assassin keen to quit killing, who is tormented by the offer of one more job.

It is a simple story with most of the action taking place during a claustrophobic trip up river on a death-trap of a boat, but Smith draws out the tension in a series of short chapters that keep the reader turning the pages until it comes to a suitably bloody end.

Robert Dex